James Jacques Joseph Tissot, Visitors to London
An orphan girl, adopted by a London doctor, has rival lovers.
Arthur Locker (1828-1893), a journalist and editor, published five novels between 1863 and 1874. This one begins in Australia, where the author spent some years, but is mostly set in middle-class London.
“Those writers of prose fiction who season their pages with mysterious crime and repulsive vice, should study the modes by which Mr. Locker captivates the imagination of his readers with scenes alike humorous and innocent. Instead of making them endure his characters by rousing a morbid curiosity as to the sequel and result of a startling commencement, he leads them to enjoy his story by inspiring them with personal interest in its characters. From first to last the book is fresh with nature and unconstrained pleasantry. The actors are neither tame nor commonplace; the incidents bear no resemblance to the conventional arrangement of story-tellers; and yet the drama impresses us with a sense of its fidelity to human nature and society in such a manner that we seem to encounter old friends and familiar faces in every scene. . . . The world described is that of the middle and lower grades of our great middle-class—the world of professional men and merchants, clerks, and petty tradesmen; and with never-flagging humour does Mr. Locker set forth the ways and tempers of the various persons who are made to illustrate this comparatively humble life.” Athenaeum, November 10, 1866
“The author . . . has produced one of the most agreeable, if not one of the most instructive, tales of fiction of the season. It is graceful and unpretending. It discloses no profound philosophy, displays no erudition, professes no high moral aim, but amuses and delights by the natural exhibition of character under varied circumstances and unexampled situations. . . . Mr. Locker weaves his love story with gentle tissues. There are no wild flights of passion, no desperate deeds of vengeance, nor suicides; all is natural, fluent of feeling that is subdued and rational, and issuing in results probable, pleasing, and in harmony with the means employed. One of the charms of Mr. Locker’s novel is its realism, with sufficient sentiment and fancy to link the real with the ideal.” Morning Post, December 11, 1866
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