Review by : Liz Inskip-Paulk (http://ravingreader.wordpress.com/)
A light-hearted humorous novel about an ex-British Army
officer who becomes appointed to a rural country in Ireland as the Resident
Magistrate*, this was quite a fun read. Published at the turn of the century,
it’s a very horsey-centered book with tales of the inexperienced young outsider
facing the events of a small rural community as the person in charge. (Rather
Wodehousian in many ways, I thought.)
This is more a series of short stories all interlinked by
common characters more than a straight novel, and reminded me in some ways of
James Herriot in regard to “big-city outsider comes to unwelcoming but heart of
gold village in the country” situation. It is packed with long descriptions of
fox hunts, horse races and village happenings, some of which were rather
exciting to read (despite my opposition to fox hunting and animal
maltreatment). It was quite hard to read about the rather frequent whippings
that the horses and donkeys endured and were obviously par for the course back
then. It was true to its time though, even
though that doesn’t make it any more acceptable.
The authors were really two women, one called Edith
Somerville (the E. O. Somerville person) from England, and the other her cousin
Violet Florence Martin (who wrote under Martin Ross) who was from Ireland. The two were second cousins and shared a
great-grandfather between them. The name “Martin Ross” that Violet chose came
from her surname and the name of the land that her family owned in West
Ireland. Edith and Violet became close partners, and had critical and popular
success with their early works which were a variation of the Victorian
sensation novels. However, the commercial success of their lighter comical
novels (starting with the Irish RM series) convinced them to leave serious
novel writing and focus more on what the popular market wanted.
This book series was also made into a TV series which ran
between 1983-1985 on TV in the UK. (I didn’t catch it so can’t vouch for its
quality.)
Violet died quite early in 1915 of a brain tumor, and
although Edith believed that she would and could never write again after her death, she was
persuaded to do so by believing (as were the times) that Violet could
communicate with her through spiritualism séances (a la Arthur Conan Doyle et
al.) and continued to publish under both her own name and Violet.
·
A Resident
Magistrate (RM) was a title for magistrates in locations that were/are
governed by the British. Personnel were usually well versed in law and well
connected (as they were rather cushy jobs) and were brought into an area from
outside to guide the more local lay magistrates. The “Resident” referred to the requirement
that the magistrate had to live in the actual to which he (always he) was
assigned.
Download Title by author at Project Gutenberg|Librivox|
