This had all the elements of the normal Williamsons' book: someone is in disguise, people are taking a road-trip and waxing poetic about the sights they see, and there are a couple of sort of cartoon-y villains. But for me it somehow didn't have as much sparkle.
John Winston, a wealthy young British gentleman with an automobile, catches a couple of glimpses of Molly Randolph, an American girl who is just starting on her first-ever automobile trip, with her old maiden aunt. He falls instantly in love with her. Because she's having no end of trouble with her car and because her chauffeur is a villain, John offers himself as a chauffeur in order to get to spend more time with her. She hires him, and they proceed to drive around rural France/Spain/Italy, having various car-related mishaps along the way.
It felt like there was even more travelogue stuff in this book than in some of the others, which can make the pace pretty slow. Also, I didn't like the way that John (or "Brown" as he is called when in his chauffeur role) has to force himself to be fairly subservient to Molly and the way she talks about how it's a pity that he's a chauffeur instead of a gentleman. A hundred years ago it was considered an unchanging truth that people didn't really get to escape their social class and that you were in the circumstances in which God wanted you, and that theory pops up in many novels of the period, but in this book for some reason that viewpoint grated on my nerves a bit more. ( )

A delightfully constructed romance cum travelogue. The early history of driving on the Continent is evoked splendidly as a backdrop to the story . To go to eight impressions in 11 months shows what a thirst there was for this novel. ( )

What I enjoy about the Williamson's romance/travelogues are the tantalizing references to history and geography that I have no knowledge of. I have to read with access to google and wikipedia and continually look up names and places. I've learned a lot about European history and geography. Plus the descriptions of the necessary travel gear and comments about speeding along at twenty miles an hour are pretty funny. ( )

Lovely romance/travelogue from 1902. I have the eighth edition - originally published October 1902 and mine November 1904. I deduce it was very popular. ( )