The Tale of Castle Cottage

The Tale of Castle Cottage

By Susan Witting Albert

3 ½ Out of 5 Covers

The Tale of Castle Cottage is the last in the Cottage Tales of Beatrix Potter.  This has been an overall charming mystery series that began when Potter bought Hill Top Farm after the tragic death of her first fiancé through to her marriage to Will Heelis in this final volume.  As an examination of a small English village at the beginning of the twentieth century, it is full of charm and warmth that can only really exist in fiction.  While this is a fictionalized history, the author made the wise choice to have Beatrix never directly involved in the mysteries, merely having a knack for putting the facts together while she worried about her next publication or her nagging parents.  There was also the excellent element that, a la Beatrix Potter, the animals in the village interacted and had their own adventures.   

The series was marred about halfway through as it seemed like another author took over.  This was evident when the third book explored the popular question of the time about the existence of faeries, settling on a magical realism that did not come down on a definitive answer.  Then the fourth book began by stating that faeries are absolutely real, a complete change from the previous choice.  Additionally, previously important characters were shunted to the side once they were happily married.  And there was an increasingly intrusive narrator.

So how does this volume stack up to the rest of the series?  Somewhere between the wonderful start and the less successful middle.  Beatrix is now engaged to Will Heelis, but has yet to tell her parents, who disapprove of everything she does.  A very valuable book has gone missing from Tidmarsh Manor.  There is something strange with the contractor’s invoices for the remodel of Potter’s Castle Cottage.  A gang of rats have moved into town, much to the civilized animals’ dismay.  And then one of the contractors turns up dead.

The variety of plots has always been a strength of the series.  It allows for everyone to have something different at risk, which makes for compelling drama.  Not every book has involved a murder, but there has been plenty of mystery and action.  And the author makes sure to drop in on as many characters as possible to get their opinions and any updates about their lives.

There are a few slights against this particular volume.  One is that the rat story had been done before, so this felt like a retread.  And then, while the missing book is found (quite coincidentally), the reason it was lost has to be explained by the narrator rather than by any character discovering the chain of events.  That the narrator has to give any sort of exposition to this degree should not be allowed.

Overall, this is a pleasant conclusion to the series, finishing with Beatrix’s marriage.  The author reined in many of her excesses from the previous books and while it was not quite a return to form to the first few, it was a reminder of what used to be.