Merry Wanderer of the Night:
emma: a victorian romance

I was a little disappointed with the second volume in Kaoru Mori's Emma series, so I was thrilled to see how beautifully crafted Emma: Volume 3 was. It truly made me fall in love with the series all over again. As I read each new volume I can see Mori's artisty become even more sophisticated. This was especially true of this volume. I don't know the manga lingo, so I will do my best to describe it. In this volume it seems like Mori is moving away from having several boxes on the pages to longer ones that take up a third of the page or even scenes that take up two full pages. The details in these drawings amazed me, and when I turned the page a few different times during the book I literally gasped. If you haven't read the Emma series yet, I urge you to do so. The remainder of this review will assume that you have read Emma: Volume 1 and Emma: Volume 2.

The last time we saw Emma she was leaving London after a failed romance with the aristocratic William Jones. This volume picks up right there, with Emma's journey to a new home on a train. Here she meets Tasha, a maid to a wealthy family. It is through Tasha that Emma finds her new place of employment and encounters many new mysterious characters. William Jones is still in London, but he is actually working now. It appears that since his father requested him to be serious and not consider riff raff like Emma he has decided to do exactly that. It is truly sad, because he pretends like everything is fine and dandy. His sister, however, can see that something is bothering him. William passively moves through this book though, not hinting towards his true feelings.

It seems like Mori is getting a little more interested in Victorian history with this volume, and especially with the options given to women during the time period. Most of Mori's stories deal with maids in Victorian England, but here we are introduced to the possibility of teaching as a governess or becoming an authoress, as the book says. Mori also uses historical background as a way to transition between scenes which is different from the two past volumes.

This novel earned an A.

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For those of you that missed it I found out about Emma: Volume 1

last week, the post is here. It is a manga, or graphic novel, by Kaoru Mori.

The story takes place in London during the 19th Century. Emma is a maid for an old widow who used to work as a governess. The widow appears somewhat classless in the story, which allows her to encourage Emma's interest in her old student, William Jones. William Jones is a member of the gentry whose father is set on him marrying a higher class woman, but William wants to marry for love and he loves Emma. It's a little cheesy, love at first sight, but the rest of the story is so great that I didn't think much about it.

Willliam Jones is very extreme in how much he cares for Emma, which I feel is more characteristic of a manga than of a Victorian romance novel. He will do anything to please her and buys her glasses because she cannot see out of hers. When he is walking in London he is always looking out for Emma, and since it is a manga he always sees her.

What I love most about this graphic novel is not the romance story though, it is the attention to traits of the Victorian society. In chapter three William Jones has a friend visit. His name is Hakim and he is Indian royalty. His entrance is a little eccentric, he arrives with a herd of elephants and belly dancers, later taking William on an elephant ride. While I felt that was a little extreme I did like how much it showed the interest of British people in the East. I think Mori made Hakim's entrance so extreme to show how the Victorian people had exotic ideas of the East.

In another scene Hakim and William are at the library and they find a book with photographs of scantily clad women. Hakim is not impressed and William makes a comment about the people in India not wearing clothes. Things like this made it interesting for me, it is very different from a Victorian novel but deals with a lot of the same issues. If I had to compare it to a none graphic novel, it kind of reminded me of Leonard Woolf.

To William's surprise, Hakim is also falling in love with Emma. Actually, everyone is falling in love with Emma (because it's manga). William goes to get a note to send to her and the girl at the counter says that several people have come to send a note to the exact same girl. Since it is a series there was no resolution left at the end, so if I want to find out more about the Hakim, William, Emma love triangle I suppose I will have to snag the second volume! Overall a good read if you're interested in Victorian history but are looking for something different. There is also a television show called Emma - A Victorian Romance Season 1

based on the manga.

Paperback: 192 pages
Publisher: CMX (September 20, 2006)
Language: English

I am an Amazon Affiliate. If you make a purchase using one of my links I will earn a small percentage which will then go back into this blog.

Last night I was searching for more great Victorian novels and reference books when I ran across Emma: A Victorian Romance. It's a Japanese anime that aired from 2002-2006. I'm sorry I didn't find out about it sooner because it's so quirky. I've never seen an anime where the characters were essentially white people, well except maybe Pokeman. I am amazed by how versatile anime has become.

The series is actually based of a 10 volume manga series that I found on Amazon. From what I understand Emma is a lower class maid living in London who falls in love with an upper class male named William Jones. This of course is the making of many great Victorian novels. I'm also totally in love with the lady of the house who I think is William Jones' old teacher. She says great Victorian standbys like, "It's just good manners" but you can tell that she has a soft spot for her maid.

You can watch the first episode (in Japanese with English subtitles) on Youtube.
Part One
Part Two
Part Three