LP in the British Library, Day #3

Perhaps I should title that "eventually" or "luckily," as the entrance to the Victoria Station underground has been partially closed down, making access a trifle dodgy, and then the ticket machine decided that bank cards were objectionable.  (Luckily, the cards themselves were not the issue; I had had momentary visions of surviving for the next ten days on the scattered crumbs of shortbread cookies--er, biscuits--and mocha muffins given to me by my cousins.)  However, those obstacles valiantly overcome, I reached the library and devoted myself to Literature.  Or literature.  Um, whatever you want to call what I was reading.

Jane Barrett, A Long Letter from Ilfracombe, to My Pupil, J. N. Containing an Account of the Illness and Death of C. Tartakover, a Converted Jewess.  A combination conversion/holy deathbed narrative about a converted French Jew, just eighteen years old. The narrator bemoans mom's unwillingness to convert, and notes that mom superstiously refuses to touch a NT (although she'll listen to it).  Celestina (!), the daughter, lacks the "sly expression" which most Jews apparently possess, but has no other notable qualities beyond her obvious gratitude to the narrator for enlightening her.  Really, the whole thing is an ad for the Society for Promoting Christianity Among the Jews, primarily notable for the bad poem with which it closes.

[James Godkin],  The Outcast: A Story of the Modern Reformation, 2 vols.  If Godkin actually was the author, he was mighty young (early 20s) when he produced this double-decker about the so-called "Second Reformation" in Ireland. The plot follows the adventures of young John Stafford, a Catholic who one day made the mistake of reading--gulp--Voltaire, Rousseau, and Lady Morgan, a poisonous cocktail which turned him into a skeptic.  Alas, Stafford loves Eliza Barker, the young Protestant maiden in the home in which he is tutor; when Eliza confesses her guilty love for an Infidel to pa, Mr. Barker promptly kicks Stafford out.  Thus begins a term of wandering around Ireland, listening to Catholics (nasty) and Protestants (nice) natter at each other, sermon-tasting at all the local Protestant churches (he decides that all of the Protestant denominations are pretty much right), and, after falling in with a random Christian named Wilson, converts to Christianity and the right of private judgment.  His family is unamused, and Stafford senior beats him up; nevertheless, he and his sister Fanny take shelter with the Barkers again, and a reconciled Mr. Barker lets him marry Eliza.  Wilson, meanwhile, goes out evangelizing under the auspices of the Reformation Society.  The book takes an obviously pro-Dissent line, despite the praise for the Establishment. Features some free advertising for Grace Kennedy's Father Clement and a Bible-burning, the latter of which also appears in the next novel...

The Roman Catholic Priest.   Published in 1827, this novel trots out a number of would-be Gothic anti-Catholic tropes, including multiple abductions (they don't work), attempts to make young women take vows (also doesn't work), and imprisonment at a Catholic college (mind-bogglingly, the prisoner in question is allowed to...just walk out).  Our hero, John Doyle, rescues a young man, Charles Brian, from drowning; in true Brick Joke fashion, we won't see Brian again until the end of the novel, but he does, in fact, show up again to rescue Doyle from his imprisonment. Anyway, on the one hand, Doyle, a Catholic curate, Sees the Light through exposure to the Bible; on the other side, Theresa, a young Catholic woman, is converted by her evangelical cousin Ellen, who (again) insists that she read the Bible.  Unusually for novels of this type, the Bibles in question are initially the Douai translation (they get KJVs later).  The evil genius of the book is Father O'Doyne, who seems nice until he's crossed, at which point he, well, isn't.  After the usual run of prootexts and destroyed Bibles (this is a common trope in anti-Catholic texts), most of the characters who need to convert do so, and they all live happily ever after.  Except, possibly, for Mrs. Jefferson, who cannot be convinced that she needs to think of her Eternal Life, and therefore stands as a Lesson to Us All.

E.M. M., Disowned, or the Outlawed Jewess.  A penny dreadful! This mostly quite anti-Semitic novel argues that Jews, while treated badly, are also invariably dangerous to the body politic, thanks to the Talmud.  Moreover, modern Jews are apparently against monogamy, which, I confess, came as news, although it could be that the author was defining monogamy as "getting married only one time."   In any event, our heroine, Ruhamah Gershom, is a twelve-year-old (but she looks sixteen!) engaged to a young man named Isaac, with whom she experiences Twoo Wuv.  Thanks to Twoo Wuv, she refuses to marry Isaac's brother Seth after Isaac has a knife-fight to the death with a "gypsy" who has abducted her in order to do Unnamable Things.  (It's that kind of novel.)  Ruhamah, who turns out to be the sort of aggravating fictional Jew who can spout vaguely Tanakh-ish dialogue when sufficiently moved (the rhetoric is pretty impressive for a twelve-year-old, even if she does look sixteen), promptly takes a vow of celibacy over Isaac's body, this being what twelve-year-olds do.  Her parents and Mr. Heber, not impressed, immediately cast her out, going full-out on the anti-Semitic trope that Jewish families turn profoundly abusive at the first sign of dissent.  Luckily, Ruhamah immediately finds a job as a governess (she does look sixteen).  Not so luckily, her parents kill themselves.  Luckily, they leave her all their property.  Ruhamah manages to get over being an orphan reasonably quickly, and soon manages a successful career as a Continental actress.  She does not, however, convert, and the novel is openly contemptuous of missions to the Jews.