The Evolution of a Wife, a Romance in Six Parts, by Elizabeth Holland. The life-story of Marie de Hauteville, a young girl of noble Swiss family. It contains many charming pictures of Conventual and village life in the Bernese Oberland, with a strong love interest of the non-modern school. 398 pages, large crown 8vo, cloth, Second Edition, 6s.
"There is an extraordinary genius in 'The Evolution of a Wife.' In calm and masterful handling, searching insight, and bold imaginative outlook, this romance ranks among the finest first books of all the novelists. In the delicate manner of Flaubert, without comment, and with a powerful massing of scenes, the authoress advances to her climax; and one lays down the book feeling that certain impressions will not efface themselves."—Yorkshire Post.
"Marie is delightful, with her many lovers and the pathetic little vanities that make her innocence anything but insipid. She is absolutely realisable; and not she alone. The little Swiss town and its inhabitants live at once in the reader's eye."—Saturday Review.
"A remarkable story, alike in plot and character. It makes an impression that here and there reminds us of the art and the passion of Charlotte Brontë's works."—Scotsman.
The Passion for Romance.
The Passion for Romance. By Edgar Jepson, Author of "Sibyl Falcon." Describes the remarkable love affairs of Lord Lisdor, a young and susceptible nobleman of wealth and leisure. 378 pages, large crown 8vo, cloth, Second Edition, 6s.
"'The Passion for Romance' is, at the least, recommended by that air of novelty so welcome to all, but to none more than to the professional novel-reader. The hero—the main feature of the story, as he has a right to be—is treated from a refreshingly new standpoint. He is a new sort of hero as well as a fresh specimen in individuals: neither villain, saint, nor martyr, but simply a possible human being with some strong characteristics. The vain quest and the yearning for fulfilment are told with delicacy of touch, some sense of humour, and absolutely without sickly sentiment or morbid passion. Is not this enough to prove that we do not speak of the novel of the common or British type?"—Athenæum.
"It is a long time since we have had a new sensation in fiction. It has come at last. The author of 'The Passion for Romance' is a novelist with a style that is distinguished, and—rarissimus inter raros—Mr. Edgar Jepson is also a writer who has something new to say. Apart from the literary merit of the work, there is the story; and to say that there is nothing in fiction with which that may be compared is to acknowledge at once its originality."—Morning.
Saint Porth.
Saint Porth. The Wooing of Dolly Pentreath. By J. Henry Harris. A homely tale of life and love in a Cornish village. 320 pages, crown 8vo, cloth gilt, gilt top, 6s.
"A Cornish tale of remarkable picturesqueness, altogether natural and touching, full of quaint pictures of a marvellously decorative people."—Saturday Review.
"Written with singular sympathy, earnestness, and gentle humour. The scene is laid on the Cornish coast, and Mr. Harris paints for us the splendours of that gorgeous seascape in the manner of one who feels to the full its peculiar fascination, and to whom the character of the dwellers on its shore appeals with a familiar charm. The delicate and precious aroma of romance perfumes every page of 'Saint Porth,' and lends to this homely, unpretentious tale a value and an interest that are too often lacking in novels of a more ambitious scope."—Speaker.
"Of the many efforts which writers have made during recent years to portray various phases of Cornish life, this, to our mind, represents one of the most successful."—West Briton.
"However crowded the novel market may be, there is always room for such refreshing little idylls as 'Saint Porth'—a simple tale, simply told in delightfully breezy style."—Birmingham Gazette.