Lady Connie

Ward, Humphry, Mrs., 1851-1920Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.4

Word count: 651K words
Chapters: 66

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Lady Connie by Mrs. Humphry WardAuthor: Ward, Humphry, Mrs., 1851-1920,Language: English, Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature, Release Date: Sep 20, 2004

Editor's review

Lady Connie is one of Mrs. Humphry Ward's later works and continues in the vein of the social novel she excelled at: centered on a young woman of distinctive status and temperament, it sets in motion the intertwined relations of family, property, and courtship, then lays bare her characters' moral positions through a few key conversations. The novel's readability comes chiefly from the wit of its dialogue and its fine-grained depiction of English gentry social circles; the plot does not move at a rapid pace, but tension accumulates gradually through everyday dealings. It offers a window onto the situation of English women and the etiquette of class in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, letting readers see how marriage was treated as a family affair and how women strove for initiative within a limited set of options. As a public-domain e-book, it is better suited to supplementary reading within the context of literary history than to being a diversion sought for strong plot. In reading, one may attend to the narrator's measure in judging characters and to how the author handles the conflict between "respectability" and "sincerity."

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers who enjoy English social novels and family narratives
Literature students studying late-nineteenth-century English women's writing
General readers interested in the evolution of class etiquette and ideas of marriage
Those looking for a leisurely-paced English public-domain book strong in dialogue

Not a good fit for

Readers expecting strong plot, fast pacing, or suspenseful twists
Readers seeking direct responses to gender issues from a contemporary perspective
Readers with limited experience in English who want a simple reader to start with

Reading tips

First sort out the characters' relationships and the property threads, then enter the dialogue; this reduces the confusion of a first reading.
Read the courtship plot as a set of social rules, noting who concedes and who bargains.
After every few chapters, review the narrator's judgments of the characters and note the author's sense of measure.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

I haven't read any other works by Mrs. Humphry Ward. Can I read this one directly?

Yes. The characters and plot of this book are relatively self-contained and do not depend on earlier works. Mrs. Humphry Ward's pacing, however, is slow and weighted toward dialogue and social scenes; a first-time reader would do best to read a chapter or two to see whether the style suits them before deciding to read the whole book.

What are the main attractions of this book?

The attractions lie in the exchanges of dialogue in social settings and in how the author presents her characters' moral choices through arrangements of family, property, and marriage. It does not win readers by density of incident but by accumulation of detail and observation of the rules of respectability, making it suitable for readers willing to read slowly.

As a public-domain e-book, what should I keep in mind when reading it?

Public-domain e-books are usually prepared by volunteers and may contain minor differences in layout or punctuation. It is advisable to choose a clearly formatted edition and to check whether the chapter divisions are complete. If used for citation or research, consult other reliable editions and avoid relying on a single electronic text.

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About the author

Ward, Humphry, Mrs., 1851-1920 Author

Mrs. Humphry Ward (1851–1920) was a British novelist of the late Victorian era, born Mary Augusta Arnold and known after marriage by her husband's surname. Her fiction often centres on conflicts between religious belief and moral conviction, while also touching on social reform, women's circumstances and family ethics. Her style is realistic, with finely drawn psychological portraits, and her work reached a wide readership in the English-speaking world of her day. The novel Robert Elsmere, her best-known work, stirred public debate by addressing a crisis of faith, while Marcella, The History of David Grieve and The Marriage of William Ashe likewise explore personal conviction and social responsibility. Thirty-three of her works are held in this collection. Public information is limited, so details of her life and career are not elaborated here.