Novel 065: Charlotte Riddell, Too Much Alone (1860)

Sir William Quiller Orchardson, The Chinese Cabinet

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An orphaned gentlewoman is married and then neglected by her hard-working chemist husband.

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Charlotte Elizabeth Riddell (1832-1906) wrote over fifty works of fiction between 1856 and 1900, often set, like this one, among middle-class denizens of London.

“A well-conceived, well-wrought-out story, which has an air of human truth and reality about it which novels do not often possess.” Athenaeum, March 17, 1860.

“A thoroughly good novel” distinguished by “its downright reality”; practical scientists in charge of factories are brought “living before us, in very flesh and blood, not a blotch or stain overlooked.” Spectator, March 31, 1860

Download this week’s novel:

v.1 http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_000000049DA6#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=4&xywh=2%2C374%2C2173%2C1604

v.2 http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_000000049DAC#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=4&xywh=-263%2C-171%2C3050%2C2252

v.3 http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_000000049DB2#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=4&xywh=-143%2C0%2C2779%2C2051

Novel 064: Anna Harriet Drury, Friends and Fortune (1849)

George Frederic Watts, Miss May Prinsep

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To test her relatives, an heiress switches identities with her companion.

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Anna Harriet Drury (1824-1912) wrote some 16 novels between 1849 and 1891.  This one, despite intermittent downpours of religiosity, provides some excellent social comedy.

“It is at once amusing and instructive, genial and healthful. . . . Miss Drury’s style is peculiarly correct and elegant.  She writes, indeed, simple, honest, unaffected English, quite refreshing after the artificial semi-barbarous Teutonic gibberish of the day. . . .  Miss Drury . . . has a natural dramatic faculty—the power of entering into the feelings of others, and speaking in their persons.” English Review, March 1849

“Her perceptions are lively and keen, and her powers of delineating manners and character might well be compared with those of authors ‘of mark and likelihood.’  Her style is racy, animated, and easy, often pointed and epigrammatic. . . . The story is told in a pleasant and genial spirit; and although pervaded . . . by an earnest religious tone, it is so far from being bilious or melancholic that many a hearty laugh is to be enjoyed at the strokes of humour scattered through its lively pages.  If Miss Drury is a serious thinker, . . . she has also a relish for a joke, and a keen perception of the ludicrous.” Morning Chronicle, April 14, 1849

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https://archive.org/details/friendsandfortu00drurgoog

Novel 063: Mrs. Alexander, Ralph Wilton's Weird (1875)

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An aristocratic officer, threatened with disinheritance unless he marries well, is attracted to a mysterious girl.

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Here is another, shorter novel by Mrs. Alexander (See Novel 001), with an easily guessable but entertaining plot and an interestingly complex heroine.

“In spite of the plot being . . . commonplace, the story runs well in the artistic hands of the author; the characters are definite, the heroine charming, and the result agreeable to the reader.” Athenaeum, April 3, 1875

“The characters . . . are well sketched”; “the story, though slight, is . . . one which from its brightness and play of fancy is sure to please.” Morning Post, June 4, 1875

Download this week’s novel:

v.1 https://archive.org/details/ralphwiltonswei01hectgoog/page/n4

v.2 https://archive.org/details/ralphwiltonswei00hectgoog/page/n4

Novel 062: Anne Elliot, Edith Romney, M.D.

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A female doctor attempts to establish a practice in a provincial town.

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Anne Elliot (1856-1941) wrote 13 novels, of which this was the first, between 1883 and 1903.  Like her protagonist here, she was a doctor’s daughter; the novel’s representation of the plight of a Victorian woman seeking a professional career, though somewhat undermined by its dénouement, is vivid and touching.

“A fresh and clever story. . . . Several of the subordinate characters, though little more than sketches, are vividly drawn, and the whole tone of life in a prosperous, but highly Philistine, provincial town is cleverly caught.” Academy, October 20, 1883

“The writer of this novel is manifestly very much in earnest.  There is an unmistakeable reality, a ring of genuine passion, in her complaints of the folly and caprice which deny to her heroine her legitimate career.”  Spectator, November 10, 1883

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v.1 https://archive.org/details/dredithromneyan02elligoog/page/n11

v.2 https://archive.org/details/dredithromneyan00elligoog/page/n4

v.3 https://archive.org/details/dredithromneyan01elligoog/page/n8

Novel 061: M.E. Braddon, Lost for Love (1874)

William Powell Frith - The Artist’s Model

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A rising doctor, a beautiful heiress, an impulsive young painter, and a poor city girl are entangled by love and betrayal. 

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The great M.E. Braddon (see Novel 004) was among the most often and unjustly maligned of Victorian novelists.  Contemporary critics never tired of blaming her for Lady Audley’s Secret (1862), as the worst consequence of an unhealthy vogue for “sensation novels.”  And her improbable plots are easy to mock.  At the same time, they are consistently engrossing; while her characters are vivid and often surprisingly complex, her settings evocative, and her style subtle, witty, and exact.

“When our fault-finding is done with we thank Miss Braddon for a treat.  Her novels are always agreeable reading and have as much genuine merit as would set up a dozen of her rivals.  Her descriptions of Voysey Street and other districts are delightful.” Sunday Times, September 27, 1874

“The real secret of her success is that her people are exactly the same kind of commonplace, everyday folk as we are ourselves, and as our friends are.” Observer, September 27, 1874

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v.1 (Tauchnitz ed.) https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_5HAdetMocuQC/page/n5

v.2 (Tauchnitz ed.) https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_lNzrF7wZ5JsC/page/n7

Novel 060: Anne Beale, Gladys the Reaper (1860)

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An Irish orphan seeks her Welsh relations.

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Anne Beale (1816-1900) wrote some twenty novels between 1844 and 1891.  This one, set in her native Wales, has vivid characters and an endearingly contrived plot (though the treacle does run a little thick in the last volume).

A “half-pastoral Welsh story”; the plot “may be said perhaps rather to have been well felt than cunningly devised.  It is unquestionably interesting, but a quiet sense of what is good and beautiful in life is the chief grace of the tale.” Examiner, October 27, 1860

“An interesting, natural story, written with evident care and pains.” Athenaeum, November 10, 1860

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v.1 https://archive.org/details/gladysreaperbya03bealgoog

v.2 https://archive.org/details/gladysreaperbya02bealgoog

v.3 https://archive.org/details/gladysreaperbya00bealgoog

Novel 059: Justin McCarthy, Linley Rochford (1874)

George Elgar Hicks, A Gypsy Girl

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A marriage goes wrong.

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Justin McCarthy (1830-1912), an important Irish politician as well as a journalist and novelist, published some 25 works of fiction between 1866 and 1901.  The contrast here between the attitudes of the husband and wife towards life and each other is particularly well delineated.

“Mr. McCarthy’s language is correct and well chosen: the events of his story bear each its due and proportionate share in working it out; his scene is not over-crowded with characters, and those whom he introduces are reasonable, probable, and consistent with themselves.” Athenaeum, October 10, 1874

“Besides their general truthfulness to nature, there is mostly to be discovered playing round the several characters that lambent flame of humour which is serviceable in lighting up particular traits and idiosyncracies, and setting them clearly in the reader’s eye.” Examiner, October 17, 1874

“A close observer and excellent delineator of character, Mr. McCarthy contrives to combine in his portraits reality and originality, and while he does not disdain to mention trifling incidents and minute but distinctive traits, he never wearies by prolixity.” Morning Post, October 22, 1874

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v.1: http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_000000048C36#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=0&xywh=-1144%2C-246%2C3754%2C2524

v.2: http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_000000048C72#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=6&xywh=-246%2C0%2C2958%2C1988

v.3: http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_000000048C8A#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=6&xywh=-217%2C0%2C2994%2C2012

Novel 058: Julia Day, The Old Engagement (1851)

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A middle-aged woman on a visit to a friend meets again the man who loved her in youth.

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Nothing is known of Julia Day except that she wrote two novels, of which this was the first.  Its unusual lack of conflict is oddly refreshing, its characters—and the society they collectively evoke— vivid and lifelike.

“One of the most cheerful books that we ever read, . . . full of cordiality and comfort and delicate little markings of character.” Athenaeum, November 29, 1851

“As well-knit and compact a story in a small compass as we ever remember to have seen. This tale is a perfect gem in its way, the materials and the workmanship, to employ the chapmen's phrase, being worthy of each other. The events are so perfectly natural, the characters are drawn with such truth and vivacity, and the whole is set before us with such beautiful, unlaboured grace of style, that we are rapidly, but insensibly, carried from the first page to the last, with a feeling at the end, we must acknowledge, of disappointment that we have not more. . . . Though the space be small in which they have to display themselves,” the characters “are painted with a minuteness and finish worthy of a literary velvet Brueghel.” Bentley’s Miscellany, 1852

“A pleasant book, well written, and full of wholesome morality.” American Whig Review, September, 1852

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http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_00000003D5D8#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=0&xywh=-807%2C-129%2C2986%2C2562

Novel 057: Constance Fenimore Woolson, Anne (1882)

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A woman grows up on Michigan’s Mackinac Island, then moves east.

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Constance Fenimore Woolson (1840-1894), the  grandniece of James Fenimore Cooper, published some six novels.  This one shows much variety:  regionalist detail at the beginning, social satire in the middle, melodrama (and the Civil War) at the end.

“We venture to say that Anne is one of the most remarkable works of fiction that has appeared for many years.  It is remarkable for its own sake—for animation of plot and variety of character; and it is remarkable also as holding a place midway between the old American novel of incident and the modern American novel of analysis.”  Academy, July 21, 1882

“The reader is held under the delightful impression, not that he is to find something in the next chapter to reward him, but that every turn and eddy in the stream will be worth his attention. . . .  As to characters, they crowd the stage with an assemblage of powerfully-drawn actors, each marked with unmistakable individuality.”  Independent, Sept. 7, 1882

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https://archive.org/details/annenove00wool

Novel 056: Margaret Oliphant, The Unjust Steward (1896)

Sir David Wilkie, A Bookcase

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A poor clergyman places himself in a moral quandary.

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This is one of the last of Oliphant’s hundred-some novels (for others see Novels 007 & 008).  She had been publishing for almost half a century and had come to seem old-fashioned.  The Academy’s critic, for example, after confessing a “sneaking fondness” for Oliphant, points out that she “began to write before the days when fiction became an art, and no doubt her conceptions of the possibilities and obligations of her calling are, in comparison with modern lights, limited.” This false perception of the culture of 1849 says a lot about that of 1896.  Anyway, old or not, Oliphant provides here a searching analysis of a complex, ambivalent, self-deceived character’s struggles to reconcile the moral with the expedient.

We are “transported by the writer’s easy art into an old-world atmosphere, redolent of the true flavour of a social humour not quite forgotten, but sufficiently removed from the commonplace banalities, the sexual problems, and the topical ingenuities of the day.”  Athenaeum, December 19, 1896

Oliphant’s “stories are always characterised by an old-world courtliness and a wonderful sympathy with the thoughts and feelings of old and young alike.  Everything she puts her pen to is thoroughly entertaining.”  Liverpool Mercury, December 23, 1896

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http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_00000004248C#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=0&xywh=-722%2C-129%2C2990%2C2565

Novel 055: Annie Keary, Janet's Home (1863)

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The lives of a scholar, his disinherited Welsh wife, and their four children.

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Annie Keary (1825-1879) wrote some ten novels between 1856 and her death.  The early chapters of this one, recounting the narrator’s emergence from childhood, are especially effective.

“Lovers of incident may find it tedious; but it is a book of much earnest and deep thought. . . . Each portrait is complete.” Reader, Nov. 14, 1863

It has “a simple, realistic power that enlists our sympathies at once.”   The story “is slight in itself, but receives weight and dignity from the subtle insight into character exhibited by the authoress.” London Review, Dec. 19, 1863

“Not only is the narrative carried on with the utmost simplicity, but it is not indebted for a single particle of the effect to anything beyond the legitimate action and probable complications of simple and natural causes.” Saturday Review, January 9, 1864

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http://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/primo-explore/fulldisplay?docid=oxfaleph014525999&context=L&vid=SOLO&search_scope=LSCOP_ALL&tab=local&lang=en_US

Novel 054: W.E. Norris, Thirlby Hall (1884)

John Lavery, A Conquest, a Heart for a Rose

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A young man becomes entangled with a scapegrace cousin and a charming adventuress.

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This was Norris’s fourth novel, and like his third, No New Thing (see Novel 002)—and like the author’s 60-some other novels and story collections—it features a witty, lucid style and carefully defined, memorable characters.  So by 1884 the most prestigious critics are already getting tired of him.  “Exceedingly tedious,” says the Athenaeum; the Academy finds only the first volume meritorious; the Saturday Review dismisses the whole as “too clever.”  Nothing annoys professional critics so much as the consistent excellence that explains itself, doesn’t develop into something new, and so leaves them nothing to say. 

“It is distinguished by a singular mellowness of tone and perfection of style, as well as by its power to enchain the reader’s interest from first to last.  The author’s way of regarding society is agreeably dispassionate; he is satirical without being sardonic, and treats wrongdoing with a severity that is free from despair.”  Chicago Tribune, February 9, 1884

“Easy description, keen observation of the foibles of people, and presentment of characters in excellent relief.” New York Times, February 11, 1884

“One of the most interesting novels that we have come across for a long time, pleasant to read as regards both substance and style, clear and fresh in its delineations of character, and thoroughly healthy in tone throughout. . . .  Mr Norris’s finished sketches are not less accurate than easy, and . . . have a vigour and originality not often traceable in the fiction of the day.”  Observer, May 18, 1884.

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http://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/primo-explore/fulldisplay?docid=oxfaleph014580025&context=L&vid=SOLO&search_scope=LSCOP_ALL&tab=local&lang=en_US

Novel 053: Charlotte Yonge, The Daisy Chain (1856)

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The eleven motherless children of a town doctor grow up.

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I have featured over 50 novelists during this website’s first year; I now return to some favorites, and first to Charlotte Yonge (Novel 003).  She is not utterly forgotten—there is a website devoted to her work, run by a club which also publishes a journal—but in a properly ordered world she would have at least as many readers as, say, Charles Dickens. If her religiosity seems tedious to the modern reader (as it did even to many of her contemporaries), so does Dickens’s sentimentality.  But like Dickens she creates a vivid, unforgettable world like that of no other writer, one in which the sympathetic reader cannot spend too much time. This is the first of the long (it is half as long again as the average three-volume Victorian novel) “family chronicles” that represent her most distinctive work.

“Each character speaks so naturally for itself that the reader seems to be one of the ‘Chain,’ and sitting in family conclave round the hearth. . . .  So many young heroes and heroines with their instructors” allow Yonge “ample opportunities for exercising her peculiar genius for minute sketches of character.” Athenaeum, April 5, 1856 

“This work is . . . a minutely detailed, and highly finished picture of one of our dear English homes, with its loves and losses, trials and triumphs.  Here our authoress is in her element, depicting home scenes, and home ease and freedom: she evidently delights in the little social kingdom she creates.  This lady is alone in the beauty with which she delineates children’s characters”; they are “real flesh and blood, treading their paths with stumbles and falls like the rest of us.” British Quarterly Review, July 1856

The characters “become as familiar to us as real acquaintances. . . . Reading the ‘Daisy Chain’ is like taking a walk through a plain country, which does not appear romantic at first sight” and feeling “the sense of living joy which animates creation.” New Quarterly Review, July 1856

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http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_000000043BD8#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=6&xywh=-90%2C-246%2C2791%2C2394

Novel 052: Anne Manning, The Ladies of Bever Hollow (1858)

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A refined invalid lady, living with her healthy sister, helps younger neighbors with their problems.

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Anne Manning (1807-1879), author of over forty novels, made her reputation with historical stories narrated in period style; this, however, has a contemporary setting:  subtly realized characters are quietly placed in serio-comic conflict.

“A charming story, healthy and genial, and with a simplicity of construction befitting a story of English country life.” Sharpe’s London Journal, July, 1858

“Thoroughly English . . . a physician might successfully recommend the perusal of these volumes to any patient . . . instead of a change of air. . . . The characters are drawn from nature . . . not the old property-characters from the novelist’s stores.”  Manning is “a literary Gainsborough.”  Athenaeum, July 3, 1858

“It may do some thoughtless people good to learn how much of beauty and of interest can be found or fancied in the lives of two old maids.”  London Review, October, 1858.

Download this week’s novel:

v.1: https://archive.org/details/ladiesofbeverhol01mann

v.2: https://archive.org/details/ladiesofbeverhol02mann

Novel 051: Susan Morley, Aileen Ferrers (1874)

William Maw Egley, A Young Lady Fishing

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A sixteen-year-old girl, newly engaged to a gamekeeper, is suddenly adopted by a long-lost aristocratic aunt.

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Susan Morley (according to Adrian Room’s Dictionary of Pseudonyms she was Sarah Frances Spedding, 1836-1921) published five novels between 1874 and 1888.  Nothing more is known of her.  In this, her first novel, the style, pacing, characterization, and setting are all impressively assured, and the plot dilemma interestingly handled. 

“Its unforced pathos and simple language, its delicate contrasts of light and shade, its knowledge of dramatic effect with true insight into human nature, combine to render it an uncommon book . . . a singularly graceful story, told in . . . a singularly pure and unaffected style.” Academy, June 20, 1874

“It is a charming prose idyll, well and simply told; its seeming simplicity being the result of consummate art.  Tender, pathetic, and truthful to nature, it . . . is no ephemeral novel.  As a study of character it cannot fail to take a high place in literature.  Moreover there is a completeness and finish about it, even as a mere tale, which is quite refreshing.  In her delineations of character Miss Morley is peculiarly exhaustive without being tedious.  Fearful lest our unqualified admiration might have run away with our critical judgment we have carefully and dispassionately sought for a flaw in this graceful story, but have found none.  Its style, diction, and purity of thought combine to render it one of the most perfect novels it has ever been our good fortune to meet with.” Morning Post, August 31, 1874

“What strikes us . . . is the tact with which Miss Morley manages her characters” and “the common sense view which Miss Morley takes of life.”  Westminster Review, October 1874

Download this week’s novel:

v.1 http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_00000004EC84#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=6&xywh=-275%2C0%2C3168%2C1977

v.2 http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_00000004EC8A#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=0&xywh=-1266%2C-126%2C4013%2C2505

Novel 050: J. Sheridan Le Fanu, Uncle Silas (1864)

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A shy young heiress is left in the care of her uncle, a suspected murderer.

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J. Sheridan Le Fanu (1814-1873), an Irish journalist and novelist, wrote some 20 novels beginning in 1845; he specialized in the creation of eerie atmosphere.

Though sometimes strained and improbable, this novel “is rather to be taken as a highly wrought romance than as a picture of mere every-day life and its issues.  Enough that the novel is well-written, paints some strongly-wrought dream figures, and one or two very well-drawn characters of real substantial life, that it also excites curiosity, and sustains a very strong interest from the beginning to the end."  Examiner, December 24, 1864.

“Mr. Le Fanu has the gift of working upon the imagination of his readers, until every description of still life—a room, a picture, a piece of furniture, the entire house—becomes instinct with significance. . . .  The author’s artistic imagination touches every object, however small or apparently insignificant, giving them a meaning like a song without words.” Athenaeum, January 7, 1865.

La Fanu “is feverishly intent on producing a series of Rembrandt effects. . . . Seen through this ghostly medium, all the characters, from the principals to the merest supernumerary, appear more or less weird or unearthly.”  Saturday Review, February 4, 1865.

Download this week's novel:

https://archive.org/details/unclesilastaleof00lefa_0

Novel 049: Julia Cecilia Stretton, Mr. and Mrs. Asheton (1859)

Alfred Elmore, Supplication

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A virtuous young lady marries a proud aristocrat.

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Julia Cecilia Stretton (1812-1878) wrote some eleven novels in middle age, between 1855 and 1869. In this, a good style and several entertaining minor characters make up for a sometimes strained plot with a sentimental conclusion.

It is “impossible to get through its first chapter without experiencing an unwonted degree of interest which will grow” as the reader proceeds.  “The author departs . . . from established custom in not making marriage the climax of the story.” Spectator, November 12, 1859

“A novel of great merit, exhibitng the constructive faculty of the author in a very high degree, and written in an easy, practised style.” Observer, November 14, 1859

“Very agreeable . . . full of interest, and totally without . . . affectation.”  Literary Gazette, November 26, 1859

Download this week’s novel:

v.1 https://archive.org/details/mrmrsasheton01stre

v.2 https://archive.org/details/mrmrsasheton02stre

v.3 https://archive.org/details/mrmrsasheton03stre

Novel 048: Frank Smedley, Frank Fairlegh (1850)

Louise Rayner, Oxford

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Four pupils of a private tutor have adventures, grow up, and meet various fates.

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Frank Smedley (1818-1864), a journalist and editor, wrote only four novels before succumbing to ill health in middle age.  This, his first (serialized 1846-48) features amusing (if flat) characters, a pleasant style, and an often silly but usually entertaining plot. (The novel, by the way, is partly set in Cambridge, not Oxford—but I like this painting.)

The characters “are nicely and unaffectedly marked. They . . . get into scrapes in a manner sufficiently easy and natural.”  The author’s “style is clear of trick and vulgarity” and “his scenes are alive.”  Athenaeum, April 27, 1850

 A “humorous and right-minded”  novel “full of Pickwickian fun.” The plot “contains sufficient of adventure to carry it on with due interest,” and the characters “are well contrasted and developed.”  It will suit “the merry and wise of the old school of English readers.”  New Monthly Magazine, June, 1850

Download this week’s novel:

https://books.google.com/books?id=YENWAAAAcAAJ&pg=PP2#v=onepage&q&f=false

Novel 047: Lady Charlotte Bury, The Manoeuvring Mother (1842)

Charles Lock Eastlake, The Lily—Portrait of Miss Bury (Lady Charlotte Bury's daughter)

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An ambitious gentlewoman has five daughters whom she means to marry as aristocratically as possible.

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Lady Charlotte Bury (1775-1861), daughter of the sixth Duke of Argyll and herself the mother of nine children, wrote, in addition to poems and scandalous memoirs, some sixteen novels.  In addition to the complex, convincing title character she provides here a leisurely series of subplots—a few of them exaggerated, but many successfully comic, and some genuinely moving.

Bury shows a “full and wise reliance on nature as it exists in itself” and a “happy skill in putting the commonplaces of life and character in an uncommonplace point of view”; the resulting novel is “ true to English life and nature as they actually exist in our own day.” New Monthly Magazine, July, 1842

“She is many degrees nearer to Miss Austen, than any of her contemporaries.”  Athenaeum, July 2, 1842

“The quiet unexaggerated pictures, the lively dialogues, the nice discrimination of various kinds of weakness, the contrasts of folly and vice, the dangers of a false education and a half morality, were chiefly noticeable in the writer’s first production, and present themselves in this with unabated freshness." Examiner, July 9, 1842

Download this week’s novel:

v. 1 https://archive.org/details/manuvringmother01bury

v. 2 https://archive.org/details/manuvringmother02bury

v.3 https://archive.org/details/manuvringmother03bury

Novel 046: Arthur C. Conder, The Seal of Silence (1901)

Thomas Benjamin Kennington, Reading the Letter

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Two cousins, one mercurial, the other slow but sure, quarrel over a woman, with surprising, mostly comic, consequences.

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Arthur R. Conder (1876-1901), barely out of college when he wrote this novel, died shortly after its completion of heart failure.  Read it, and you will join contemporary reviewers in their regret that he did not live to enjoy a long career.

“The plot is entirely diverting if not altogether probable. . . .  The writer regards his characters with a whimsical sympathy and has been able to make them eccentric and lovable at the same time. . . .   The quaint architecture of this little book is beyond criticism—compact, peculiar, facetious.”  Chicago Tribune, July 18, 1901

“It is full of quiet humor, keen characterization and a certain freshness which is all too rare among the novels of the day.”  Baltimore Sun, August 15, 1901

“The plot . . . is good, and the interest is well maintained; but it is in the freshness of the treatment, the briskness of the narrative, the excellent characterisation—a certain individualizing of every-day characters—that the great charm and merit of the book lie.”  Bookman, October 1901

Download this week’s novel:

https://archive.org/details/sealsilenceanov00condgoog