Book Review: Mariana

Book Review: Mariana

Author: Monica Dickens

Date: 1940 (U.K.), 1968 (U.S.)

Publisher: Michael Joseph (U.K.), Penguin (U.S.)

ISBN: none

Length: 283 pages

Quote: “Mary sometimes heard people say: ‘I can’t bear to be alone.’”

The heroine of Monica Dickens’ Mariana is called Mary. There’s a reason: people her age were not actually named Mariana. The name was well known, but it was considered unlucky, associated with the lovelorn character in Tennyson’s poem: “‘He will not come!’ she said...‘I am a-weary, weary, I wish that I were dead.’” Just in case anybody didn’t recall the poem, it’s quoted in the novel.

Mary is alone. Her husband, an officer in the British navy, was on a ship that has just sunk. She’s never minded being alone while he was out, but this is a real crisis, and her whole life flashes before her eyes...forming a novel in the biographical mode. My feeling is that Mary’s life has been commonplace, but somebody out there may find her interesting.

Although Charles Dickens’ great-granddaughter was young at the time of writing, Mariana was not autobiography. Her husband was an officer in the U.S. navy. (Interestingly, the preface to the 1968 edition calls her “Mrs. Dickens” before mentioning, further down the same page, that she was actually Mrs. Stratton, formerly Miss Dickens.)