Shocked by how little notice and how few reviews this book has. I first came across it while reading Edith Wharton's biography, A Backward Glance, and I saw in the book that EM Forster was a lover of it too. My impression is that in every era, this book has had a small number of very devoted readers.

It's like few other books I've ever read. The type here is very clear to us: a shy, timid, bookish young man who's had the misfortune to be born as the sole heir to his lordly father's estate. The book shines in the delicate way it portrays Lord Belchamber's character and his timidity, without making us dislike him. He is a person of, at times, moral force (he reminds one of Alexei Karenin from Anna Karenina), but this qualities can be a person's undoing if they're not strong enough to back it up. And yet...and yet...there's a delicate beauty in his weakness as well. Perhaps this book resonated so strongly in me because I saw myself in Belchamber. Not every strong character needs to be a hero or an anti-hero. And not every weak character needs to be some sort of comic laughingstock. I think there's room in literature to portray people as they are: weak and strong at the same time. Totally worth your time if you loved, for instance John William's STONER or anything by Wharton or Henry James. ( )