The Little Professor

This Week's Acquisitions

[Your Honor, I have no idea how all these volumes from the "Novels of Faith and Doubt" series got into my mailbox.]

  • Eliza Lynn Linton, Sowing the Wind, ed. Deborah T. Meem and Kate Holterhoff (Victorian Secrets, 2015).  Marriages gone sour, madness, and female journalists in Victorian England.  First published in 1867.  More about Linton here.  (Amazon)
  • Guy Boothby, A Prince of Swindlers, ed. Gary Hoppenstad (Penguin, 2015).  New edition of this novel about a Raffles-esque criminal-detective, by the ultra-prolific Australian novelist Guy Boothby.  Boothby is better known for his Dr. Nikola novels.    First appeared in 1900.  (Amazon)
  • Leonard Merrick, Mr. Bazalgette's Agent (British Library, 2013).  A detective novel with a female protagonist, Miriam Lea.  First published in 1888.  (Amazon)
  • Frederick William Robinson, No Church (Garland, 1976) and Beyond the Church (Garland, 1977).  Two of the three novels Robinson published exploring contemporary church controversies (the third is High Church).  In Beyond the Church (1866), characters representing various theological "types" (High Churchmen, freethinkers, etc.) seek spiritual homes; in No Church (1861), a young woman born in a prison experiences both Methodist and worldly life.  (eBay)
  • Robert Buchanan, Foxglove Manor (Garland, 1975).  A seriously oversexed Anglican priest conducts an adulterous affair with one woman while he impregnates another.  Needless to say, he converts to Roman Catholicism in the final sentence.  First published in 1884.  Buchanan is now primarily remembered for his attack on D. G. Rossetti.  (eBay)
  • Thomas de Longueville, The Life of a Prig (Garland, 1975).  Satirical account of a very self-satisfied religious seeker.  De Longueville, a Catholic author, was best known for this book and its sequels.  First published in 1885.  (eBay)
  • Winwood Reade, The Outcast (Garland, 1975).  A young clergyman is slowly beset by doubts about both his religion and his vocation.  First published in 1875.  Reade is better known for The Martyrdom of Man.  (eBay)
  • Lady Gertrude Douglas, Linked Lives (Garland, 1975).  Anglican girl meets impoverished Catholic servant, eventually converts (along with her fiance); everyone dies unpleasantly (except the servant).  First published in 1876.  (eBay)
  • Mrs. Desmond Humphreys, Sheba: A Study of Girlhood (Garland, 1976).  Set in Australia.  A young woman matures, finds love (and sex), and is betrayed.  First published in 1889. (eBay)
  • Charles Maurice Davies, Broad Church (Garland, 1975).  Satire of late-Victorian trends in the C of E by the somewhat, ah, quirky clergyman-cum-ethnographer-cum-novelist.  First published in 1875.  (eBay)
  • William Howitt, Woodburn Grange: A Story of English Country Life (Garland, 1975).  Clash between old and new money in the countryside.  Published in 1867 (one of Howitt's last works).  More on Howitt (an ex-Quaker) here and here.  (eBay)
  • Edmund Randolph, Mostly Fools: A Romance of Civilization (Garland, 1976).  Rather dystopian Catholic novel (set in the near future) about a young man's attempt to save England from its own degradation.  First published in 1886.  (eBay)
  • Edward Heneage Dering, Sherborne (Garland, 1975).  Young man wrestles with his anxieties about and attraction to Catholicism.  Originally serialized in the Catholic periodical The Lamp; published in volume form in 1875.  (eBay)
  • Lucy Ribchester, The Hourglass Factory (Simon & Schuster, 2015).  Intrepid female reporter tries to figure out what happened to a suffragette circus performer.  (Amazon [UK])
  • Frances Knight, The Church in the Nineteenth Century (Tauris, 2008).  General history of Christianity, mostly focused on Europe but with some attention to the global context.  (Amazon [secondhand])
buying-books this-weeks-acquisitions