Mademoiselle de Mersac

by William Edward Norris

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324 pages, Hardcover

Published September 9, 2015

About the author

From Wikipedia:

William Edward Norris was born in London, the son of Sir William Norris, Chief Justice of Ceylon.[2] He was educated at Eton, and called to the bar at the Inner Temple in 1874, though he never practised law.[3] His first story, Heap of Money, appeared in 1877, and was followed by a long series of novels, many of which first appeared in the Temple Bar and Cornhill magazines.

Norris died on 20 November 1925 at his Torquay home.[2][4]

Reviews

[Sophie · Rating 2 out of 5]

What to say about this book...It was over 400 pages of an arrogant young woman:

Jeanne bent her head slightly, and gave him a little, faint smile. She had already recognised in her uncle a worthy, but inferior species of being, with whom it was wholly unnecessary to converse, and whose nature fitted him rather to obey than to command.

who we're told over and over is more wonderful than any woman ever was, falling in love with a worthless man and scorning a worthwhile one. As one character put it:

"...how is it possible that she can have made such a mistake! Harry is a very good fellow in his way; but he is no more to be compared with this M. de Saint-Luc than a dickey-bird is with an eagle."

Now, I have no idea what a dickey-bird is, but I'm pretty sure the worthless character was one. I kept waiting for the incomparable Jeanne to wake up to the merits of one and lack of merits of the other, but she never did. Instead, she died of scarlet fever. After 400 pages of loving the dickey-bird and scorning the eagle. What a fun read that was. Not sure what point the author was trying to make, or even if he had a point. Maybe he was just going for poignant. I doubt he was hoping for a reader reaction of: Why did I waste my time on that? But that's where I ended up.