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Mid-Victorian madness: Jaspistos

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From: The Spectator
Date: 19970419
Author:Benson, Gerard; Harris, Bill; Ransome-Davies, Basil; Syrett, Nick; Therkelsen, Susan

IN COMPETITION NO. 1978 you were invited to supply a scene from a melodramatic mid-Victorian novel and given the three last sentences.

None of you won the fiver I waved enticingly at you for spotting the source, which was Wilkie Collins's Man and Wife (1870), end of chapter XXXI. The hypocritical harridan Lady Lundie is in top gear: `Shocking as the whole thing was, I presided calmly over the screams and sobs of my stepdaughter. I closed my ears to the profane violence of her language. I set the necessary example, as an English gentlewoman at the head of her household. It was only when I ...

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