Fiction · 1896
A Lady of Quality
Being a Most Curious, Hitherto Unknown History, as Related by Mr. Isaac Bickerstaff but Not Presented to the World of Fashion Through the Pages of the Tatler, and Now for the First Time Written Down
Clorinda Wildairs is born in a squalid Restoration-era country house to a drunken squire who wanted a son, is left to run wild among grooms and dogs, and at fifteen decides to become something else entirely. She does it by force of will — takes the county by storm, marries an elderly earl for his title and his money, and makes herself the most admired woman in London. Then the man who ruined her in her wild years comes back, and threatens to tell.
Frances Hodgson Burnett published A Lady of Quality in 1896, some years before the children's books she is now chiefly read for. It was an enormous seller and a considerable scandal: reviewers objected to a heroine who commits a crime and is neither punished nor much troubled by it.
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Contents
- Note
- Chapter I — The twenty-fourth day of November 1690
- Chapter II — In which Sir Jeoffry encounters his offspring
- Chapter III — Wherein Sir Jeoffry’s boon companions drink a toast
- Chapter IV — Lord Twemlow’s chaplain visits his patron’s kinsman, and Mistress Clorinda shines on her birthday night
- Chapter V — “Not I,” said she. “There thou mayst trust me. I would not be found out.”
- Chapter VI — Relating how Mistress Anne discovered a miniature
- Chapter VII
- Chapter VIII — Two meet in the deserted rose garden, and the old Earl of Dunstanwolde is made a happy man
- Chapter IX
- Chapter X — “Yes—I have marked him”
- Chapter XI — Wherein a noble life comes to an end
- Chapter XII — Which treats of the obsequies of my Lord of Dunstanwolde, of his lady’s widowhood, and of her return to town
- Chapter XIII — Wherein a deadly war begins
- Chapter XIV — Containing the history of the breaking of the horse Devil, and relates the returning of his Grace of Osmonde from France
- Chapter XV
- Chapter XVI — Dealing with that which was done in the Panelled Parlour
- Chapter XVII — Wherein his Grace of Osmonde’s courier arrives from France
- Chapter XVIII — My Lady Dunstanwolde sits late alone and writes
- Chapter XIX
- Chapter XX — A noble marriage
- Chapter XXI — An heir is born
- Chapter XXII — Mother Anne
- Chapter XXIII — “In One who will do justice, and demands that it shall be done to each thing He has made, by each who bears His image”
- Chapter XXIV — The doves sate upon the window-ledge and lowly cooed and cooed
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About this edition
The text is free of copyright. This edition was prepared from an authoritative digitisation, processed by Bibliomancer under its own review protocol; every automated correction is recorded in its transformation log. Rights assessed for CA, EU, GB, US.
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About the author
1849–1924 · Victorian
Frances Hodgson Burnett (1849–1924) was born in Manchester and emigrated with her widowed mother to Tennessee in 1865. She supported the family by writing magazine stories and became a successful novelist and playwright on both sides of the Atlantic. Little Lord Fauntleroy (1886), A Little Princess (1905) and The Secret Garden (1911) are the books for which she is remembered.
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