Mrs. Maxon Protests

by Anthony Hope, R. F. Schabelitz (Illustrator)

Sir Anthony Hope Hawkins, better known as Anthony Hope (1863-1933), was an English novelist and playwright. Although a prolific writer, he is remembered best for "The Prisoner of Zenda" (1894) and its sequel, "Rupert of Hentzau" (1898).

386 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2010

About the author

Prolific English novelist and playwright Sir Anthony Hope Hawkins especially composed adventure. People remember him best only for the book The Prisoner of Zenda (1894) and its sequel Rupert of Hentzau (1898). These works, "minor classics" of English literature, set in the contemporaneous fictional country of Ruritania, spawned the genre, known as Ruritanian romance. Zenda inspired many adaptations, most notably the Hollywood movie of 1937 of the same name.

Reviews

[Simon Mcleish · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mrs. Maxon Protests seems very out of date indeed in 2021, and is not among Hope's better written novels. It's about marriage breakup before divorce for incompatibility was permitted. A lot of it is basically about the description of the feelings of those involved, and how society reacts when Mrs. Maxon refuses to remain with her husband and tries to have a life of her own. It may well be intended as a social campaigning novel, written in what appears to be an imitation of Trollope's style, but it is fatally undermined by the way that Hope ignores the storyteller's maxim, "show, don't tell". It's an easy thing to do, but it doesn't endear an author to readers.

[Ruthalwynn · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is set in 1909, in England. It opens with a young Mrs. Maxon trying to get an old friend/attorney to help her get a divorce from her controlling, religious husband. The rest of the book is about her efforts to live what she considers a free & honest life. She rejects society's rules, and those of organized religion. Because of when the book was written it's still all about her relationships with men,each of them representing a different stage in her struggle/obstacle to be dealt with. The book's not as boring as I make it sound, I did enjoy it and I like Anthony Hope, but I felt a little hammered over the head with the message and I prefer to be hammered over the head by the story. That's probably just a product of when it was written.