Edmund Blair Leighton, Our Next-Door Neighbor
A promising young civil engineer falls in love with his suburban next-door neighbor.
Jessie Fothergill (1851-1891) wrote over a dozen novels, many set, like this one, in the the suburbs of an industrial city (she herself lived outside Manchester). The villainess here is particularly entertaining.
“Those who are acquainted with Miss Fothergill’s previous novels will know that they possess considerable charm both of style and incident. Made or Marred . . . exhibits the same characteristics. It is a pleasant book with which to while away an afternoon. . . . Some of the characters in this little volume are very attractive.” Academy, August 20, 1881
It shows “the author’s power of observation and description and her genuine, right-minded, and delicate sentiment. . . . It is not a very common pleasure to read a love story in which the sentiment is fresh and not insipid. . . . The studies of the town life and aspects as well as those of the landscape are made with Miss Fothergill’s well-known quickness of perception. The essentials are seized upon with the skill of the accomplished sketcher.” Athenaeum, August 27, 1881
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