Novel 099: Mary Molesworth, The Great Experiment (1860)
A fascinating and fashionable young man in need of an income woos an older widow, while his florally named sisters meet various marital fates.
Mary Molesworth (1823-1863) wrote three novels during her relatively short life, of which this was the last. It’s enjoyable (despite a tiresome lovers’-misunderstanding plot) for its well defined characters and cleverly developed incidents.
“‘The Great Experiment’ is a carefully-written, clever novel—amusing withal” though “in the third volume the story stagnates into moralizing. . . . The characters are carefully drawn, and well-worked out” and “there is a good deal of shrewd observation manifested, and much good sense.” Athenaeum, April 21, 1860
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