Virginia Grinevitch introduces chapters 1-10 of Miss Mackenzie. Virginia, or Ginny to most, is a retired high school chemistry teacher who spends much of her time rereading Anthony Trollope novels at her home on the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains in southern Alberta, Canada.

Miss Mackenzie was first published in two volumes by Chapman and Hall, London, in February 1865. Reissued in a single volume in 1866.

Illustration: ‘Mariana in the Moated Grange’, Pen and ink on paper, Sir John Everett Millais, 1850, England. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London. This is a study for Millais’ oil painting ‘Mariana‘. He exhibited the finished work at the Royal Academy in 1851, and it is now in the collection of Tate Britain.

Originally titled The Modern Griselda, Miss Mackenzie begins life as a “Mariana in her moated grange”, and becomes, sort of, a Griselda – a woman of exemplary meekness and patience.

‘Mariana’ by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

The painting – and this sketch – illustrate some lines from Alfred Tennyson’s poem ‘Mariana’ (1830).

She only said, ‘My life is dreary,
He cometh not’, she said;
She said, ‘I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!

Resources

• Plot summary and character listings for Miss Mackenzie
• Download Miss Mackenzie free of charge from Project Gutenberg