Val Derbyshire

Val Derbyshire

I've recently completed doctoral research in the School of English at the University of Sheffield. My research covers the works of Charlotte Smith (1749-1806).

Location Sheffield, South Yorkshire, UK

Activity

  • Val Derbyshire made a comment

    Many thanks for all your wonderful comments throughout the course. I've thoroughly enjoyed the past six weeks. I'm signing off now as mentor for this run, but hope to see you on another FutureLearn course soon.

  • Thank you so much for your kind feedback - I'm sorry it's come to an end as well!

  • Thank you for your kind feedback and good luck with your dissertation.

  • @HelenD @SusanScothern I've often found that even books popularly conceived as "trashy" can be quite literary in the devices they use - my advice is continue to enjoy them and don't feel guilty about them at all.

  • Thank you very much for your kind feedback. I'm so glad you have enjoyed the course.

  • Thank you so much for your kind feedback - I'm really glad you enjoyed the course.

  • The correct number of books to own is the number you already own plus one. Thank you for your kind feedback and for participating in the course with such interesting comments.

  • Thank you for sharing this.

  • Thank you for sharing this recommendation and for your kind feedback on the course.

  • That's lovely feedback and very kind -thank you, it has been my pleasure!

  • I'm really glad you have found the course interesting, anyway.

  • That's lovely feedback - thank you for sharing and enjoy your holidays.

  • That sounds like another good read to add to my reading list.

  • That's really interesting - thank you.

  • @HannahBarker It's definitely worth a look - there is a restored riding house at Bolsover Castle and they do dressage demonstrations with Lippizaner horses in the summer - they are very good.

  • That sounds like a good one - I must read it.

  • I've never read The English Patient and I must do so. I have it on my pile to read - another one to get to sooner rather than later.

  • I think The Little Stranger is the only one of Sarah Waters's novels I've not read . I must read it. I think Affinity is my favourite of hers, but I've enjoyed them all.

  • I love Rebecca and the work of Daphne du Maurier in general - great suggestion.

  • Another one I've downloaded to my Kindle and am yet to get too. My mum loved the TV series at the end of the 1960s.

  • @PaulineCulley @RosemaryPapaeliou I agree, it's really easy to never visit what is on your doorstep. Fascinating about the Egyptology link to Highclere - I never knew that.

  • Really interesting questions and a really perceptive reading - thank you for sharing this.

  • @CatherineBartlett That's a good point - and also perhaps American heiresses seeming more classless somehow, whereas industrial heiresses perhaps came from working class, new moneyed routes.

  • It's a very quick and well worthwhile read. It's available free on Kindle if you have one.

  • @PennyT. There's probably an element of that in it too - Wilde did after all write fairy tales as well. I'm a bit biased I think because I just love this book.

  • That's a good point - she does appear a little like those Victorian children in books of that era. Thank you for sharing this - it's a good image.

  • @HeatherM Great song - "Sittin' on the dock of the bay..."

  • Thank you for sharing this - that's a very perceptive thought.

  • It is a charming book and free to download on Kindle as I've highlighted in other comments. Definitely worth a read.

  • I've just ordered this one on the recommendation of one of the other learners - looking forward to reading it!

  • Well, I hope you find something to like in Oscar Wilde. This particular set of texts are really charming.

  • That is lovely feedback - thank you so much for sharing this.

  • That is lovely to hear - I do hope you enjoy your visit to Chatsworth and Haddon Hall and the UK in general.

  • Thank you for this lovely feedback. I'm so glad you've enjoyed the course and it's given you plenty of food for thought.

  • @EdelPurcell Probably one of the exceptions would be Chatsworth House which has always and continues to employ local people. In fact, there are some PhD students in Sheffield who have been looking at servant histories at Chatsworth (http://researchstories.group.shef.ac.uk/impact/chatsworth/). Chatsworth continues to employ lots of local people though from...

  • @EdelPurcell I love Edgeworth's work - she's a fairly recent discovery for me after my PhD supervisor recommended I read "Belinda." I've since been steadily working my way through her works. Fantastic author.

  • I'm not sure on that but will pin your post to the top so that it is easy for other learners to spot and reply with their suggestions. Have a lovely visit to the UK in the summer.

  • Brilliant - thank you for sharing this. I've not heard of this series and must look out for it. It sounds really good.

  • I do like Elizabeth Bowen - I must read this one

  • I did enjoy "Life after Life" and the companion/sequel book "A God in Ruins". Thank you for sharing these.

  • Thank you for sharing this - I love the way you've identified how family terms are unstable.

  • That is a great line. Thank you for sharing this.

  • That's fantastic additional contextual information - thank you for sharing this. I've got a book on my Kindle, "The Magician" by W. Somerset Maughm (another one of my favourite authors, and from the early twentieth century, so just after Wilde) which is apparently based on Crowley (Maughm also knew him). I've not read it yet but am looking forward to it.

  • It's hard not to really, because of what we already know about Wilde. Thank you for sharing this very perceptive reading.

  • @HelenD Usual National Trust things - Jam, Tea Towels, cards, biscuits and gifty type things. I like the second hand bookshops in some of the National Trust properties, but they don't all have them.

  • I love that description: "Cucumber sandwiches with a side order of malice." Brilliant.

  • @JayH That's the beauty of this text - there are so many interpretations and so many ways to read it. The scene just preceding this one, where Virginia agrees to help save the ghost is more humorous with a joke about the ghost going to visit America:
    [Virginia:] "You know nothing about it, and the best thing you can do is to emigrate and improve your mind. ...

  • I agree, I really do like this book. I posted in an earlier reply the significance of the blooming almond which comes from a prophecy featured in the Library window in the text: "When a golden girl can win/Prayer form out the lips of sin,/When the barren almond bears,/And a little child gives away its tears/Then shall all the house be still/And peace come to...

  • @DeborahHarsen @CatherineAtkinson It still works thought doesn't it? Because elevators are going up/upwardly mobile, as other learners have noted, as are the Otis family. Otis elevators have been around since 1852, so it's possible that Wilde was referring to these as well - who knows for sure? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otis_Elevator_Company)

  • @DeborahHarsen That's fascinating - material culture demonstrating this aspect of British/American history.

  • No, I think they were just brands of cleaning material that are referred to in order to show the importance of commodities in American consumerism. However, in terms of what was occurring at the time, they are important because they demonstrate the difference between American culture and values and British heritage, culture and tradition and the conflict...

  • @RosemaryPapaeliou I've got a copy of that particular novel - I'll put that one next on my reading list.

  • Wealthy American Heiresses were extremely in demand by the aristocracy. It was a marriage of mutual convenience really because the Americans wanted to be associated with British heritage, but the British needed American wealth to keep the stately homes going. There are numerous examples of houses with connections to American socialites, including Chatsworth...

  • That's lovely feedback - thank you for sharing.

  • I bet she was fantastic as Lady Bracknell. We'll be looking at The Importance of Being Earnest in the latter steps, but I think you'll enjoy The Canterville Ghost as well.

  • Thank you - it's been my pleasure!

  • I'm so glad you have enjoyed it and found it interesting. Thank you for sharing this lovely feedback.

  • Lovely feedback - thank you for sharing this.

  • Thank you for sharing this lovely feedback.

  • That's a very interesting question - by the time of the next run of the course, maybe we'll know...

  • Thank you for sharing this lovely feedback.

  • Thank you for sharing this lovely feedback - I hope you enjoy Udolpho!

  • That's lovely feedback - thank you for sharing this.

  • @KarenJ @LynneHopkins thank you for your kind words - this course is always a pleasure and gives me the opportunity to talk about my favourite subject!

  • A brilliant next move.

  • Fantastic feedback, thank you for sharing.

  • Thank you for your kind words and contributing to the course. We are glad that you enjoyed it.

  • Great feedback - thank you for sharing.

  • @normansherwood That genre would probably merit an entire MOOC of its own, as one other learner has already suggested. It would be a really interesting one to do.

  • Thank you for sharing this - another one I've not got to yet so must add to my reading list.

  • Good point - the link is also the country house and the setting for each of these texts, although as you see, it's open to interpretation.

  • Thank you for sharing the OED definition - very valuable contextual information.

  • Thank you for sharing that very perceptive reading.

  • @RichardDennehy Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this - I love the link - so many rules to remember that you can't help but feel sorry for her.

  • Virginia is 15 at the time of the text and so is kind of a child but on the cusp of womanhood. Her innocence is played upon in the book, but in the scene leading up to her rescue of the ghost, she genuinely seems to pity him and that is what leads her to have the courage to make the journey into Hell to redeem the soul of the Ghost - "Poor, poor Ghost […] have...

  • You are correct - Virginia does go on to become affianced to the young Duke, thus marrying American modernism and fortune to English aristocracy. The story with the almond tree is that there is a prophecy featured in the text in the Library window that reads: "When a golden girl can win/Prayer form out the lips of sin,/When the barren almond bears,/And a...

  • Thank you for sharing that perceptive reading. Indeed, Virginia does go on to become engaged to the Duke, so there is a hint of romance there, as well as her father treating her like the innocent child she is at that point in the text.

  • She is 15. She is on that cusp between childhood and adulthood - her innocence is heavily relied upon in the text, but later on she will go on to become affianced to the Duke.

  • And Virginia then goes on to become engaged to the young Duke, hence marrying the fortunes of Virginia/America to the aristocracy of Britain.

  • It's an interesting one, isn't it? I think, in part, it's to balance the story. There is a prophecy featured in the text in the Library window that reads: "When a golden girl can win/Prayer form out the lips of sin,/When the barren almond bears,/And a little child gives away its tears/Then shall all the house be still/And peace come to Canterville." These...

  • That's a really interesting viewpoint and I think I agree with you for, as you say, Wilde was cognisant of American culture and had visited on a tour of America in 1882 (five years before the publication of this work). http://www.oscarwildeinamerica.org/lectures-1882/
    What do other learners think about this? I've pinned the post to the top so that it's easy...

  • I don't think we ever find that out from the text - at least I can't remember that being divulged and I've read it many times. Thank you, again, for the fascinating contextual information.

  • This is correct - Charlotte Smith also wrote on this theme of new money "mere mushroom of men" (i.e. they've made their fortunes overnight) in her novels of the late eighteenth-century.

  • Thank you for this very perceptive reading of the text - I like the way you have picked up on the British snobbery in discounting the American's point of view.

  • Thank you for that additional contextual information - that is fascinating.

  • I would really recommend reading it - it's such a tiny book (no more than a novella really) but contains the most beautiful prose, in addition to that wonderful wit.

  • I think that's right - we are not being presented with a clear cut who is wrong and who is right view but rather presented with flaws on both sides, and how both sides can benefit each other.

  • Thank you for that detailed and perceptive reading - I like the way you've picked up on the importance of the titles to Lord Canterville.

  • I can recommend it as a lovely book and a very quick read - also free on Kindle: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Canterville-Ghost-Oscar-Wilde-ebook/dp/B0084BTWDS/

  • It is a lovely book and free on Kindle so well worth a look https://www.amazon.co.uk/Canterville-Ghost-Oscar-Wilde-ebook/dp/B0084BTWDS/ at only 40 pages long, it's a very quick read as well.

  • This is a book from 1890 which has been republished on Kindle: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Titled-Americans-1890-American-foreigners-ebook/dp/B01DPPXD4Q/ which focuses on this obsession.

  • The book was first published in two parts in The Court and Society Review in February and March 1887. It is free on Kindle: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Canterville-Ghost-Oscar-Wilde-ebook/dp/B0084BTWDS/ and well worth a read. It is my favourite Wilde and only 40 pages so it takes no time at all to read. It is also just a lovely book.

  • It's a very quick read so hopefully you should manage it. Also a great read, as are all of Wilde's works. That is another fantastic charity shop find.

  • @MaryC @AllisonAllen I'm sold! I'd love to visit Dublin but have never managed it yet. Closest I have come is reading James Joyce's Ulysses which is structured around a tour of the city in a day by the main character. I'm betting Dublin itself is more enjoyable than Ulysses.

  • That is a wonderful book and definitely worth reading. If you haven't got £70 to spare, it's always worth requesting it from your local library. I do recommend it as a great read for contextual history and also capturing the romance/nostalgia surrounding the English Country House.

  • I've read so little Trollope but I'm seeing from your posts and those of other readers on the course that I should definitely investigate him as an author!

  • There's another one for my reading list - It gets longer and longer every time I do this course!

  • Yes, big changes that fed into the future of the English Country House - as portrayed so brilliantly in novels like Ian McEwan's Atonement and Kazuo Ishiguro's Remains of the Day (to mention two slightly more contemporary novels than we cover on this course).

  • Welcome to week six of the course and our final week. As always I'm looking forward to reading all your comments.

  • You are absolutely correct in your usage there - maybe you'll get to like the word in time!