“Doing one’s own little share”: Weaponising smallness in Isabella Fyvie Mayo’s A Daughter of the Klephts, or a Girl of Modern Greece

Kolocotroni, V. (2024) “Doing one’s own little share”: Weaponising smallness in Isabella Fyvie Mayo’s A Daughter of the Klephts, or a Girl of Modern Greece. In: Mitsi, E. and Despotopoulou, A. (eds.) Victorians and Modern Greece. Series: British school at Athens: modern Greek and Byzantine studies. Routledge. (Accepted for Publication)

Abstract

Isabella Fyvie Mayo’s _A Daughter of the Klephts, or a Girl of Modern Greece_ (1897) is a “salt of the earth” tale in the guise of a historical romance that tells the story of Patience Hedges, a foundling raised in England, but of Greek origins. With her Greek name restored, Stella/Patience eventually settles in post-revolutionary Athens to do her “own little share” in the construction of the country’s “new beginning.” Mayo’s heroine is not an allegorical maiden, saved by a male hero in thrall to an ideal; in fact, there is no such hero in the novel, but instead sympathetic facilitators of Patience’s assumption of her true calling, such as Miss Lane, proto-feminist teacher, and the Aberdonian Mrs Fowler, whose independence of mind and word are given pride of place in Mayo’s narrative. The correlation between the dissenting female figures and the empathy with the Greek girl speak to a joint recognition, and the reformation of characters and readers through the commitment of a girl finding her place in two national communities, languages, and cultures. Responding to the period’s anxiety over the prospects of girlhood, Mayo’s tale is aimed at the edification of the young through adult concerns, such as freedom, personal and political self-determination, and the transformative, if properly weaponised, potential of “small” beginnings in the pursuit of great ends.

• Item Type: Book Sections
• Status: Accepted for Publication
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Kolocotroni, Dr Vassiliki
• Authors: Kolocotroni, V.
• Subjects: D History General and Old World > DF Greece; P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General) > PN0080 Criticism; P Language and Literature > PR English literature
• College/School: College of Arts & Humanities > School of Critical Studies > English Literature
• Publisher: Routledge