Synopsis
Alas! A novel Part I investigates the lingering weight of memory and the emotional dissonance that arises when the past reappears in unexpected forms. It portrays how time alters perception, complicating once-familiar connections and casting former affections in a new, often uneasy light. The story captures the fragility of recollection and how nostalgia distorts truth, layering affection with regret and sentiment with uncertainty. Through internal reflection and reluctant social interactions, the narrative exposes the contradictions between outward civility and inner conflict. The reintroduction of a figure from the past challenges the protagonist s emotional equilibrium, revealing the unfinished business of the heart and the ways in which buried emotions persist beneath surface routines. The tension between obligation and desire, between forgetting and confronting, underscores the difficulty of reconciling what once was with what now is. Subtle humor tempers the sorrow of missed opportunities, creating a complex portrayal of human vulnerability within the rhythms of social convention.
About the Author
Rhoda Broughton was a Welsh novelist and short-story writer. Her early works were known for their sensationalism, thus critics often overlooked her later, stronger work, despite her being dubbed the "queen of the circulating libraries." Her novel Dear Faustina (1897) is known for its homoeroticism. Her novel Lavinia (1902) portrays a supposedly "unmanly" young man who wishes he had been born a woman. Broughton was a granddaughter of the 8th baronet, hence she descended from the Broughton family. She was Sheridan le Fanu's niece, and he helped her begin her literary career. Rhoda Broughton was born on November 29, 1840, in Denbigh, North Wales, the daughter of the Rev. Delves Broughton, youngest son of the Rev. Sir Henry Delves-Broughton, 8th baronet, and Jane Bennett, daughter of George Bennett, a prominent Irish barrister. Rhoda Broughton acquired an interest in reading as a young girl, particularly poetry. She was influenced by William Shakespeare, as seen by the frequent citations and allusions in her works. Presumably, after reading Anne Isabella Thackeray Ritchie's The Story of Elizabeth, she decided to test her own talent. Broughton, in turn, introduced Mary Cholmondeley to her publishers in 1887.
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