Rhoda Broughton

BELINDA has arrived. My new online not-trollope group is not only reading Mrs Oliphant’s MISS MARJORIBANKS, we are also tackling a collateral reading of Rhoda Broughton’s BELINDA (1883.)

I haven’t read any of Broughton’s work – in fact I don’t recall ever having heard of her, which is surprising because I've spent the last 40 years reading and reading about the 19th century novel.

Our group was attracted to this novel because of a character, Professor Forth of Oxford, a dried up old skinflint modeled on Mark Pattison, the man on whom George Eliot based Casaubon in her novel, MIDDLEMARCH (1871.)

A photo of the formidable author, wearing a peculiarly architectural dress, can be found here: http://www.sensationpress.com/rhodabroughton.htm