Novel 322: Walter Raymond, Taken at his Word (1892)

 

Hubert von Herkomer, On Strike

 

On a whim, a young man impersonates a manufacturer’s long-lost son.


Walter Raymond (1852-1930) was a glove manufacturer as well as a novelist; he wrote some thirteen novels between 1888 and 1926.

The society of a provincial town is “described with a brisk humour by no means common”; “It has true drawing of human nature.  It shows circumstances acting on character, and character modifying and modulating into growth.” Saturday Review, May 21, 1892

It “has substantial merits which render its defects of comparatively little consequence. . . .; the book, as a whole, is well worth reading.” Academy, June 4, 1892

A contrasting view:

“It rarely happens that the reader is introduced to such an unlovely collection of characters”; but the author “displays an ingenuity that prompts one to hope he may yet exercise his talents on a less repulsive theme.” Athenaeum, August 6, 1892

Download this fortnight’s novel:

https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/35n82s/alma990148036800107026 ((Right-click (or control-click, if you have a Mac) on the “view digitized copy” links to download the novel’s three volumes in pdf form))