Karen's Reviews > The Third Miss Symons

“A large family should be a specially happy community, but it sometimes occurs that there is a boy or a girl who is nothing but a middle one, fitting in nowhere.”

Such a one is Henrietta Symons. Longing to be loved, she becomes essentially little loved by anyone. Surrounded by relatives and friends of no particular genius, she fails to find lasting companionship or peace in her life that is in any way comparable to the people around her, and largely this is due to her own failure at grasping the opportunities that do arise in her life.

This should be a bleak book. That it is both heartbreaking and enchanting is a tribute to F M Mayor and her genius at packing so much into such a slim volume.

I have just bought my own copy because I will be re-reading this soon. Hopefully the next person to take out the library copy I read will love it as much as I did.

I would recommend F M Mayor's The Rector's Daughter and Rachel Ferguson's Alas, Poor Lady to those who liked this book.