A wealthy, aging baronet is not always kind to his poorer relations.
Here is another entertaining work of social comedy by Cook (see Novel 040), filled with memorable characters.
“In these days, when writers of prose fiction are wont to stimulate their readers with mystery and violence, from the first to the latest pages of their works, the story may be thought deficient in respect of agonizing horror and daring improbability; but in pleasant humour, natural mirth, and characters resembling the men and women of actual existence, it possesses qualities with which the ingenious contrivances of a mere literary puzzle will not endure comparison.” Athenaeum, May 20, 1865
“It . . . may be read with leisurely enjoyment. . . . Nothing is attempted . . . with which its author is not competent to deal, and the characters . . . are not rendered impossible by a desire to give them an undue share of originality. They are such people as we might meet . . . and they behave very much as actual men and women do in real life. . . . The quiet humour which pervades it gives it a very pleasant flavour.” Saturday Review, June 19, 1865
“Mr. Cook is one of the pleasantest of our novel-writers. His stories are always interesting, his style is remarkably easy and agreeable, and he combines with shrewdness of observation . . . geniality and kindly humour . . . ‘Sir Felix Foy’ . . . is unusually rich in studies of character—some of them very carefully thought over and worked out. It is a story of everyday life, with nothing that is extravagant or sensational about it.” London Review, July 8, 1865
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