Sunday, October 25, 2009

Mother Magdalen Taylor and Tyborne

Here is an article from Roman Miscellany about Mother Magdalen Taylor, the author of Tyborne, a novel about the English Catholic martyrs, and foundress of the Poor Servants of the Mother of God. I once stayed with those sisters in their house in Paris, while I was looking into a position of governess with a wealthy French family. The family lived on an elegant street near the Bois de Boulogne which the taxi driver could not find on the map. The apartment house had once been someone's palace, I think. At any rate, there were no numbers on the doors of any of the suites and it took me awhile to find the right one. They were a lovely family and the children had a nanny; they really just needed someone to speak English to their children all day. They had a house in Brittany as well. I decided not to take the job, however; there were reasons why I had to return home to America. However, it was an adventure.

There is also mention of the wonderful Mary Ward in the article.

2 comments:

Stephanie A. Mann said...

Thanks for posting about "Tyborne"--I think Mother Mary Magdalen succeeded in interweaving her fiction, depicting the divisions in a family, with historical detail from Challoner's works (I believe) about actual trials and executions of Catholic priests. It may not be a great work of art, but "Tyborne" is a good story and a very good way to tell a true story too. Robert Hugh Benson might have more art, and Maurice Baring, in "Robert Peckham" deeper psychology, but Mother Mary Magdalen was the "pioneer" in writing fiction about the recusant era and deserves grateful reading.

elena maria vidal said...

I agree, Stephanie. I enjoyed Mother Magdalen's novel "Tyborne" a great deal. I prayed to her to help me get my novel "Trianon" published, and isn't it something that The Neumann Press, which publishes "Tyborne," also published my novels.

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