A proud but poor young lady endures the misbehavior of her various rich and eccentric patrons.
James Payn (1830-1898) wrote some 60 novels between 1857 and 1898. This one has an intricate plot and a wide range of characters; its modernism is shown by the heroine’s resolve at one point to make her living with a typewriter.
“The writer’s thorough knowledge of the world enables him to lay bare the motives that prompt the actions of his personages, chosen in the most opposite classes of society. . . . His characters are strikingly natural, and the individuality of each and all of them stands out in bold relief.” Morning Post, September 10, 1883
It is set “among remarkable or original people, who meet with a variety of remarkable and more or less original incidents, as adventures come to the adventurous; while the scenes of the story are perpetually shifted, from town to country . . . and from the fashionable end of London to the extreme East.” Saturday Review, October 6, 1883
“Mr. Payn is as gay, as sprightly, as diverting as ever”; his story is “well imagined and well told enough to be interesting from beginning to end. . . . Its personages are all of them natural and are many of them new; they are presented with a great deal of insight and vivacity; they have a flavour of reality which is refreshing in no mean degree.” Academy, October 27, 1883
Download this week’s novel:
v.1 https://archive.org/details/thickerthanwater01paynj