Molesworth, Mary Louisa (1839–1921), English writer, popular in late Victorian and Edwardian nurseries. Her first published work for children, Tell me a Story (1875) included ‘The Reel Fairies’, based on her own childhood imaginative games with the reels in her mother's workbox, and ‘Con and the Little People’, about a boy who is stolen by the fairies, one of her few to use folk‐tale elements, and the only one where she shows fairyland as sinister rather than benevolent. But her large output of 87 children's books is mostly made up of small domestic chronicles and teacup dramas in which she closely identifies with her child characters. Edward Salmon said (Juvenile Literature as it is, 1888) that her greatest charm was her realism: ‘On this ground her stories of everyday child life are preferable to her fairy stories.’
Though she had enjoyed the Grimms, Hans Christian Andersen, and E. T. A. Hoffmann's Nutcracker and Mouse King as a child, she wrote that ‘save for an occasional flight to fairyland, children's books should be real’ (Atlanta, May 1893). She also understood young children's desire for security and a solid background, and her fantasy stories reflect this. There is nothing frightening or strange—in the article above she wrote of the care with which the scrupulous writer for children ‘banished from the playground … all things unsightly, or terrifying, or in any sense hurtful’. Thus her child characters who visit such places as butterfly‐land, an eagles' eyrie, or a squirrel family find everyone courteous, friendly, and hard‐working; tempting meals are served at regular intervals but no one is ever greedy, and even the eagles turn out to be fruitarian. She liked children to be polite, well‐behaved, and above all contented, and most of her fairies, such as the Cuckoo in The Cuckoo Clock (1877), behave like governesses and insist on good manners. This was her first full‐length fairy story and her most popular. It begins with a favourite formula: ‘Once upon a time in an old town, in an old street, there stood a very old house.’ Here motherless Griselda goes to live with her great‐aunts, and is irked by the orderly life and the discipline imposed on her (a favourite Molesworth theme). The fairy cuckoo in the clock made by her great‐great‐grandfather takes her on magic adventures through which she becomes happier and more contented, and she is also provided by the end with a child companion to ease her loneliness, and a surrogate mother.
The Tapestry Room (1879) was almost equally popular. It is set in an old house in Normandy where Jeanne and Hugh find themselves in the tapestry that hangs in Hugh's bedroom. Their guide in their adventures there is Dudu, the autocratic old raven who belongs to the house. In one of their dreamlike adventures they meet a lady at a spinning‐wheel who tells them the traditional tale of ‘The Black Bull of Norrowa’. In Christmas‐Tree Land (1884), set in an ancient castle in Thuringia where Rollo and Maia are sent to stay with their elderly cousin, there is another inset fairy tale, ‘The Story of a King's Daughter’, this time by Molesworth herself. It is told to them by their fairy mentor who calls herself their godmother, and who bears some resemblance to George MacDonald's wise women. The influence of MacDonald is also evident in Four Winds Farm (1887), more subtle than most of her fantasies. Here the four winds appoint themselves Gratian's preceptors and gently nudge him out of his dreamy ways. The Children of the Castle (1890) is less successful in its imitation of MacDonald; spiritual mysteries were not her line. For the great‐great‐grandmother of The Princess and the Goblin she substitutes the Forget‐me‐not Lady (also in a turret room), who succeeds in making wilful Ruby and odious Bertrand feel remorse. In The Ruby Ring (1904) a magic ring helps spoilt Sybil to become more contented, and in ‘The Groaning Clock’ (Fairies—of Sorts, 1908) an old clock is inhabited by a brownie who groans and growls if children are ill‐tempered or careless.
Some of her most attractive fairy stories are the short ones. In three tales in An Enchanted Garden (1892)—‘The Story of the Three Wishes’, ‘The Summer Princess’, and ‘The Magic Rose’, and in ‘“Ask the Robin”’, ‘A Magic Table’ and ‘The Weather Maiden’ in Fairies Afield (1911), all with a timeless folk‐tale background, she sheds the governess manner, and writes warmly of good people rewarded.
Bibliography
- Green, Roger Lancelyn, Mrs. Molesworth (1961).
- Keenan, Hugh T., “‘M. L. S. Molesworth’”, in Jane M. Bingham (ed.), Writers for Children (1988).
- Laski, Marghanita, Mrs. Ewing, Mrs. Molesworth, and Mrs. Hodgson Burnett (1950).
— Gillian Avery
