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Vain Fortune
Hubert Price, a struggling young playwright, is bequeathed a legacy by his uncle. His focus on repeating his theatrical success, his love for the beautiful Julia, blinds him to the tragic, obsessive love of his disinherited cousin, Emily.Originally published in 1891 this novel was greatly admired by James Joyce.
164 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1891
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About the author
George Moore
574 books91 followersGeorge Augustus Moore was an Irish novelist, short-story writer, poet, art critic, memoirist and dramatist. Moore came from a Roman Catholic landed family who lived at Moore Hall in Carra, County Mayo. He originally wanted to be a painter, and studied art in Paris during the 1870s. There, he befriended many of the leading French artists and writers of the day.
As a naturalistic writer, he was amongst the first English-language authors to absorb the lessons of the French realists, and was particularly influenced by the works of Émile Zola. His writings influenced James Joyce, according to the literary critic and biographer Richard Ellmann, and, although Moore's work is sometimes seen as outside the mainstream of both Irish and British literature, he is as often regarded as the first great modern Irish novelist.
As a naturalistic writer, he was amongst the first English-language authors to absorb the lessons of the French realists, and was particularly influenced by the works of Émile Zola. His writings influenced James Joyce, according to the literary critic and biographer Richard Ellmann, and, although Moore's work is sometimes seen as outside the mainstream of both Irish and British literature, he is as often regarded as the first great modern Irish novelist.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
October 29, 2025
Vain Fortune is a wonderfully dark, little known-novel of the fin-de-siècle. The plot involves a struggling play wright who copies the “social dramas” popular in the 1890’s, inspired by writers like Ibsen. But Hubert’s skills are under-developed and his plots rather pedestrian. His play “Divorce” is applauded by some, but thought derivative by many others. He feels his next play, “Gypsy” will be his masterpiece, but no matter how long he works on it, it never seems right. He nearly starves in the meantime, and is only saved by a rich uncle who dies and leaves him everything. He visits his newly inherited estate and meets Emily, an 18-year-old who became the old man’s ward, but is then rejected when she refuses to marry the 65-year-old(!). She has a female companion who urges Emily and Hubert to marry. But Hubert quickly sees that Emily is melancholic and obsessive. She prefers dark clothes, dark rooms, brooding, and fits of hysteria. Hubert rejects her in favor of the companion which drives Emily nearly to madness. This novel is filled with the ideas and emotions of the period—artistic selfishness (the illustrator includes an unmistakable image of Oscar Wilde in a theatre drawing), oppression of women, the cruelty of a Nietzschean universe, and the degeneration of the Anglo-Saxon race. It’s a must-read for anyone interested in the 1890's. George Moore has been unjustly seen as a mediocre talent who used his connections with the French Symbolists to make his name in England, but novels like this prove his talent and originality.
October 18, 2017
An excellent premise, a handful of arresting scenes, and some unsatisfying melodrama.
Hubert Price is a diffident playwright who experienced some early success until struggling with his third play. Emily Watson is an eighteen year old woman and adopted daughter to a wealthy man, cut out of his will shortly before dying for refusing to marry him.
The money is instead left to Hubert, who was the man's estranged nephew. The penurious playwright finds himself rich overnight, the young woman and her handsome older companion, Julia Bentley, threatened with eviction from their beloved home, Ashwood.
Hubert is conscious of the wrong done to Emily by his uncle and so settles an allowance upon her and let's her stay. However, despite his retiring nature he still manages to come between the two women, Emily becomes subject to fits if 'passionate egotism' and tragedy looms.
In a prefatory note Moore tells the story of how he rewrote this novel to the extent that he considered it a new book altogether, the first published edition being 'thin and insipid.' Interestingly enough the playwright in the story rewrites one of his own plays, with less than satisfactory results.
Did Moore fair any better with his rewrite? I can't answer that definitively because I haven't read the original, but if that version was "insipid' then I can confirm that this one was at least half of an excellent novel.
I'm not really sure what he was doing with the character of Emily. Her behaviour didn't entirely convince me, there must have been something wrong with her which went beyond the effects of her reversal of fortune. We are also informed that her parents quarrelled before they left her an orphan. She needed a deeper portrayal than Moore was able to give her.
But there a few memorable scenes, all arriving before the melodrama at Ashdown when Hubert was struggling believe in himself and make ends meet. The best of these was a conversation with a street artist in a lowly café.
I also liked this passage about inspiration, how casually and mundanely it can arrive:
'One day he went to Hampstead Heath. A long walk, he thought, would clear his mind, and he returned home thinking of his play. The sunset still glittering in the skies; the bare trees were beautifully distinct on the blue background of the suburban street, and at the end of the long perspective, a 'bus and a hansom could be seen coming towards him. As they grew larger, his thoughts defined themselves, and the distressing problem of his fourth act seemed to solve itself.'
Immediately after this on his way home Hubert ran into a shabby man who served him a writ and the inspiration was lost.
That's how it comes and goes.
Hubert Price is a diffident playwright who experienced some early success until struggling with his third play. Emily Watson is an eighteen year old woman and adopted daughter to a wealthy man, cut out of his will shortly before dying for refusing to marry him.
The money is instead left to Hubert, who was the man's estranged nephew. The penurious playwright finds himself rich overnight, the young woman and her handsome older companion, Julia Bentley, threatened with eviction from their beloved home, Ashwood.
Hubert is conscious of the wrong done to Emily by his uncle and so settles an allowance upon her and let's her stay. However, despite his retiring nature he still manages to come between the two women, Emily becomes subject to fits if 'passionate egotism' and tragedy looms.
In a prefatory note Moore tells the story of how he rewrote this novel to the extent that he considered it a new book altogether, the first published edition being 'thin and insipid.' Interestingly enough the playwright in the story rewrites one of his own plays, with less than satisfactory results.
Did Moore fair any better with his rewrite? I can't answer that definitively because I haven't read the original, but if that version was "insipid' then I can confirm that this one was at least half of an excellent novel.
I'm not really sure what he was doing with the character of Emily. Her behaviour didn't entirely convince me, there must have been something wrong with her which went beyond the effects of her reversal of fortune. We are also informed that her parents quarrelled before they left her an orphan. She needed a deeper portrayal than Moore was able to give her.
But there a few memorable scenes, all arriving before the melodrama at Ashdown when Hubert was struggling believe in himself and make ends meet. The best of these was a conversation with a street artist in a lowly café.
I also liked this passage about inspiration, how casually and mundanely it can arrive:
'One day he went to Hampstead Heath. A long walk, he thought, would clear his mind, and he returned home thinking of his play. The sunset still glittering in the skies; the bare trees were beautifully distinct on the blue background of the suburban street, and at the end of the long perspective, a 'bus and a hansom could be seen coming towards him. As they grew larger, his thoughts defined themselves, and the distressing problem of his fourth act seemed to solve itself.'
Immediately after this on his way home Hubert ran into a shabby man who served him a writ and the inspiration was lost.
That's how it comes and goes.
January 14, 2013
Not a bad little book, nothing like the quality of Esther Waters, but a pleasant enough story anyway, and an interesting character study of the heroine
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews