An earnest, shy young man with Tractarian leanings takes up a curacy in a Yorkshire village.
Emma Willsher Atkinson (1826-1900) is known to have written only one novel—this one. Despite some sentimentalism and didacticism (especially near the end), she gives us several striking characters and sharply defined social and moral dilemmas.
The author “has performed a very difficult task creditably”; she “has not shrunk from showing that extremes with a little friendly mediation will sometimes meet.’“ Leader and Saturday Analyst, October 15, 1859
"The novel may offend readers of either extreme, being itself of none, yet it is wholesome and kindly in its tone. It is a little touched with excess of feminine sentiment, but at the same time has feminine perceptions of character, and is not without humour” Examiner, November 26, 1859
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