ABSTRACT
Lucy Clifford’s two most successful and talked-about novels, Mrs. Keith’s Crime (1885) and Aunt Anne (1892), appeared at approximately the same time as her two Anyhow Stories for children, the author wants to discuss: “The New Mother” and “Wooden Tony.” The rosy prognostics of Mrs. Keith, the recently widowed first-person narrator of Clifford’s début novel, do not materialize. James’s letters to “Dearest Lucy C”, “Beloved Girl!” and “Dearest old Friend”, inquiring about her girls, and sharing information and gossip about domestic help, mutual friends, separate Continental travels and planned teas, reveal a level of cozy relaxation rarely associated with him. “The New Mother” and “Wooden Tony” are the most unsettling and mysterious tales of their respective collections. The temptation of the peardrum and of the hidden man and woman, to which both Blue Eyes and the Turkey succumb, suggests a comparison with the sisters Laura and Lizzie in Christina Rossetti’s Goblin Market.
