Title: Dissolving Views
Author and Title: Leonora Blanche Lang. Dissolving Views
First Edition: London: Longman, 1884. 2 volumes, cr. 8vo., 14s.
Summary: The novel relates the story of Eleanor Winton: left a well-to-do orphan after the death of her mother, Eleanor becomes engaged to the young Ivan Russell, the brother of her best friend Katie, when he declares his love for her during a visit to his family. Though she likes him, she does not love Ivan but thinks her influence will steady the young man who has yet to establish himself in a career (he tries art for a time) and suffers from the one vice of horse betting. When he breaks his vow to give up gambling, the pair mutually and agreeably break off the engagement. (Ivan will go on to marry happily a more congenial partner.) Eleanor later meets and falls in love with the older Beaufort, but he still nurses a love for an Austrian heiress from his youth who refused his marriage proposal in favor of a Russian prince. When Beaufort meets his former lover now a widow after several years, he sees her now as the vain, selfish woman he foolishly idealized as a young man. Beaufort then proposes to Eleanor. On this thin plot, Lang includes extended scenes in Britany, London, Paris, and Scotland and in particular a chapter depicting the Oxford-Cambridge cricket match at Lord’s. (TJB)
References: BL; EC
Texts
- Search for title at The Online Books Page (please note: the search will take you out of At the Circulating Library)