Review: To Have and To Hold By Mary Johnston

Synopsis:

Already repenting of his hasty promise to marry, Captain Ralph Percy goes to meet the ship full of women that came specifically to provide brides for the Virginian settlers.  When he meets a proud and cold, but beautiful, young woman and marries her in less than an hour, he hardly dreams that he has wed the King’s runaway ward, the lovely Lady Jocelyn Leigh.  But the King will not accept Jocelyn’s hurried marriage and neither will the wicked and infatuated Lord Carnal.  When the king wants to annul the marriage and force Jocelyn to marry Lord Carnal, what will happen to Captain Percy and his wife?

One thing I found very sweet in To Have and To Hold is that Captain Percy is a gentleman if there ever was one.  He is courteous and brave, and the way he constantly risks his life for a lady who doesn’t care for him is just so wonderful.  Another sweet thing is that Ralph Percy, narrating the story, continually calls Jocelyn ‘Mistress Percy’ and ‘my wife,’ as if he’s saying to Lord Carnal, “She voluntarily married me, in the sight of God and all honest men, and you will not get her.”  That’s what I like about Captain Percy.  He’s firm, courageous, gentle, and willing to go any lengths to protect his wife’s honour, even though she’s his wife only in name.  

 

Of course it doesn’t hurt to be called Percy (a name that very good heroes happen to have) either.  And this is set in 17^th century Virginia, so (Bonus points!) it has quite a few swordfights, in which Captain Percy of course excels. 

But even though he has so many good points, Ralph Percy doesn’t at all come across as a paragon, or unrealistic.  He’s a thoroughly human man whom we can sympathise with.  Even the romance angle of the story (between two nearly-paragons) is passionate, tender and completely sweet.  I tend to get annoyed by mushy romances or foolish infatuations, but true love, between two totally sympathize-with-able people is one of the most beautiful things on earth. 

I’ve already talked a great deal about Captain Percy, but now I’ll try to talk about the book, because this is a review of To Have and To Hold, not a review of Captain Ralph Percy.

 

Where to begin?  Ah, yes.  This is very well-written.  It seems there are many people who agree with me, because in 1900 (the year it was published) this was the most popular novel in America.  Mary Johnston managed to stuff it full of adventure (runaways, duels, pirates – stuff that would be totally improbable in one of my novels) but somehow you don’t get around to thinking about that.  The amount of intrigue and danger makes for an absorbing and hard to put down read.  The language in To Have and To Hold seems authentically 17^th century, but still not hard to understand and, if anything, it enhances the characters. 

Talking about characters, I can’t ignore Jeremy Sparrow.  A humble and dedicated Puritan minister, he still has a very good sense of humour and is a completely kind and faithful friend.  And I was also very pleased to see Master Rolfe (who married Pocahontas) and his brother-in-law Nantauquas in the story.  As to Jocelyn, she is definitely a dynamic character and the best advice I can give you is just to read the book yourself.

Possibly Objectionable Elements:

There is fighting in this book and therefore some amount of violence and killing.  But it is not gory and, while I wouldn’t give this to young children, it would not be a problem for older readers.  There are some archaic (usually minced) oaths, but you probably wouldn’t know unless you looked them up in a dictionary.  There are a few kisses, but the whole falling in love thing is actually between a married couple (and I find that incredibly sweet.. but that might just be me.)

My advice?  If you love history, adventure, or a good romance, you definitely want to find this book.

Oh yes!  And what do I rate it?  This is hard... it certainly deserves an 8, but I'll give it a 9, because it deserves that too.

To Have and To Hold by Mary Johnston is out of copyright and can be downloaded for free in ebook form from Project Gutenberg, as a free audiobook from Librivox, or from here  To Have and to Hold .