George Frederic Watts, Miss May Prinsep
To test her relatives, an heiress switches identities with her companion.
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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