If Ouida is remembered for a singular contribution to the advancement of creative writing among her many talents in the art of wordcraft, then recognition should go to the rich descriptions of setting found in several of her greatest novels. Almost every novel in the Italian set, for instance, contains descriptions of Italy that have been widely regarded as some of the best of their kind. Listed here are six of her most visually compelling narrative settings—all of which include vivid sketches of place written in the author's trademark style: 1. Under Two Flags (1867) - Algeria In this novel, one of Ouida's most popular works, we encounter the sights, sounds, and songs of life in a North African cityscape. Here, Ouida frequently draws upon the heat of the desert climate to infuse a sense of feeling into her literary portraits. Likewise, she uses the presence of moonlight to add a quality of "mystique" to the novel's nighttime scenes: “Cecil obeyed, passed up the terrace stairs, and stood before his Colonel, giving the salute; the shade of some acacias still fell across him, while the party he fronted were in all the glow of a full Algerian moon, and of the thousand lamps among the belt of flowers and trees. Cigarette gave another sharp deep-drawn breath, and lay as mute and motionless as she had done before then, among the rushes of some dried brook's bed...” (Ouida’s Works, P. F. Collier 250) 2. Folle Farine (1871) - Normandy Ouida was especially skillful in depicting the quaintness of village life in farming and peasant communities. In Folle Farine, Ouida uses setting to recreate the closed world of a Norman village. Looking deeper, we find that this world is microcosmic in its janus-faced humanity: “At that moment, through the roadway that wound across the meadows and through the corn lands and the trees, there came in sight a gleam of scarlet that was not from the poppies, a flash of silver that was not from the river, a column of smoke that was not from the weeds that burned on the hillside. There came a moving cloud, with a melodious murmur softly rising from it; a cloud that moved between the high flowering hedges, the tall amber wheat, the slender poplars, and the fruitful orchards; a cloud that grew larger and clearer as it drew more near to them, and left the green water-meadows and the winding field-paths for the great highroad.” (Lippincott 80) 3. In Maremma (1882) - Maremma Some of the scenes from this novel are so naturalistic that they could easily be mistaken for an article in a botanical journal or a treatise on the wildlife of Maremma. Page after page of this book is devoted to describing a hauntingly beautiful and lonely Tuscan landscape: “…the fragrant hesperis of the shore. These cliffs were fine bold bluffs, and one of them had been called from time immemorial the Sasso Scritto, — why, no one knew; the only writing on it was done by the hand of Nature. It was steep and lofty; on its summit were the ruins of an old fortress of the middle ages; its sides were clothed with myrtle, aloe, and rosemary, and at its feet were boulders of marble, rose and white in the sun; rock pools, with exquisite network of sunbeams crossing their rippling surface, and filled with green ribbon-grasses.” (Chatto & Windus 12) 4. Wanda (1883) - Austria Descriptions of setting in this novel are so icy that I can almost see my breath if I read its passages aloud. Ouida creates a wintery wonderland that approximates the polar opposite of what Under Two Flags achieves with its desert setting: “Here, where the foaming rivers thunder through their rocky channels, and the ice-bastions of a thousand glaciers glow in the sunrise and bar the sight of sunset,—here, where a thousand torrents bathe in silver the hill-sides, and the deep moan of subterranean waters sounds forever through the silence of the gorges, dark with the serried pines,—here, in the green and cloudy Austrian land, the merry trout have many a joyous home, but none is fairer or more beloved by them than this lovely lake of Hohenszalras, so green that it might have been made of emeralds dissolved in sunbeams, so deep that at its centre no soundings can be taken, so lonely that of the few wanderers who pass from Sanct Johannim Wald or from Lend to Matrey, even of those few scarce one in a summer will know that a lake lies there, though they see from afar off its great castle standing, many-turreted and pinnacled, with its frowning keep, backed by the vast black forests, clothing slopes whose summits hide themselves in cloud, whilst through the cold clear air the golden vulture and the throated eagle wing their way.” (Ouida’s Works, P. F. Collier 18) 5. Pascarel (1873) - Florence Reading Ouida's Pascarel, one can tell that the author had a special place in her heart for Florence and its many charms. It is no wonder, then, that Ouida would decide to permanently relocate to Villa Farinola at Scandicci around the time of the novel's initial publication. Ultimately, it became the place where she would live out most of her adult life: “The beauty of the past in Florence is like the beauty of the great Duomo. About the Duomo there is stir and strife at all times; crowds come and go; men buy and sell; lads laugh and fight; piles of fruit blaze gold and crimson; metal pails clash down on the stones with shrillest clangor; on the steps boys play at dominoes, and women give their children food, and merry maskers grin in Carnival fooleries; but there in their midst is the Duomo all unharmed and undegraded, a poem and a prayer in one, its marbles shining in the upper air, a thing so majestic in its strength, and yet so human in its tenderness, that nothing can assail, and nothing equal it.” (Ouida’s Works, P.F. Collier 95) 6. Ariadne (1877) - Rome
Rome, like Paris and London, makes an appearance in more than one of Ouida's novels. Some of Ouida's most captivating descriptions of Rome, however, are found in the novel Ariadne. The way that she handles Rome's many sculptures, monuments, and fountains is especially satisfying: “And best of them all I love my own fountain that tumbles out of the masonry here close to the bridge of Sextus, and has its two streams crossing one another like sabres gleaming bright against the dark, damp, moss-grown stones. There are so many fountains in our Rome, glorious, beautiful, and springing to high heaven, that nobody notices this one much, as coming down through the Via Giulia the throngs hurry on over the bridge, few I fear praying for the soul of the man that built it, —as the inscription asks of you to do, with a humility that is touching in a pontiff.” (Ouida's Works, P. F. Collier 464)
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