2026 Thumbnail Review #16 Sarah de Berenger by Jean Ingelow

This was published in twelve monthly instalments by Good Words in 1880, like Hardy’s The Trumpet-Major (see review #15). A direct comparison is therefore possible. And it’s fascinating: if they were published anonymously, it wouldn’t be possible to detect which was by the famous author and which by the allegedly ‘minor’ writer Jean Ingelow. Sarah de Berenger is very well written, it has the same kind of coincidences and incidents that characterise Hardy’s novels, and the same potential disasters haunt the major characters.

Curiously, the main protagonist is not Sarah, but a poor woman, Hannah Dill, who seeks to protect her children from their abusive and imprisoned father by adopting the name de Berenger. This leads to the central series of misunderstandings by which she and her children become adopted by the real de Berenger family. Hardy-like events unspool across the twelve instalments, with cliff-hangers strategically placed at the end of monthly episodes.

It’s not a great novel, but it stands well in comparison to its more famous companion piece of 1880.