George Elgar Hicks, Maud
A spirited young lady resists her cruel baronet uncle’s plan to marry her to a wealthy pork-dealer.
Amelia Perrier (1841-1875) wrote two novels during her sadly brief career, of which this sprightly social comedy, featuring a refreshingly assertive heroine, is the second.
“‘A Good Match’ is very brisk and vivacious, and sparkles with arch humour. Its heroine . . . tells her own story with a keen sense of fun in its recital. . . . The charm of the story is its freshness, vigour, and dash. . . . The two volumes bristle with little keen, sharp sayings. But beyond the charm of manner there is a deeper and truer charm . . . which is the thorough unaffected contempt of the writer for all that is base and cruel and mean.” Examiner, June 22, 1872
“Miss Perrier’s pen is perfectly unlaboured; she writes with ease, and apparently, out of a merry heart, in which the humour is untainted by cynicism; and it is a relief to sit down with two little volumes like these—trifling though the story is—after wearing through novels and tales innumerable, wrought, with much painstaking ability, out of their authors’ profound misconception of their own ability. . . . It reads like what it pretends to be, the autobiography of a healthy-minded, handsome girl, too courageous to be cowed by the kicks and cuffs of unloving relatives.” Spectator, November 2, 1872
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