British Library, Day Seventeen

I knocked off rather earlier than expected, thanks to a badly-printed novel on the Covenanters that was in a tiny font, to boot.  Strictly speaking, I have no objections in general to novels about the Covenanters, but I do when they give me a headache.

•  Rev. P. B. Power, Linked to a Thought (Church of England Temperance Society, n.d.).  On the one hand, we have Grandpa Stone who raises young Jonathan to believe that "I am God's"; on the other, we have Grandma Woodcock, who raises young Squire Woodcock to believe that the world is his for the taking.  Also, Jonathan is teetotal, and the Squire is not.  Jonathan soberly (literally) faces grave financial reverses, goes to Australia, saves a ship's crew from a drunken captain, and then is nice to a dying man made wealthy in the goldrush who turns out to owe him a lot of money.  Score! The Squire, meanwhile, arranges to have Jonathan's fiancee kidnapped in order to do some dastardly deeds (whoa).  He is foiled (no moustache-twirling involved, however), and, because he drinks, dies in extreme poverty.  BODY COUNT: Three.  
• Magdalene Nisbet, the Maiden of the Merse. A Tale of the Persecution of Charles the Second's Time (Thomas Grant, 1857).  A rather hardcore Presbyterian novel (its headache-inducing properties having nothing to do with the theology, however), primarily notable as a late critique of Walter Scott's Old Mortality.  Magdalene, a devout Covenanter, loses her entire family, but discovers that she had been betrothed as a child to the son of one of her father's military friends.  She goes forth to find him.  En route, she is betrayed into the hands of Sir Brian Berwick, who is not a nice guy, but after being badly injured after she escapes, she is nursed back to health by Sir Brian's angelic daughter. The daughter in question has a super-complicated romantic backstory involving betrayal, abandonment, forgery--the usual.  On the one hand, some characters convert; on the other hand, both Magdalene and Miss Berwick die.  One of the super-baddies gets to live happily ever after, much to the fury of the narrator, who insists that he really truly had to be eaten away inside with guilt, or something.  Features an evil clergyman named Hardens Jollyfellow, of all things.  BODY COUNT: Ten.  
• Brothers in Arms: A Tale of the Children's Crusade (Church Sunday School Union, 1883).  Another historical novel about (guess) the Children's Crusade.  The arrogant young Marco decides to go on the Crusade for the glory, taking his little brother Luca along with him; along the way, he recruits Pietro (also tending to arrogance), Anselmo (more angelic), and Cipriano (four years old, not anything yet).  Other kids join up, including the aristocratic Adela. Needless to say, this ends badly: Marco converts to Islam; Luca is caught in a mudslide and dies; Adela is sold off as a slave; Pietro and Cipriano are martyred; and Anselmo, who had also been sold as a slave, finally makes his way back home.  Moral of the story: don't disobey your elders (that is, in fact, the moral of the story).  BODY COUNT: Five among the named characters, but countless others.
• Procrastination; Or, the Vicar's Daughter. A Tale (Burton and Smith, 1824).  An evangelical novel.  Emma, the daughter of Moravian missionaries, is Serious about religion; Eliza, the daughter of the vicar, is Serious about everything except religion.  Therefore, Eliza procrastinates about conversion, despite witnessing deathbed scenes, witnessing other people converting, witnessing the state of people who haven't converted, and witnessing the lives of her own children.  Despite the best efforts of Emma, who marries a missionary, and Sophia, a friend, Eliza dies suddenly, still unconverted.  Notable for the lack of prooftexting, something that would become core to evangelical fiction in just a few years.  BODY COUNT: Four.