The Incomplete Amorist

By: Nesbit, Edith

As the book opens, young Betty, one of the most irritating characters Nesbit ever created, is sewing. Perhaps recognizing that this, um, lacks a certain excitement, Nesbit adds that Betty wants to be an artist (meant to be mildly shocking) and soon introduces a (gasp) young man, Vernon, who (gasp) sees her without a chaperone (gasp gasp) and even-holds her hand in order to tell her fortune. (You can all just go ahead and pass out now, the way the witness to this mostly does.)The two are (gasp gasp gasp) caught by Betty's stepfather, an earnest, well meaning, highly moralistic vicar, and in a scene that does not read the same way now as it might have in 1906, the vicar hits Vernon, who behaves nobly by bowing and going away, and locks Betty in her room. She's eighteen. As a glimpse into late Victorian social structures this is all highly entertaining, but contemporary readers may find this just a bit-a bit-overwrought.But at least understandable, unlike the next bit, where Betty's aunt arrives and decides to send the shocking young girl off to Paris, under the valid idea that she'll get over Vernon faster in Paris than locked up in her room. Okay, that's explicable; what makes no sense is that the stepfather-who, just a chapter ago was locking an eighteen year old in her room, with bars on the window, because a man was holding her hand-agrees to let this same girl go to Paris and study art under the chaperonage of a complete stranger. Yeah. Right.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0863S9WSZ
• ISBN13: 9798626403084
• Release Date: January 1
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 186 Pages
• Weight: 0.56 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 6.0" x 9.0"