1932 THE ORDEAL OF RICHARD FEVEREL - A History of a Father and Son

Description: This book has everything! Here is a review from Goodreads: "Some books are simply impossible to pigeonhole, although sensational, psychological, socially critical Bildungsroman pretty much covers the waterfront of The Ordeal of Richard Feverel: A History of a Father and Son. George Meredith’s most successful early novel is this exquisite dissection of the smug, self-important Victorian propertied classes. The running gag in the book is a series of fatuous aphorisms nicely mirroring the mindless culture that tries to run its life by slogans.The surprise comes at the end of the book. In his last year as a minor, Richard encounters adultery, cross-dressing, seduction, elopement, a planned abduction, a duel, and deaths. His “ordeal” makes most sensational novels look like nursery rhymes. All the leisurely descriptions of earlier chapters are gone.At the start of the book, Richard is fourteen, the only son of a rich single father, who has nurtured him the way other monomaniacs nurture prize marrows. When Richard, like Tom Brown, goes off the rails, Daddy’s Money is there to bail out his precious boy. Fast-forward five years and Tom Brown morphs into Hamlet. By turns, melancholy, amorous, rebellious and sullen, it takes the entire family rushing around to keep him out of trouble. Richard is like a spoiled oriental prince nobody dare cross.The rake’s progress has to end in tears, but while Tom Brown turns into a living saint and Hamlet dies nobly, Richard does neither. After trying out whatever an amoral young man with no responsibilities and a good income can think of, we can reasonably expect a trite ending, and we would be wrong.A monomaniac at large, watching over sane people in slumber! thinks Adrian Harley, as he hears Sir Austin's footfall, and truly that was a strange object to see. – The Ordeal of Richard Feverel, George Meredith (1859)"

Price: 12 USD

Location: Blairsville, Georgia

End Time: 2025-01-12T15:02:31.000Z

Shipping Cost: N/A USD