Sir William Blake Richmond, The Sisters
Three middle-class sisters grow up and find various fates.
Nothing is known about Cecil Maxwell, except that she (he?) wrote this one novel—a very good one, on the whole. All through its beginning and middle it is excellent in its kind, with complex, well-defined characters placed in interesting situations. Its end is marred by the sort of lover’s-misunderstanding plot that mars so many Victorian novels—the sort of misunderstanding occasioned by the inexplicable failure of A to ask B a simple yes/no question. But if you accept the premise that anybody might ever act that way, even the ending, though sad, isn’t bad.
“We cannot now do justice to the spirit and verve of ‘A Story of Three Sisters.’ It is full of brightness and colour. It is a poet’s novel. . . . The writer . . . is a very close observer of character and motives.” Westminster Review, January 1875
“This is a well-written story of common-place life, without much incident and without any exaggeration; it is carefully studied and well disseminated.” British Quarterly Review, January 1875
“The charming Story of Three Sisters owes . . . much of its attraction to a pure and graceful style. . . . The characters . . . are drawn with tender care and feeling. . . . It is rare to find so nearly perfect . . . a story . . . , which is one to linger over, and return to with a sort of nostalgie.” Academy, January 30, 1874
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