General Belinda

Carnie Holdsworth, E. and Smalley, R. (2019) General Belinda. The Ethel Carnie Holdsworth Series. Kennedy & Boyd, Edinburgh, pp226. ISBN 9781849211369

Abstract/Summary

General Belinda (1924) was the sixth published novel written by Lancashire mill-woman, Ethel Carnie Holdsworth. It first appeared as “Belinda: The Story of a Domestic Servant” in the Co-operative periodical, The Wheatsheaf. General Belinda is a picaresque adventure about the trials and tribulations of domestic service. ‘General’ Belinda is a maid-of-all work who, in the manner of P. G. Wodehouse’s Jeeves, puts her employers’ lives and affairs to right. Comedy is the striking note, but Carnie Holdsworth was adept at putting light fiction to work for feminist-Marxist politics. The novel is a radical feminist critique of early twentieth-century domestic service, written from the rare perspective of a working-class woman.