Hachette Livre

Hachette Reading Group Guides

Welcome to our Reading Group guide for Rosetta by Barbara Ewing. We invite you to consider and discuss the following questions when reading this book:

  1. How easy is it to relate to Ewing’s central character? Do you sympathise with her? Would you make the same decisions as Rose? Do you agree with her decision to look for her husband’s child? Marry Hawksfield?
  2. When Rosetta’s husband dies, her late husband’s family expect to be able to control Rose as, through marriage, she belongs to them. How does Ewing’s portrayal of the balance of power in marriage in the 1800s compare with relationships today?
  3. Do the think that the women in the novel manage to retain their freedom? If so, how? And what similarities are there with today? Do some women still struggle to achieve independence from social and cultural expectations?
  4. What is the quality of life, and what are the opportunities available, for a young woman in the 1790s? What does Miss Proud think is happening to women’s opportunities, and why?
  5. Compare Rosetta with other historical novels you’ve read in recent years (e.g. Tracy Chevalier’s {The Girl With a Pearl Earring}, Phillipa Gregory’s {The Constant Princess}). How does Ewing’s novel complement, complicate, or depart altogether from the standard themes and trappings of the historical fiction genre?
  6. Female relationships are central to Rosetta—Mattie, Rose, Fanny, Miss Proud. How do the women’s friendships help empower the individual characters? Was it more important in 1800 than today?
  7. ‘Sentimental stories, and books of mere entertainment … should be sparingly used, especially in the education of girls. This species of reading cultivates what is called the heart prematurely.’ Do you agree with Maria Edgworth? Is Rose’s expectation that stories end happily a damaging one?
  8. In what ways has your perception of the Rosetta Stone changed as a result of reading Ewing’s book?
  9. What does the future hold for Rose and her family? For her cousin Fanny? Construct an outline in your head for a hypothetical epilogue set a decade after the last page of the novel. What has happened in the interim?
  10. Discuss the issue of class in the book: George’s desire to marry into society, the ‘new’ English aristocracy, how being a member of the upper class allows Harry to behave in a way that shocks Rose.
  11. What are the repercussions of the French Revolution on these characters: Rose, Rev. Horatio Harbottom, the Prince of Wales, Pierre Montand?

Current Reading Group Titles

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  9. City of Thieves by David Benioff
  10. Remembering The Bones by Frances Itani
  11. The Camel Bookmobile by Masha Hamilton
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  14. Sorrows of an American by Siri Hustvedt
  15. Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
  16. Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn
  17. The Sisterhood by Emily Barr
  18. The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
  19. The Rose Labyrinth by Titania Hardie
  20. The Return by Victoria Hislop
  21. A Small Part of History by Peggy Elliott
  22. A Carrion Death by Michael Stanley
  23. Scapegallows by Carol Birch
  24. Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh
  25. Prisoner of Tehran by Marina Nemat
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  27. Rose of Sebastopol by Katharine McMahon
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  29. Ghostwalk by Rebecca Stott
  30. The God of Animals by Aryn Kyle
  31. Golden Age by Tahmima Anam
  32. Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay
  33. The Keep by Jennifer Egan
  34. The Saffron Kitchen by Yasmin Crowther
  35. Pirate’s Daughter by Margaret Cezair-Thompson
  36. The Blood of Flowers by Anita Amirrezvani
  37. April in Paris by Michael Wallner
  38. Salmon Fishing in the Yemen by Paul Torday
  39. The Reader by Bernhard Schlink
  40. Born on a Blue Day by Daniel Tammet
  41. Red River by Lalita Tademy
  42. The Meaning of Night by Michael Cox
  43. Rosetta by Barbara Ewing
  44. The Mathematics of Love by Emma Darwin
  45. The Interpretation of Murder by Jed Rubenfeld
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