Novel 320: Adeline Sergeant, Seventy Times Seven (1888)
On the eve of her marriage, a woman discovers her fiancé’s discreditable past.
Adeline Sergeant (1851-1904) published some ninety novels during a twenty-one-year career, of which this was fifth.
“We have not read lately a more enjoyable novel of incident than Seventy times Seven. It is such a treat when an author has the wit to construct an effective plot and to work it out simply, without worrying the reader with immaterial side-issues and jejune reflections; and that is what Mrs. Sergeant has done.” Academy, June 2, 1888
The account of the two main characters “gradual approach to each other is told with a fine exquisiteness of imaginative realisation”; it “is from first to last a beautiful and satisfying story.” Spectator, August 25, 1888
A contrasting view:
“There is a half-heartedness about Miss Sergeant’s handling of the apparatus of sensationalism which borders dangerously on the ridiculous. . . . Miss Sergeant is not yet at home in the novel of incident.” Athenaeum, May 5, 1888
Download this fortnight’s novel:
v.1 https://archive.org/details/seventytimesseve01serg