David Alfred Bywaters's Crossword Cavalcade & Fortnightly Victorian Novel Recommender. Every Saturday! Either a new language-torturing puzzle or an old novel by an unjustly neglected Victorian author. Why waste time on other amusements?

Novel 113: Mrs. Alexander, Look Before You Leap (1865)

Edmund Blair Leighton, Signing the Register
Edmund Blair Leighton, Signing the Register

A guardsman with gambling debts courts a woman he mistakenly supposes an heiress.


Here is another fine novel by the great “Mrs. Alexander” (see Novels 001, 063), with her customary well-paced plot, smooth style, and vivid characters.

“One of the lightest and prettiest stories a reader need wish to find on a summer’s day, or a winter’s day either. . . .  The story is cleverly told.”  Athenaeum, March 18, 1865

“A sprightly, stirring tale, though one that is decidedly ‘stagey,’ without, however, being vulgar, and for a novel of mere amusement, for railway reading, or any temporary distraction we have not met with a better.”  Spectator, August 19, 1865

Download this week’s novel:

v.1 http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_00000004A196#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=6&xywh=-58%2C-223%2C2748%2C2335

v2. http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_00000004A190#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=6&xywh=0%2C-69%2C2499%2C2124