The Duchess of Wrexe Her Decline and Death: A Romantic Commentary

Rising City series #1

by Hugh Walpole

1914. Walpole wrote horror novels that tended more towards the psychological rather than supernatural, with a brooding underlying mysticism. Contents Book I: The Duchess; Felix Brun, Dr. Christopher, Rachel Beaminster-They are Surveyed by the Portrait; Rachel; Lady Adela; The Pool; She Comes Out; Fans; In the Heart of the House; the Tiger; The Golden Cage; Lizzie and Breton; Her Grace's Day; Defiance of the Tiger I and II; Book II: Rachel; The Pool and the Snow; A Little House; First Sequel to Defiance; Rachel-and Christopher and Roddy; Lizzie's Journey-I; All the Beaminsters; Rachel and Breton; Christopher's Day; The Darkest Hour; Lizzie's Journey-II; Roddy is Master; and Lizzie's Journey-III; Regent's Park-Breton and Lizzie; The Duchess Moves; Roddy Moves; March 13th-Breton's Tiger; March 13th Rachel's Heart; March 13th: Roddy Talks to the Devil, and the Duchess Denies God; Chamber Music-A Trio; A Quartette; Rachel and Roddy; Lizzie Becomes Miss Rand Again; The Last View from High Windows; Rachel, Roddy, Lord John, Christopher; Epilogue-Prologue. See other titles by this author available from Kessinger Publishing.

Genres: British Literature, Fiction

503 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1914

About the author

Sir Hugh Seymour Walpole was an English novelist. A prolific writer, he published thirty-six novels, five volumes of short stories, two plays and three volumes of memoirs. His skill at scene-setting, his vivid plots, his high profile as a lecturer and his driving ambition brought him a large readership in the United Kingdom and North America. A best-selling author in the 1920s and 1930s, his works have been neglected since his death.

Reviews

[Laura]

The first book in the Rising City series.

Free download available at Project Gutenberg.

[Bettie]

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/33086

[Lucy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Unusually for this author, I didn't quite believe in any of the characters, so wasn't particularly invested in what happened to them. There's a great deal of tell not show here.

[Wealhtheow · Rating 4 out of 5]

Superficially, this book is very similar to others of its type and time--a spirited girl comes out into society and must choose between her rebellious and outcast cousin or a conventional young man. Rachel chooses the conventional young man, but as their marriage begins to degenerate, she comes into contact with her cousin once more. She falls in love with him--will she leave her husband and run off with her romantic but weak lover? And looming over all of this is the spectre of her grandmother, The Duchess, an old woman whose powers and health are waning but not yet gone.

The story of Rachel, Francis, Roddy and Lizzie's tangled love affair is merely the frontispiece of an examination of the end of the Victorian Age.

I especially loved the juxtaposition of each character's torrid thoughts and feelings with their banal conversations.

And yet, at the end, Walpole just couldn't resist having his characters moralize about coming generations and "this new Individualism". Quit while you're ahead!

[Kat · Rating 1 out of 5]

Boring boring boring but I stuck with it.