An Unknown Lover

Grizel #1

by Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

“Was she beautiful? Was she merely pretty? Was she redeemed from plainness only by a certain quality of interest and charm? At different times an affirmative answer might have been given to each of the three questions in turns; at the moment Katrine Beverley appeared just a tall, graceful girl who arranged her hair with a fine eye for the exigencies of an irregular profile, and who deserved an order of merit for choosing a dress at once so simple, so artistic, and so becoming.

Genres: Fiction

408 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1913

About the author

The author of 33 books, as well as numerous short stories and magazine articles, British author Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey was born Jessie Bell in 1856, in Liverpool. She was the daughter of Scots insurance broker David Bell, and his wife, Elizabeth Morris Barton, and had six siblings. She married cotton broker Henry Mansergh in 1883, and a number of her books were originally published under the name "Jessie Mansergh." After the death of Henry Mansergh in 1894, her work began to be published in magazines.

Vaizey was married again in 1898, to George de Horne Vaizey, a man she met while on a cruise won through a story competition. Her son George Vaizey, born in 1900, was also to become a writer. Contracting typhoid in the early years of the twentieth century, she developed rheumatoid arthritis, and was confined to a wheelchair until her death in 1917.

Reviews

[Hannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was on the romantic side for me, but still fun. By that I mean that most of the plot centers around people falling in love in one way or another. I liked it, but try not to read too much of such things...it makes me lonely!
However, it was a really interesting story; my interest never once wandered, and I read it all in one day! I must admit, though, that if I'd had the hard copy I would not have been able to resist the urge to peek ahead.
I read the ebook edition from Project Gutenburg. This one in particular was rather badly edited, and at the end the most frequent problem was the substitution of "p" for "f" when the capital letter was used...rather odd to have people meeting at "Pour in the afternoon".

[Alisha · Rating 3 out of 5]

Katrine has lived for years with her young widowed brother, taking care of him in his grief. She finds it impossible that anything in their lives should ever change. But when her fascinating school friend comes for a visit, and she starts receiving startling letters from a man she has never met in India, both brother and sister find that they just might be ready for something new.
Don't read the other review about this book, it's entirely made up of spoilers and isn't marked as such.

[Dorian · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was really rather nice. The heroine, Katrine, is a young woman who has devoted her life to looking after her brother after he was tragically widowed, only by the start of the book this is beginning to get a bit boring for her. However, her best friend lives in India and has a habit of reading bits of her letters to one of her friends, a Captain Blair (the hero). Captain Blair falls in love with Katrine on the basis of these letter-bits and a couple of photos, and starts writing to her. Around the same time, the tragic brother finally gets over himself (it's been 8 years and he'd only been married 6 months when she died) and falls in love with a friend of Katrine's. So brother and friend get married, and Katrine yields to the importunings of her Indian friend and Captain Blair, and heads for India.

Here's where things get complicated. Because, you see, Captain Blair's friend Captain Bedford has been convalescing in Egypt and joins Katrine's ship at Port Said, to look after her the rest of the way to India. And he and she fall in love. And Katrine agonises about it because she's going out to meet Captain Blair, who loves her, so falling in love with someone else on the way is cheating. So she's all noble and hiding her love and making sure Captain Bedford knows she's practically spoken for. (And in the meantime she's nice to another man who's consumptive and an alcoholic and shunned by the rest of the passengers. And doesn't reform him because the author knows what she's talking about.) And then they have a shipwreck and Katrine and Captain Bedford can't pretend they don't love each other when they're about to die. Only, of course, they don't die. Which is embarrassing to all concerned.

And, eventually, Katrine gets to her friend's home and meets Captain Blair...and he turns out to be Captain Bedford, as was obvious as soon as she started falling in love with him, because there are Rules in this kind of fiction.

And it was all kind of silly, but very fun, and full of characters behaving, in the midst of a rather Victorian plot, in very real (rather than Victorian idealised) ways, which is one of the things I like so about Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey's books. One of her best ones.

[Little Red Readinghood · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another great read from the turn of the century. Girl house keeps for widower brother. Brother falls in love,Girl begins correspondance with man and travels to India to meet him. Full of noble thoughts.