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Reviewed by Emily-Jane Hills Orford for Readers' Favorite
Mary Anne Wilson's early life in a parsonage was nothing compared to the exciting life as an actress in the London theaters. Of course, after her father passed away and her mother remarried a groping monster, the girl had no choice but to accept an escape in a girl's school. What better school than Lowood, where she would meet and befriend an orphan, none other than Jane Eyre. In fact, it was young Jane who helped Mary Anne escape the confines of the school for the chance to try her luck in the theaters in London. Mary Anne had to lower herself, become a 'fallen' woman, to make her way in the world. She was nothing, like her friend Jane, and as the story unfolds and develops into a murder mystery, one can't help but draw similarities to Jane's tragic romance, and, in the end wonder if the two would ever meet again.
In Mary Anne, W.J. Harrison has written a classic story in the style and of the caliber of the Bronte sisters' writing. Although Jane Eyre and the troublesome Mr. Mason appear in Mary Anne's story, the connection to Jane Eyre unfortunately ends with Mary Anne's escape from Lowood. Although the girls promise to write, they never do, or at least it's not mentioned in the story. However, the gruesome realities of stage life in London in this early nineteenth-century era are expertly illustrated and the meager and precarious life of a woman left to her own means is plainly explored in the same way as that of the Bronte heroines. This is an outstanding story, a classic for all time. I hope we hear more about Mary Anne and her only true Casanova - the cat.
