Kirsteen, the Story of a Scotch Family Seventy Years Ago.

Having read some seventy novels written circa 1790-1830 for my dissertation, I can assert that Kirsteen is in many ways a completely unrealistic depiction of the regency (as are many contemporary regency romances) . What is wrong is not the details of the clothes, food, travel, buildings, or wars, but the heroine's ideological mindset. This is not Ibsen's new woman, but maybe her shy sister, a Victorian feminist, living mysteriously in the world of the 1820s. The novel exposes the horrible cost of Imperial greed: the psychological and moral damage of the ex-slave owner Douglas is a minor, but very disturbing part of the novel. The impoverished Scottish countryside, the need to emigrate and exploit other races to gain wealth (India, Australia, and of course the West Indies), and the high social cost of shipping a huge portion of the male population to other parts of the globe are all minor themes as well. But the bulk of the novel is on the role of poor women of the gentry and their plight. The novel contrasts four very different sisters and their different solutions to the problem caused by their social situation. Oliphant shows how the pressure to marry a man of the correct class, seen as the only moral and socially acceptable choice, is often really a bad choice. Her heroine makes unconventional choices, such as to go into trade, that challenge the notion of what a "good" woman can do. This is a rather quick, fun read, but a bit too much of a fairy tale at spots. If you really want some insight into a dressmaker's or shopgirl's life in the regency, you need to go to Francis Burney's The Wanderer. For country life in the regency in Scotland, try Brunton's Discipline or Susan Ferrier's Marriage.