{"product_id":"the-new-magdalen","title":"The New Magdalen","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"wp-caption full-width\"\u003e\n\u003cimg src=\"https:\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0278\/7642\/5795\/files\/the_new_mag_-_du_maurier_80ade031-12e6-42e3-b56a-e7c8b0ee3312_480x480.jpg?v=1602668181\" alt=\"\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\" data-mce-src=\"https:\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0278\/7642\/5795\/files\/the_new_mag_-_du_maurier_80ade031-12e6-42e3-b56a-e7c8b0ee3312.jpg?v=1602668181\u0026amp;width=700\"\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan class=\"redtext\"\u003ePREFACE BY JAMES BOBIN\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e416pp \u003cbr\u003e ISBN 9781910263280\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWilkie Collins is rightly regarded as one of the nineteenth century’s most eminent writers. Although many Persephone readers will know \u003cem\u003eThe Woman in White\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eThe Moonstone\u003c\/em\u003e, he in fact published twenty-one other novels. \u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe New Magdalen\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e (1873), Persephone Book No.138, is about a ‘fallen woman’, Mercy Merrick, attempting to rehabilitate her character and her reputation; and the (often reprehensible and unkind) attitude of some of those around her.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe New Magdalen\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e is part of a genre known as the Sensation Novel (eg. \u003cem\u003eThe Moonstone, East Lynne, Lady Audley’s Secret\u003c\/em\u003e, all written in the early 1860s) which is described in Matthew Sweet’s gloriously un-highbrow piece on the British Library website. He writes: ‘Sensation fiction is populated by men who cannot bear loud noise and women who cannot digest cake. On its pages you will meet wives fixated on vengeance and husbands shamed by murder… The fiction of Wilkie Collins, Ellen Wood and Mary Braddon unsettles profoundly. Its accounts of sickness, insanity, identity-theft and long-suppressed family secrets tell a story about the anxieties and uncertainties of nineteenth-century life – and our own lives, too.’\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe New Magdalen\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e is, as well, revealing about mid-nineteenth century attitudes and moral values. As James Bobin writes in his Persephone Preface: ‘Wilkie Collins’s earlier work such as \u003cem\u003eNo Name\u003c\/em\u003e dealt with illegitimacy, \u003cem\u003eMan or Wife\u003c\/em\u003e centred on Scottish marriage law, and \u003cem\u003ePoor Miss Finch\u003c\/em\u003e was the story of a young blind woman and a romantic triangle with two brothers. Collins’s novels, throughout the 1860s and 1870s, grew markedly more angry at what he perceived as injustices.’\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAt the time it came out as a novel it also had a very successful run on the London stage – which is why it is divided into two ‘scenes’ and why much of the dialogue does in fact feel like a play. (It was also made into a silent film, twice, in 1910 and 1912.) From the outset the novel was seen as scandalous due to its title. ‘Magdalen’ was the name for a reformed prostitute, a subject that was not to be discussed in proper society. In any case, contemporary reviewers did not seem to be shocked by either the play or the novel, and only a few years later, in May 1880, \u003cem\u003eThe Spectator\u003c\/em\u003e would highlight \u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe New Magdalen\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e as one of Collins’s novels which ‘enlighten humanity in regard to certain moral problems of deep and momentous import, and hold up to nature a mirror which educated the soul even more than it diverts the understanding’; which is why the writer thought the plot ‘no more than the necessary vehicle for the inculcation of profound ideas.’ Nowadays we might find ‘profound’ stretching it a bit. Nevertheless, \u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe New Magdalen\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e is absorbing and thought-provoking, despite the sometimes almost pantomime-ish conventions.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn essence, Wilkie Collins manages to challenge clichés about the ‘fallen’ woman; most importantly, he gives Mercy Merrick agency and self-determination in her own story. As the Preface observes: ‘This is the great strength of \u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe New Magdalen\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e and perhaps also of Wilkie Collins’s work in general. He was a man who was ahead of his time not only in his attitudes to women, but also to the world around him. He was a man with integrity who fought for the less fortunate, but also who entertained and enthralled the man and woman on the Clapham Omnibus.’\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eEndpaper\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"endpaper-caption\"\u003eThe endpapers are taken from 'Sutherland', a woven silk designed by the architect Owen Jones for Warner, Sillet \u0026amp; Co in 1871 (the year he did some work for his friends George Eliot and George Henry Lowndes at 21 North Bank, Regent's Park).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"endpaper-caption\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePicture Caption\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"endpaper-caption\"\u003eFrom the 1891 edition of \u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe New Magdalen\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e, an illustration by George du Maurier\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Wilkie Collins","offers":[{"title":"None","offer_id":54098810929459,"sku":"xyb1789695121822","price":28.8,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Tissue\/Endpaper","offer_id":54098810962227,"sku":"yye1789695121823","price":33.12,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Cambridge Imprint paper","offer_id":54098810994995,"sku":"ssc1789695121824","price":34.17,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Reusable fabric napkin","offer_id":54098811027763,"sku":"jrc1789695121825","price":53.6,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0989\/0578\/4627\/files\/the-new-magdalen_1.jpg?v=1789695126","url":"https:\/\/sandstepclad.shop\/products\/the-new-magdalen","provider":"My Store","version":"1.0","type":"link"}