Teacher’s Guide Fallen Grace by Mary Hooper
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SYNOPSIS IN BRIEF
Beautiful Grace is fifteen; her mother is dead, her father hasn’t been heard of for years, and she has
run away from a training home for young women after being
abused by a one-handed man who made her pregnant. Grace‟s
baby is stillborn and she returns to her mentally disabled sister Lily
to desperately struggle to make ends meet by selling watercress on
the streets of London. Grace is plucked from this shattering poverty
by the Unwins: a family of fashionable undertakers, who employ
her as a mute, lending a tragic appearance to expensive funerals.
Little does she realise that her father made a fortune in South
America and died before he could return, and that the Unwins have
recognised Lily as London‟s most sought-after heiress . . .
A powerful coming-of-age story set in a beautifully realised
Victorian setting of slums and funeral fashions, a tale of virtue
rewarded and vice punished, Fallen Grace was nominated for the
2011 Carnegie Medal and selected as part of the 2010 Booked Up
scheme.
SYNOPSIS IN DETAIL
Grace is educated, bright and beautiful, but she is in a terrible situation. At the tender age of fifteen
she has to look after her mentally disabled sister. She has no other family, no friends and, worst of
all, she has to bury the baby who was the result of her abuse in a training home.
She can’t afford a proper burial so she sneaks the tragic bundle into an expensive casket on the
famed Necropolis Railway. At the funeral of the casket's intended inhabitant, Susannah Solent, the
deceased woman‟s brother, James Solent, sees Grace trip and offers her his card. She is also noticed
and given a card by the funeral organiser Mrs Unwin, who tells her that Grace's tragic beauty would
serve her business well as a mute.
Grace thinks little of these cards until she and Lily are thrown out of their home during a slum
clearance and have their meagre savings and all their possessions – even their shoes – stolen in a
dosshouse. At the Unwins‟ house, where Grace goes as her last resort, Mrs Unwin wants Grace but
will not take on Lily as well. However, her husband learns that Lily is being sought all over London
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because their father did not die as she and Grace thought, but actually made a fortune in the
Americas and Lily is therefore now an heiress! Mr George Unwin pretends to take Lily in out of
charity. The sisters are split up – Lily goes to the Unwins‟ home while Grace works at their huge
funeral parlour.
The Unwins need to convince Lily that they adopted her before news of the inheritance becomes
public, but Lily will not be persuaded. Eventually, the Unwins decide to send her away to an asylum
while coaching their own daughter to play Lily‟s part.
Grace sees James Solent, the young lawyer she met at the funeral, again and together they realise
what is happening. Grace steals the adoption papers that were forged to back up the Unwins‟ story,
but she is almost caught and has to hide in a cupboard from Mr George Unwin‟s brother, Sylvester.
As she watches, horrified, Sylvester takes off his glove and removes his false hand. She recognises
him as her abuser!
Sylvester discovers that the forged papers have been stolen and sets off in a fury. Grace hides them
in a coffin which is about to leave the Unwins‟ property. Shortly afterwards, the Unwins work out
that this must be how the adoption papers left the building, and Sylvester rushes off to find them.
Grace decides to race him through the fog . . .
Can Grace reach the Necropolis Railway station before him? And what will happen if she is forced to
confront her abuser? Can she and James persuade the police that the Unwins are lying? Can they
find Lily? Can the girls recover their rightful inheritance?
ABOUT MARY HOOPER
After leaving school without qualifications, Mary Hooper worked as a window
dresser and then in an office. She read a short story, thought she could do
better and sat down to type...
She has now been writing successful young adult fiction, both contemporary
and historical, for more than twenty years. Fallen Grace was nominated for the 2011 Carnegie
Medal and At the Sign of the Sugared Plum was selected as part of the 2010 Booked Up scheme.
www.maryhooper.co.uk
AUSTRALIAN HIGH SCHOOL CURRICULUM USE:
Senior Modern History Unit 1- The Industrial Revolutions, 1750-1890s
Year 8 English – Thematic Unit ‘Love and Hate’
Year 9 History - Victorian England
Year 9 English – Thematic Unit ‘Heroes and the Quest Narrative’
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Year 12 Extension 1 English – Thematic Unit ‘Gender and Language’
FALLEN GRACE: DISCUSSION
1. "The few women whose nervous tension allowed them to attend." (pg. 1)
"She had never travelled on a train before." (pg. 2)
"She had given birth to a child, and the child had died." (pg. 4)
How does Hooper set the scene? Why does she start with the invitation above the chapter heading?
What does the comment about "nervous tension" say about how women were expected to react to
death? What has changed between then and now? What assumptions do you make about Grace
based on the fact that she's never been on a train before? And that she's had a child?
2. "She was a merry girl . . . All the talk of hearses and horses and how long we should wear
mourning clothes – that is not Susannah! My father seeks to build an Egyptian Mausoleum over her
body and have an eternal flame burning, but none of that will bring her back." (pg. 34)
What does Hooper think of Victorian funeral practices? How does this play out in the rest of the
book?
3. "Someone has cut out one of these advertisements. Perhaps they meant to answer it. I wonder
what it said?" (pg. 57)
What did you think when you read this sentence? Can you find another sentence where Hooper
drops in a clue but does not explain it? Where in chapters do these clues tend to occur? Why?
4. "They had paid considerably over the odds to secure their membership to the club, for being
“trade” rather than “society”, by rights they shouldn't have been there at all." (pg. 58)
These, we learn, are the Unwin brothers, our villains. Should the club have refused to make them
members? If so, why? Is it because the club should not let in people who are trade, rather than
society, however much money they have? Or for some other reason?
5. "Just the usual: several substitutions of painted chipboard for oak." (pg. 60)
When did you realise that these were the Unwins, and they were talking about coffins? What is
wrong with substituting chipboard for oak? Is it because Hooper thinks bodies should be buried in
the best, most expensive coffins possible? Or is it because, whatever the rights and wrongs of
expensive coffins, the Unwins are wrong to cheat people?
Is Hooper's real point not about the coffins, but about the Unwins?
6. "That man might come for me again!" (pg. 64)
When you learnt that both Lily and Grace were abused in the training house, did you think we would
meet their abuser later in the story? Were you looking out for a one-handed man? What would you
have felt if you didn't meet the abuser in the book?
7. "At Brookwood the woman had mentioned the sum of five shillings just to appear as a mute at
one funeral." (pg. 108)
Why didn't Grace take the five shillings earlier? Would you have done?
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8. 'The weather was growing colder now, and crêpe, although the most fashionable fabric for both
the bereaved and the funeral mute, was not comfortable to wear, for it didn't keep out the wind
and, at the faintest hint of damp in the air, would attach itself clammily to one's limbs." (pg. 128)
"The only thing to mar this stylish outfit was the fact that she had no elegant shoes." (pg. 268)
Does Hooper have a message about fashion? Who dresses fashionably and why? Mrs Unwin is
"fashionable". Sylvester Unwin takes enormous pride in his appearance (pg. 183). Is this a good
thing? What is the difference between these mentions of fashion and Grace‟s pleasure when she
gets to wear nice dresses at the end?
9. "Only ten shillings! Well, as long as he kept them coming." (pg. 125)
In the end, Mr Unwin doesn‟t keep them coming and Mrs Beaman breaks his trust. Who is
motivated by money in the book and who is not? Is it a reasonable motivation? Or is it sometimes
reasonable and sometimes not? Or is it never reasonable?
10. "At midday the gravediggers stopped to eat their newspaper-wrapped hunks of bread and
cheese and, with no one to consider, didn't hesitate to throw the paper, discarded rind and apple
cores into the burial pit after." (pg. 131)
Why is Grace shocked by this? Is it the contrast with posh funerals? But aren't they a waste of
money? On pg. 134 Grace wonders whether it matters at all what coffin people are buried in, or if
they are robbed. Is it her own personal story – the fact that her baby would have been buried in such
a grave – that makes her think this? What do you think of what the gravediggers did? Does it
matter? Why?
11. "One black-leather-clad hand." (pg. 136)
"I was late – crept into the church and sat in the back pew." (pg. 160)
"That smell; that acrid, sugary smell." (pg. 185)
Did you realise what these sentences were hinting at? Were you surprised that Sylvester Unwin was
the one-handed man?
12. "Sylvester Unwin screamed in terror, clutched his heart and fell to the floor, dead." (pg. 253)
Is this justice? Did Grace mean to kill him? Do you like her more if she didn‟t intend to? If she did
intend to, would that have been all right?
13. "She said at the time that it seemed the right and proper thing to do." (pg. 291)
Was it? Did "Mrs Smith" give the baby a better start in life? Or would it have been better to leave
the child with Grace? What would have happened to Grace under those circumstances?
14. Grace is beautiful. This is why she gets the card from Mrs Unwin. Is it why she also gets the card
from James Solent? Does her escape from poverty depend upon her beauty?
15. Grace is an heiress. This is also vital to her ultimate rescue. What would have happened to her if
she was not an heiress?
16. At what point did you realise that the Robinsons' baby was Grace's? What gave you the clue?
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17. “For the Lord's sake, are you just having this child as a prop to go a-begging with?” asked the
midwife suddenly." (pg. 9)
What do you think of this question? Is it unfair of the midwife? Do people make similar accusations
about young single mothers today? What has changed and what is different?
18. "Lily turned away and trudged home, too traumatised to cry, while Mr Morrell and Ernie the
candlestub seller admired the Meissen teapot, safe on the secret shelf below the pawnbroker's
counter." (pg. 29)
What is the difference between this deception and the one practised on Lily by the Unwins? Is it
worse to trick someone who is mentally handicapped than someone who isn't?
FURTHER READING
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Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly
The Explosionist by Jenny Davidson
At the House of the Magician by Mary Hooper
Velvet by Mary Hooper
The Double Life of Cassiel Roadnight by Jenny Valentine
Montacute House by Lucy Jago
OTHER BOOKS BY MARY HOOPER
Historical:
The Betrayal
By Royal Command
At the House of the Magician
The Extraordinary Life and Times of Eliza Rose
Petals in the Ashes
At the Sign of the Sugared Plum
Contemporary:
Zara
Chelsea and Astra
Amy
Holly
Megan 1-3
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