A man and his best friend love the same woman.
Here is another extravagantly-plotted novel by David Christie Murray (see Novels 009, 068). In addition to the title character, his rival, and his beloved, it features a poor American seeking work in England. An English critic finds in this character “that great and increasingly rare charm of freshness”; he “would suffice to redeem from insignificance even a book otherwise not noteworthy” (Academy, December 2, 1882). An American critic condemns him as “the exaggerated Yankee of the stage.” (Independent, March 1, 1883). You decide.
“A novel of rare merit, showing very considerable mastery of character, with unusual care of construction. . . . Without ever stooping to be grotesquely sensational,” the author “freely rings all the changes in the passions of love and jealousy, cupidity, despair, and revenge.” Times, February 8, 1883
“No one who reads the first hundred pages of this novel can for a moment doubt that their writer is a man of strong powers of observation and considerable grasp of character.” British Quarterly, March, 1883
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