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One or Two: A Romance
Leather Binding on Spine and Corners with Golden Leaf Printing on round Spine (extra customization on request like complete leather, Golden Screen printing in Front, Color Leather, Colored book etc.) Reprinted in 2019 with the help of original edition published long back [1907]. This book is printed in black & white, sewing binding for longer life, Printed on high quality Paper, re-sized as per Current standards, professionally processed without changing its contents. As these are old books, we processed each page manually and make them readable but in some cases some pages which are blur or missing or black spots. If it is multi volume set, then it is only single volume, if you wish to order a specific or all the volumes you may contact us. We expect that you will understand our compulsion in these books. We found this book important for the readers who want to know more about our old treasure so we brought it back to the shelves. Hope you will like it and give your comments and suggestions. - eng, Pages 328. EXTRA 10 DAYS APART FROM THE NORMAL SHIPPING PERIOD WILL BE REQUIRED FOR LEATHER BOUND BOOKS. COMPLETE LEATHER WILL COST YOU EXTRA US$ 25 APART FROM THE LEATHER BOUND BOOKS. {FOLIO EDITION IS ALSO AVAILABLE.}
318 pages, Hardcover
First published September 27, 2015
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 40 reviews
June 18, 2025
Let me tell you… One or Two walked so The Substance could run. A story of vanity, love, loss, memory, and the crazy steps a woman takes to lose weight before her estranged husband comes home. Literally the substance without the deformities and grossness
January 12, 2026
Kinda bonkers this was written in the 19th century!!!! ok werk diva
June 6, 2025
what happens when u take the substance in the 19th century….
(3.5 stars)
(3.5 stars)
June 19, 2025
like if the substance happened in 1897. great beach read.
September 27, 2025
hilarious concept with a killer cover but what a DRAG. It was like every small thing that happened was narrated three times before moving on to the next
Read
December 18, 2025discovered entirely by chance at a highly susceptible time in my life (twenty eight, fat and eager to make light of my own fleshly woes), had a lot of fun w it !
October 26, 2025
The substance if it slayed
August 26, 2025
very fun, very well done! truly the precursor to the substance but with an Austinian setting
December 5, 2025
I wonder what my queen would think of ozempic?
Read
April 24, 2026Fantastic!!!! A little hard to understand at the beginning because of the style of 19th century writing but once I was in it, it flowed so well. Henrietta would be so sad to know about the resurgence of self worth through thinness. But would probably love ‘The Substance’ or ‘Death Becomes Her’.
October 25, 2025
“Which is the true Frances?”
What a freaky, engaging, and thought-provoking story. Frances Bethune, desiring to shed the pounds she has put on while away from her husband, splits herself into two - physically and spiritually. All this is, of course, rooted in vanity and the romantic desire to preserve beauty in its prime. Frances, though existing as a woman written in 1907, has strikingly modern concerns.
We meet her after she has sought medical advice for losing weight. She is prescribed diet and exercise, but is frustrated that it won't work fast enough. She tries remedies from quacks that tout seemingly impossible claims - they obviously don’t work. After “exhausting” all of her options, she resigns herself to a potential solution from the spiritual realm. Frances doesn’t want to do any work. Full stop. At every turn, she employs Ursula Adams to do the dirty work for her. She wants change, but not enough to go to London to talk to Salvador herself. She wants to lose the weight, but not enough to follow the advice of doctors - which certainly would not lead to the creation of Fancy, the embodiment of her youth and the good parts of her soul. I can’t help but feel bad for Frances, though. I can understand how when she reads Charles’ letter she construes his desires as expecting the Fancy of his youth to be the one he meets when he returns home. I understand the intense pressure women have to portray the best versions of themselves at all times. I understand that we exist in a society that praises youth above all else and acts like there's nothing worse than a woman “letting herself go.” However, in Frances’ desire to lose her extra weight, she completely divorces her current self with her desire to see her husband again. Once she “loses” the weight, she is only concerned with makeup, her dresses, and ridding herself of the problem of Fancy.
Frances consistently refuses to acknowledge the humanity of Fancy and cannot fathom that she is the embodiment of the weight Frances shed. She believed “[Fancy] belonged neither to earth nor heaven, and she the begetter had a right to crush it into nothingness if she could find the power.” This specific line of thinking made me look at the way I see myself and what I think are my flaws. Am I the “begetter” of the things I am self-conscious of or are they things that coexist with me? Do I have the right to bulldoze over everything I find ugly about myself? Even if we assert bodily autonomy dictates that we have the right to do whatever we want with our appearances, how does this bulldozing affect our soul?
I also want to touch on how this story reflects the pervasiveness of body augmentation in our current cultural landscape. Obviously, with the advancement of medicine, we have created a way to alter our bodies without needing a medium to host a seance. However, there are commonalities between us and the society of One or Two. When Frances swears Ursula to silence about the process she undertakes to lose weight, I drew comparisons to the way we talk about celebrities and plastic surgery. We constantly see people “get a new face” right before our eyes but it is still taboo to talk about the particulars out in the open. Very few celebrities are forthcoming with what cosmetic surgeries they have chosen to undergo. I think this is because effortless youth is prized above those who actually try to achieve it. Frances mimics this line of thinking, not wanting people to know how much she sacrificed to lose weight. She has to create an elaborate web of lies to maintain how people think about her and her appearance.
I found it incredible just how relevant the discussion this book provokes is to thoughts and conversations that I have existing as a woman in 2025. The ending is something that doesn’t sit completely right with me but I have some different interpretations that I’m still mulling over. Maybe I’ll reread this one next year and see if any of my thoughts change about the ending. All in all, this was an extremely enjoyable read - perfect for October.
What a freaky, engaging, and thought-provoking story. Frances Bethune, desiring to shed the pounds she has put on while away from her husband, splits herself into two - physically and spiritually. All this is, of course, rooted in vanity and the romantic desire to preserve beauty in its prime. Frances, though existing as a woman written in 1907, has strikingly modern concerns.
We meet her after she has sought medical advice for losing weight. She is prescribed diet and exercise, but is frustrated that it won't work fast enough. She tries remedies from quacks that tout seemingly impossible claims - they obviously don’t work. After “exhausting” all of her options, she resigns herself to a potential solution from the spiritual realm. Frances doesn’t want to do any work. Full stop. At every turn, she employs Ursula Adams to do the dirty work for her. She wants change, but not enough to go to London to talk to Salvador herself. She wants to lose the weight, but not enough to follow the advice of doctors - which certainly would not lead to the creation of Fancy, the embodiment of her youth and the good parts of her soul. I can’t help but feel bad for Frances, though. I can understand how when she reads Charles’ letter she construes his desires as expecting the Fancy of his youth to be the one he meets when he returns home. I understand the intense pressure women have to portray the best versions of themselves at all times. I understand that we exist in a society that praises youth above all else and acts like there's nothing worse than a woman “letting herself go.” However, in Frances’ desire to lose her extra weight, she completely divorces her current self with her desire to see her husband again. Once she “loses” the weight, she is only concerned with makeup, her dresses, and ridding herself of the problem of Fancy.
Frances consistently refuses to acknowledge the humanity of Fancy and cannot fathom that she is the embodiment of the weight Frances shed. She believed “[Fancy] belonged neither to earth nor heaven, and she the begetter had a right to crush it into nothingness if she could find the power.” This specific line of thinking made me look at the way I see myself and what I think are my flaws. Am I the “begetter” of the things I am self-conscious of or are they things that coexist with me? Do I have the right to bulldoze over everything I find ugly about myself? Even if we assert bodily autonomy dictates that we have the right to do whatever we want with our appearances, how does this bulldozing affect our soul?
I also want to touch on how this story reflects the pervasiveness of body augmentation in our current cultural landscape. Obviously, with the advancement of medicine, we have created a way to alter our bodies without needing a medium to host a seance. However, there are commonalities between us and the society of One or Two. When Frances swears Ursula to silence about the process she undertakes to lose weight, I drew comparisons to the way we talk about celebrities and plastic surgery. We constantly see people “get a new face” right before our eyes but it is still taboo to talk about the particulars out in the open. Very few celebrities are forthcoming with what cosmetic surgeries they have chosen to undergo. I think this is because effortless youth is prized above those who actually try to achieve it. Frances mimics this line of thinking, not wanting people to know how much she sacrificed to lose weight. She has to create an elaborate web of lies to maintain how people think about her and her appearance.
I found it incredible just how relevant the discussion this book provokes is to thoughts and conversations that I have existing as a woman in 2025. The ending is something that doesn’t sit completely right with me but I have some different interpretations that I’m still mulling over. Maybe I’ll reread this one next year and see if any of my thoughts change about the ending. All in all, this was an extremely enjoyable read - perfect for October.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 13, 2026
This is a very bizarre book, and it reminded me quite a bit of the movie The Substance. I could also easily imagine it being adapted into a pretty interesting and quirky horror movie. It’s not necessarily horror-filled in the traditional sense, but it does create this persistent sense of unease and handles the uncanny particularly well.
The topic also feels more relevant than ever. What was fascinating about Frances and her desire to become thin for her husband, who has been away for many years and from whom she has grown increasingly distant, is the way her desire to become thin at any cost eventually becomes the very thing that consumes and destroys her. That idea itself is not particularly new, especially when it comes to stories about beauty and the ways women are encouraged to transform themselves for male approval, but the increasingly bizarre places the book takes that premise were much more interesting to me.
I was particularly intrigued by the way the book explores ideas about the soul and what actually constitutes the self when the physical body can be so radically altered. At the same time, it definitely seems to be having fun with these almost hysterical characters as they make one bizarre decision after another, particularly Ursula and Fancy. There is something darkly funny about watching everyone respond to an increasingly absurd situation by somehow making it even worse. The male characters, meanwhile, are basically a bunch of dweebs who are constantly eager to save the day while seemingly only managing to make things worse, which I feel is very much the point.
It’s just an interesting and deeply strange book. In terms of its weaknesses, it is definitely a bit wordy, as is characteristic of the time, and I do wish it had been more atmospheric, particularly during some of the scenes involving the medium and the séances. Those elements were genuinely interesting, and I wanted the book to lean further into their eeriness and create more of that unsettling atmosphere.
Still, I think it handles the uncanny quite well. There is something effective about taking anxieties surrounding beauty, thinness, marriage, aging, and female desirability and pushing them to such absurd extremes. The result is bizarre and frequently funny, but there is also something genuinely unsettling underneath all of it, especially in the idea of a woman so desperate to transform herself into what she thinks someone else wants that she risks losing herself entirely.
The topic also feels more relevant than ever. What was fascinating about Frances and her desire to become thin for her husband, who has been away for many years and from whom she has grown increasingly distant, is the way her desire to become thin at any cost eventually becomes the very thing that consumes and destroys her. That idea itself is not particularly new, especially when it comes to stories about beauty and the ways women are encouraged to transform themselves for male approval, but the increasingly bizarre places the book takes that premise were much more interesting to me.
I was particularly intrigued by the way the book explores ideas about the soul and what actually constitutes the self when the physical body can be so radically altered. At the same time, it definitely seems to be having fun with these almost hysterical characters as they make one bizarre decision after another, particularly Ursula and Fancy. There is something darkly funny about watching everyone respond to an increasingly absurd situation by somehow making it even worse. The male characters, meanwhile, are basically a bunch of dweebs who are constantly eager to save the day while seemingly only managing to make things worse, which I feel is very much the point.
It’s just an interesting and deeply strange book. In terms of its weaknesses, it is definitely a bit wordy, as is characteristic of the time, and I do wish it had been more atmospheric, particularly during some of the scenes involving the medium and the séances. Those elements were genuinely interesting, and I wanted the book to lean further into their eeriness and create more of that unsettling atmosphere.
Still, I think it handles the uncanny quite well. There is something effective about taking anxieties surrounding beauty, thinness, marriage, aging, and female desirability and pushing them to such absurd extremes. The result is bizarre and frequently funny, but there is also something genuinely unsettling underneath all of it, especially in the idea of a woman so desperate to transform herself into what she thinks someone else wants that she risks losing herself entirely.
August 26, 2025
This was a wild ride, and occult ozempic is the perfect description. More creepy and disconcerting than I expected. Even when I anticipated how things would end, there were several things I didn't see coming. I liked Ursula a lot and was intrigued by the build up to what was going to happen. Once Fancy came into the picture, I was anxious wondering how in the world Frances was going to handle all the things. I don't know how I feel about Colonel Bethune being SO quick to marry the good Fancy - I felt like he and the doctor handwaved away how young she obviously looked and was, and they obviously knew Frances was his real wife! Also, the details of how he's now so much older than her, has all these memories she doesn't have, etc. I don't feel badly for Frances (or feel like I should feel bad, she was clearly a mean, selfish person) but I do feel like they just piled on how villainous she was! Overall, VERY glad I picked this up. And loved the picture appendix at the end!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 26, 2025
I loved the story - if you’re interested in reading for the plot, DO NOT READ THE INTRODUCTION until you’ve finished the book. I saved it for the end.
The text is dense (as expected considering it was originally published in 1907) and it took me a bit to get into the time period, but the visual glossary was a huge help AND introduced me to the works of Odilon Redon.
It’s hard to connect with the characters because they all seem to be written either intentionally or unintentionally with a sort of coldness, with a belief in things like phrenology & women’s weakness of spirit (lol), but it’s a good time if you’re a fan of early 20th century supernatural horror.
The text is dense (as expected considering it was originally published in 1907) and it took me a bit to get into the time period, but the visual glossary was a huge help AND introduced me to the works of Odilon Redon.
It’s hard to connect with the characters because they all seem to be written either intentionally or unintentionally with a sort of coldness, with a belief in things like phrenology & women’s weakness of spirit (lol), but it’s a good time if you’re a fan of early 20th century supernatural horror.
July 17, 2026
A book I never would have read had my partner not recommended (and begged) me to read it. I can appreciate the new publisher editing the writing to "make it readable", though that did make me a little sad for the state of our current reader, generally speaking.
I don't agree with the intro (which, if you are reading this book, save the intro for last...) - this is not feminist, and I wouldn't really say it's horror, either. It's much more a commentary on society and the pressures on women to never change. But while that might sound like feminism, the actual plot has a very anti-feminist outcome.
Worth a read if you've seen The Substance or Doctor Who's Adipose...
I don't agree with the intro (which, if you are reading this book, save the intro for last...) - this is not feminist, and I wouldn't really say it's horror, either. It's much more a commentary on society and the pressures on women to never change. But while that might sound like feminism, the actual plot has a very anti-feminist outcome.
Worth a read if you've seen The Substance or Doctor Who's Adipose...
July 29, 2025
such a good read! I bought it from reading the cover and then was a bit skeptical about liking it once I found out it was originally published in 1907 but given The Substance… it felt so current. there are so many twist that ultimately leave you speeding through to find what happens next. i found it interesting that instead of sympathizing with Frances I found myself angry at her for some of the “mistakes” in decisions she made. it didn’t have to end this way Frances!
p.s. what great commentary on societal beauty standards and vanity that still exists today
p.s. what great commentary on societal beauty standards and vanity that still exists today
July 12, 2026
Whoa nellie! An occult feminist body horror novel from 1902? Yes, m'am. Mandylion Press deserves a medal for digging this dark treasure out from the shadowy bookshelves of yesteryear. Imagine if The Substance was a novel by Virginia Woolf...or if Otessa Moshfegh time traveled back to write in the Gilded Age...H.D. Everett's One Or Two is every bit as fascinating as that sounds, as well as viscerally creepy, weirdly funny, wickedly smart, and surprising as hell. 9/10
July 18, 2025
They need to turn this book into a movie or mini-series. It didn’t hook me right away, so I set it aside for a bit, but once I picked it back up, I was completely drawn in. Even though I had a sense of where the story might go, I was still on the edge of my seat with every chapter. Fantastic, gripping storytelling.
July 29, 2026
I loved this book! And I loved the visual glossary at the end. It lost a star for me due to the shift in perspective midway through that gets sort of annoying at the end when it’s just two men talking.. I preferred Ursula’s insights and arc a lot more. But overall this was a great read and a fascinating look into late 20th century womanhood and relationships
August 18, 2026
This has a slow start, but by the halfway mark it’s hard to put down. I will say I expected slightly more horror, but I still enjoyed the book as is. I wouldn’t expect a story with these themes to have been published in the year that it was but I hope books like this have modern retellings because the point it tries to make is ever important to the modern age.
June 12, 2025
A quick read, and full of that fun, vintage seance energy. I love the extra photos at the back, and the translucent jacket. If you liked The Substance, trick photos of supposed ectoplasm/apparitions, and gothic explorations of the pressures of beauty and youth, you will love this.
July 29, 2025
really truly enjoyed this but i do think some of the implications that mandylion highlights as transgressive may not be fully actualized. this may have more to do with the possibilities for a woman writing in this era than anything on the presses part. still a truly fun read.
September 8, 2025
A really fun read that relies on completely and ludicrously clueless characters to enable the Faustian plot. Enjoyable either way, but has some water-treading passages that were a bit tiresome (though not unlike Frankenstein)
December 17, 2025
a man will bend a woman to his will, force her into choices against her character and then call it vanity.
“hers was the simple trust, the reliance of a child; he should judge for her”
“men seldom have ruth for a woman who has crossed either their affection or their will”
“hers was the simple trust, the reliance of a child; he should judge for her”
“men seldom have ruth for a woman who has crossed either their affection or their will”
December 27, 2025
reading this shortly after watching the substance was a trip — loved the concept and musings on vanity, yet some of the passages dragged on for me. still an interesting read and felt far ahead of its time (insane that this was published in 1907??)
September 13, 2026
What a strange book! So fun! I don’t think I would have picked this up if I knew anything about it but I am so glad I did (& didn’t!). I was so nearly disappointed in the ending—so cleanly tied up—but the last two pages made it perfect. Hashtag recommend
April 20, 2025
The 20th century predecessor to The Substance
August 2, 2025
“ahead of its time” is an understatement. really liked this. i feel like i have to check out everything else from mandylion press now.
September 14, 2025
I desperately need Michael D’Arcy to read this book so I can listen to him talk about it, while occasionally interjecting to prompt his next x minutes of monologuing
October 2, 2025
okay 19th century “the substance”!! so freaky, kinda hard to get thru at parts, but worth it. also such a pretty little book to hold.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 40 reviews