“Every year I live I am more convinced that the waste of life lies in the love we have not given, the powers we have not used, the selfish prudence which will risk nothing, and which, shirking pain, misses happiness as well.”
Red Pottage follows the lives of close friends Rachel West, the wealthy heiress, and Hester Gresley, the novelist. Rachel has fallen in love with Hugh Scarlett, a spineless and weak-willed man who has just ended an affair with a married woman. Hester, on the other hand, is stuck living with her brother, a pompous and critical vicar. She must contend with her brother’s disapproval of her writing, a battle which manifests itself as a nervous illness in her. Mentally held hostage by the men who are most important to them, these two young ladies must navigate a deceitful society that attempts to destroy their love and passion for life.
Today Red Pottage is Mary Cholmondeley’s best-remembered book, but when it was first published it caused quite the scandal. With themes of adultery and women’s emancipation, and its satire of the clergy, it journeyed far from the accepted territory of other popular novels at the time.
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Mary Cholmondeley (1859–1925) was an English novelist and short-story writer. The daughter of a vicar at St. Luke’s Church in the village of Hodnet, Market Drayton, Shropshire, England, Cholmondeley was exposed to the country and clergical life she would go on to satirize in her work. She spent most of her early life taking care of her sickly mother, but she went on to write over a twenty-four novels and dozens of short stories.
Gabrielle de Cuir, award-winning narrator, has narrated over three hundred titles and specializes in fantasy, humor, and titles requiring extensive foreign language and accent skills. She was a cowinner of the Audie Award for best narration in 2011 and a three-time finalist for the Audie and has garnered six AudioFile Earphones Awards. Her “velvet touch” as an actor’s director has earned her a special place in the audiobook world as the foremost producer for bestselling authors and celebrities.