Alas!

by Rhoda Broughton

Jim Burgoyne has been engaged to Amelia for eight years, and his love is waning. On a visit to Italy he meets the beautiful Elizabeth Le Marchant and her mother, at whose home he stayed ten years before. But he is not free, and Elizabeth clearly has secrets.

298 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1890

About the author

Rhoda Broughton was a popular British (Welsh) novelist and short story writer.

Reviews

[Rosemary · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a youth, Jim Burgoyne spent a wonderful summer with a family called Le Marchant in Devon. Ten years later, and engaged to a lady that he has since fallen out of love with, he meets the beautiful Elizabeth Le Marchant again. But something has happened to her in the intervening years, he has other commitments, and it seems all he can do is hope for her happiness with someone else.

Having stumbled upon Rhoda Broughton, I find I really like her books. This one definitely has its faults - there is far too much description of sights around Florence and Algiers, and the ending is too sudden to be satisfying - but in other respects the writing is good, and the characters seem real, although of course behaving in Victorian ways.

[Emma · Rating 2 out of 5]

So what was that all about? Was it supposed to be a mystery, a tragedy, a farce or a travelogue? It has elements of all those, and I must confess I'm baffled as to the author's intention. It's the tale of a rather selfish man, his engagement to one long-suffering woman and his infatuation with another who has a dark secret in her past. Annoyingly, he refuses to try and learn the truth of this secret (despite many opportunities) until it is revealed to him in the last few pages - prompting me to say, "Is that all? I've waded through 400 pages for that?" Because it did feel like wading at times, through solid paragraphs of description of the Tuscan and North African settings, and a meandering and repetitive plot (lots of excursions and coincidental meetings.) Rhoda Broughton is a fluent and talented writer, but this, I think, is very much a book of its time, and struggles to appeal to modern tastes and expectations. Having read it in tandem with RL Stevenson's Kidnapped, also written towards the end of the 19th century, I much prefer the latter's directness and plain English. Alas is probably of most appeal to those with a decided interest in late Victorian mores and literature.