The Making of a Marchioness

By: Frances Hodgson Burnett

Narrated by: Lucy Scott

The Making of a Marchioness is Frances Hodgson Burnett’s delightful take on the Cinderella story. Born into an aristocratic family, Emily Fox-Seton is left penniless and must fend for herself after the death of her parents. Then one summer, everything changes. This audio edition is read by Lucy Scott.

Emily rents a room in a boarding house in London where she makes a modest living as an assistant to aristocratic ladies. One summer, Lady Maria Bayne asks Emily to her country estate and it’s there that Emily receives a very surprising offer of marriage from a wealthy widower in need of a wife. But Emily’s new life is not without its own obstacles and challenges.

The Making of a Marchioness is part of the Persephone Audiobook Collection, a series of forgotten classics including neglected fiction and non-fiction by women writers. First published in 1901, this edition includes a preface by Isabel Raphael and an afterword by Gretchen Gerzina.

Overall enjoyable, but a bit more macabre than her other stories.

The narration is absolutely excellent, though the story leaves a bit to be desired. I adore Francis Hodge and Burnett’s children’s stories, and have really enjoyed some of her adult stories. The first part of this work is a lovely modern Cinderella story. The second part, though, contains some dark elements that remind me of her other work, The Shuttle. It’s not nearly as protracted, but there are some supernatural and dark elements that made it less satisfying. It ended on a bit of a dark note, but overall the story was good. I wish it had ended by reinforcing some of the heartwarming elements— the rewards of the “good” characters, rather than the punishments of the “wicked“.

The Whistler could have been SO MUCH BETTER!

The overall idea and characters of the story really were original, and the novel could have been really good. Instead, this was a Grisham sleepwalking through 42 chapters. The characters were barely fleshed out. The female narrator used vocal fry for every male character, which was terribly annoying. 6 chapters describing the detail and aftermath of a head-on car collision was sickening, and not germane to the overall story. The story wrapped up too easily. It could have really been a good one, but the author seemed too tired to make it all work. Disappointing.