Status
Available
Call number
Publication
Napierville, IL: Sourcebooks Landmark, 2013
Description
Love, Loss, and Love Again... Charlotte Dean enjoys nothing more than the solitude of her London flat and the monotonous days of her work at a travel bookshop. But when her younger sister unceremoniously bursts into her quiet life one afternoon, Charlotte's world turns topsy-turvy. Beloved author D.E. Stevenson captures the intricacies of post-World War I England with a light, comic touch that perfectly embodies the spirit of the time. Alternatively heartbreaking and witty, The Young Clementina is a touch tale of love, loss, and redemption through friendship.
User reviews
LibraryThing member emanate28
I've concluded that I have an affinity to stories about not-so-young-but-still-young women who are suffering from spinsterhood :) (This book somehow reminded me a bit of L.M. Montgomery's "Blue Castle".)
As with "Miss Buncle's Book", D.E. Stevenson's writing is delightful, and I suffered alongside
I'm not sure I understand why the book was entitled 'The Young Clementina' though...
As with "Miss Buncle's Book", D.E. Stevenson's writing is delightful, and I suffered alongside
Show More
Char in her resignation to her stifled life. The characters perhaps tend toward caricatures (I particularly had a hard time putting the two faces of Garth into one person), but they are delightful types.I'm not sure I understand why the book was entitled 'The Young Clementina' though...
Show Less
LibraryThing member atimco
The Young Clementina was my first D. E. Stevenson book, but it won't be my last. This story is narrated by the main character, Charlotte Dean, who grows up as best friends with the neighbor boy, Garth Wisdon of Hinkleton Manor. Their friendship blossoms into love just as WWI breaks out. When Garth
This is beautifully written; wry, honest, sad, funny, perceptive, real. The characters truly live; I feel that I know them. Charlotte doesn't seem to know how to stand up for herself at times but this makes her all the more believable. She's compassionate and giving and intelligent and honest. The other characters are equally well written (I love Nanny and Mrs. Cope!). I have slightly mixed feelings about the ending; a certain character who behaved reprehensibly has no consequences for those actions, but it's a happy ending for Charlotte whom I grew to love, so it made me happy too. I stayed up well past my bedtime to finish this and it was worth it. In this season of toddlers and bedwetting and unpredictable amounts of sleep, that's high praise indeed!
Show More
returns from the war, he is changed toward Charlotte—cruel, sarcastic, cynical. Charlotte is bewildered...war is horrific, but was it really that that could change him so fundamentally toward her? And then he marries her beautiful younger sister Kitty, and Charlotte moves to London to work in a tiny bookshop and try to smother the emotions of the past. For twelve long years she lives alone, seeing her sister only rarely, when Kitty bursts back into her life to change it forever. I don't want to give the story away so I'll stop here. This is beautifully written; wry, honest, sad, funny, perceptive, real. The characters truly live; I feel that I know them. Charlotte doesn't seem to know how to stand up for herself at times but this makes her all the more believable. She's compassionate and giving and intelligent and honest. The other characters are equally well written (I love Nanny and Mrs. Cope!). I have slightly mixed feelings about the ending; a certain character who behaved reprehensibly has no consequences for those actions, but it's a happy ending for Charlotte whom I grew to love, so it made me happy too. I stayed up well past my bedtime to finish this and it was worth it. In this season of toddlers and bedwetting and unpredictable amounts of sleep, that's high praise indeed!
Show Less
LibraryThing member Sarahursula
‘Oh, Miss Char! There have been so many tears in this house – it’s a sorrowful house – too much pain and tears – all the time I’ve been here ... a lifetime ... no happiness ... all tears. I hoped so much that you would come here – long ago – and make us all happy.’
Charlotte Dean
This novel is one of the darkest of D. E. Stevenson’s books I’ve read but, despite the heartbreak and tears there is redemption, happiness and a banishing of the ghosts of the past. It is one of her best. Honour bright!
Charlotte Dean
Show More
lives alone in a small, shabby London flat furnished with the remnants of her old parsonage home. There’s ‘the old schoolroom chair, with its creaking basketwork frame and knobbly cushions, the old schoolroom bureau, scored with the thoughtless kicks of childish feet’. Then there’s ‘the grandfather clock which blocks my tiny hall ... [its] large pale face is one of my earliest recollections, so too the melodious chimes... always called Jeremiah, for its chime was melancholy, set in a minor key.’ Charlotte has acquaintances but no friends and seemingly no family. Mrs Cope is her gossipy daily woman and there’s kindly Mr Wentworth at the specialist library where she works surrounded by books on China, Burma and Jamaica. ‘The books – I have always loved books and I love them better now – are my greatest solace.’ She aches to make friends with a kindly woman on her bus but she’s afraid the woman would ‘think me mad, a woman you had met for a few moments on the top of a bus, with whom you had exchanged a dozen words’. Then her sister Kitty returns to her life and everything that Charlotte knows and understands is thrown up in the air and she doesn’t know where the pieces will land. This novel is one of the darkest of D. E. Stevenson’s books I’ve read but, despite the heartbreak and tears there is redemption, happiness and a banishing of the ghosts of the past. It is one of her best. Honour bright!
Show Less
LibraryThing member carolvanbrocklin
Char has always loved Garth, but for some reason he had decided to marry her sister Kitty instead. Instead she has a life in London with a dead end job in a bookstore and a flat that is lifeless with few friends. She starts writing to a woman she calls "Clare" whom she had met on a bus and somehow
When Kitty comes back into her life and is shown to be a woman of many lies, Char ends up taking care of Kitty and Garths young daughter Clementina when Garth is called away to work on a book about Africa. Clemintina is a bit of an odd duck, but Char brings out many good qualities in her in addition to making changes at Garth's home that are for the better.
Lots of lovely language, a vacation in a British village to read. You see the end coming a mile away but it is still well played out.
Show More
thought they would be friends if only they had the time to meet. When Kitty comes back into her life and is shown to be a woman of many lies, Char ends up taking care of Kitty and Garths young daughter Clementina when Garth is called away to work on a book about Africa. Clemintina is a bit of an odd duck, but Char brings out many good qualities in her in addition to making changes at Garth's home that are for the better.
Lots of lovely language, a vacation in a British village to read. You see the end coming a mile away but it is still well played out.
Show Less
LibraryThing member libbromus
I've been devouring D.E. Stevenson ever since I read Miss Buncle's Book. This is the first one I've come across that had a villain, of sorts, and made me feel a bit angry for the main characters. Normally, I close a D.E. Stevenson with a goofy grin on my face that I can't seem to wipe off for days.
Show More
Finishing The Young Clementina, I felt so badly for the manipulated mains; happy too, because things turn out, but what a hellish road to get there all because of a vapid jerk. Grrrr ... some people! Show Less
LibraryThing member Herenya
The Young Clementina has also been published under the title of Miss Dean's Dilemma, and although that sounds much more old-fashioned, I think it is a more accurate title and a more Stevenson-ish sounding one.
Charlotte Dean has a serious decision to make and no one she can confide in about it. She
Charlotte's story doesn't begin with the specifics of her dilemma but instead with details of her pre-war, rural childhood. It's something of a meandering history and Charlotte recounts events of great emotion with a certain distance (in an attempt to insulate herself from feeling them too much, perhaps?) - and yet Charlotte's voice meant I was utterly hooked.
Her story conveyed her longing for friendship and for the rural landscape of her youth so strongly, as well as her ambivalent feelings about repairing certain relationships - and I wanted to see her circumstances improve.
There were a few things which disappointed me about The Young Clementina. I wished Stevenson had gone with a different explanation for why something had happened (I thought there was a less convoluted yet more emotionally-nuanced explanation that would have been equally plausible) and the ending is too abrupt.
It's also a bit dated in its attitudes in some respects... but you have to be prepared for that, when it comes to books published in 1935.
I buried my face in the sweetness of the country flowers before I handed them back to you.
"She will love them," I said.
"You don't think they will make her homesick?" you asked [...]
"They may," I told you. "They have made me homesick, you see. But it was worth it."
"Pain is worthwhile sometimes," you said.
Charlotte Dean has a serious decision to make and no one she can confide in about it. She
Show More
writes an account of the relevant history for an imagined close friend, in the hopes that this exercise will give her different perspective on her situation.Charlotte's story doesn't begin with the specifics of her dilemma but instead with details of her pre-war, rural childhood. It's something of a meandering history and Charlotte recounts events of great emotion with a certain distance (in an attempt to insulate herself from feeling them too much, perhaps?) - and yet Charlotte's voice meant I was utterly hooked.
Her story conveyed her longing for friendship and for the rural landscape of her youth so strongly, as well as her ambivalent feelings about repairing certain relationships - and I wanted to see her circumstances improve.
There were a few things which disappointed me about The Young Clementina. I wished Stevenson had gone with a different explanation for why something had happened (I thought there was a less convoluted yet more emotionally-nuanced explanation that would have been equally plausible) and the ending is too abrupt.
It's also a bit dated in its attitudes in some respects... but you have to be prepared for that, when it comes to books published in 1935.
I buried my face in the sweetness of the country flowers before I handed them back to you.
"She will love them," I said.
"You don't think they will make her homesick?" you asked [...]
"They may," I told you. "They have made me homesick, you see. But it was worth it."
"Pain is worthwhile sometimes," you said.
Show Less
LibraryThing member hardlyhardy
“The Young Clementina” (1938) by D.E. Stevenson, at least in its 2013 edition, is an easy book to misjudge by its cover. I expected something light and breezy, rather on the order of “Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day” by Winifred Watson, also first published in 1938 and made into an equally
We might also misjudge this book by its title. Charlotte Dean, the novel's narrator, has a younger sister named Clementina, though this pretty, manipulative woman calls herself Kitty. Kitty's daughter is also named Clementina. To which does the title refer? Neither, it turns out, lies at the center of the plot, although both are vital to it.
The key character, if not Charlotte herself, is Garth Wisdon, heir to an estate, whom she has loved since childhood. They plan to marry but the Great War interrupts those plans. When Charlotte first sees him after the war is over he is dramatically changed and shows no affection for her at all. He marries not her but Kitty and they soon have a daughter, while Charlotte settles into spinsterhood.
The marriage proves a stormy one, and Charlotte becomes a reluctant witness at their divorce trial. She discovers that her sister expects her to lie under oath on her behalf. Much else happens, best left for readers to discover on their own. These discoveries will be pleasurable and, for the most part, surprising.
Stevenson's novel turns into melodrama by the end, and that ending may be predictable. Still, on the whole, this is fine stuff, not the book we might expect but one we can enjoy.
Show More
delightful film 70 years later. Stevenson's novel, while of comparable quality, is composed of more serious stuff.We might also misjudge this book by its title. Charlotte Dean, the novel's narrator, has a younger sister named Clementina, though this pretty, manipulative woman calls herself Kitty. Kitty's daughter is also named Clementina. To which does the title refer? Neither, it turns out, lies at the center of the plot, although both are vital to it.
The key character, if not Charlotte herself, is Garth Wisdon, heir to an estate, whom she has loved since childhood. They plan to marry but the Great War interrupts those plans. When Charlotte first sees him after the war is over he is dramatically changed and shows no affection for her at all. He marries not her but Kitty and they soon have a daughter, while Charlotte settles into spinsterhood.
The marriage proves a stormy one, and Charlotte becomes a reluctant witness at their divorce trial. She discovers that her sister expects her to lie under oath on her behalf. Much else happens, best left for readers to discover on their own. These discoveries will be pleasurable and, for the most part, surprising.
Stevenson's novel turns into melodrama by the end, and that ending may be predictable. Still, on the whole, this is fine stuff, not the book we might expect but one we can enjoy.
Show Less
LibraryThing member leslie.98
I found this book less humorous than Miss Buncle's Book but still very satisfying to the romantic in me.
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
1935
Physical description
344 p.
ISBN
9781402274718