Mark Twain once famously said "there was but one solitary thing about the past worth remembering, and that was the fact that it is past and can't be restored."Ê Well, over recent years, The British Library, working with Microsoft has embarked on an ambitious programme to digitise its collection of 19th century books. There are now 65,000Ê titles availableÊ (that's an incredible 25 million pages) of material ranging from works by famous names such asÊ Dickens, Trollope and Hardy as well as many forgotten literary gems , all of which can now be printed on demand and purchased right here on Amazon. Further information on The British Library and its digitisation programme can be found on The British Library website.
An unusually intelligent and perceptive romance featuring various late-Victorian British colonialists in Calcutta falling in love with the wrong people.
Hilda Howe is a travelling actress clearly on the way to the top of her profession before she meets Stephen Arnold, a Catholic priest. Alecia Livingstone, her friend and 'pupil in the arts of life', loves the handsome Duff Lindsey, but he falls for Captain of the Salvation Army, a pious zealot for the cause.
The subtle ironies of the characters' speech and behaviour, the complete lack of emotional cliche or platitude and, of course, the setting, are not too dissimilar to E.M. Forster's A Passage to India. Forster met Duncan once and considered her “clever and odd".
Her heroine, Hilda Howe, is certainly a clever lady, and she certainly makes an odd choice on her path to becoming a star. The ending was a little abrupt, but it was the perfect way in which to crystalise the author's ideas about duty, love and vocational callings both high and low.
A surprising little gem of a novel by a writer I had never before heard of.