Enduring Works by Women Novelists
There are four Misses Mallet. Caroline and Sophia are large, jolly spinsters with recollections of a past glamour which sustain them as the years slip by.
Then there is beautiful Rose. Much younger than her stepsisters, she calmly waits the event--or the man--that will take her away from their life of small social successes in the city of Radstowe. But she is independent and fastidious; no man, not even the eligible Francis Sales, can entirely capture her heart.
The fourth Miss Mallet is Henrietta, who comes to share the conventional home of her three aunts. With her Aunt Rose's beauty and her own willful spirit, she devotes her energies to eluding spinsterhood. Encountering Francis (no longer so eligible), she falls under his spell. As Rose and Henrietta both circle round Francis, they are forced to decide between sense and sensibility--and each of them makes the perfect choice.
With a New Introduction by Sally Beauman
About the Author
E.H. Young (1880-1949) was born in Northumberland, England, and lived for many years in Bristol, which became the setting for most of her novels. Of Young's twelve witty novels, this, her fourth, first published in 1922, is the most reminiscent of Jane Austen.
