James Jacques Joseph Tissot, Woman in an Interior
A good man marries unwisely.
Frances Cashel Hoey (née Frances Sarah Johnston) (1830-1908) published some 13 works of fiction between 1868 and 1886 and collaborated with Edmund Yates on several others. She was a Catholic convert, and one of her purposes here is to condemn divorce; several contemporary reviewers agree that this does not impair the novel’s literary quality.
“This novel, remarkable in many ways, is especially so for its skilful delineation of character. All the principal personages and many of the subordinate ones stand out so distinctly before us that we have their images in our minds and are able to picture them to ourselves in the various attitudes they are made to assume, and to understand perfectly the motives which underlie their actions… On the whole we must say of this novel that it is as powerful as it is well written and well imagined. It is original in its tone and its modes of thought, and to all who can enjoy a good study of human nature, and who love to see follies, weaknesses, and sins unflinchingly exposed and as scornfully denounced, must afford a treat but seldom offered to them in these days of weak, washy novelties and meaningless love stories.” Morning Post, April 16, 1874
“So well kept up is the interest from the first page to the last, that her readers forgive her the three volumes...and the story is not at all too long for its requirements. . . . The peculiar charm of the book is its liveliness, the go and movement on every page; yet the workmanship is careful and correct all through, and the characters possess a distinct individuality of their own which is seldom met with now-a-days.” Times, August 21, 1874
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