Heywood Hardy, The Meeting in the Forest
A young lady loves a nobleman, whose interest in her friend she misinterprets.
The author of this forgotten novel is identified neither in Fraser’s Magazine, where it was serialized, nor in its separate publication as a book—a pity, because it’s a good one.
“One of the best photographs of English society as it now exists.” Illustrated Times, October 9, 1858
“It is a pleasant story of society, written with good taste and unquestionable skill.” Examiner, December 25, 1858
“Unobjectionable pleasantness is a quality which carries books, as it does human beings, quietly and happily through the world, but it does not give room for much discussion. . . . The girls are like real girls, but there is nothing marked about them. The nobleman, who is a high-minded love-creating coquet, is not an impossibility. There is no clever writing, no description of scenery, no boring of any sort. . . . From beginning to end the story goes on quietly, evenly, and agreeably, showing a considerable power of observing family life, a subdued sense of the ludicrous, and an unusual turn for writing intelligible and consecutive English.” Saturday Review, January 1, 1859
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