The Quest of the Golden Girl by Richard le Gallienne (1896)

Lovers of Aesthetic period discursive elegance may take to this book, though it isn't by any means a finer example. Beerbohm outguns Gallienne, so does Wilde, EF Benson gives him a run for his money. That is not to say that there isn't a great deal of pleasure in this book, but where those aforementioned authors manage a sense of lifesap amongst their curlicues, Gallienne in this instance is thinner, his ichor a less pungent substance. There are wonderful moments of prose punctuating this story of the slightly egotistic young man on a pilgrimage of love, meeting various glorious women on a stroll through the English countryside and assessing their potentials for romance. It occurred to me in reading this that Gallienne is an antecedent of Michael Arlen - that what Arlen managed at his best to do is a full-blooded extension in the 20s mode. Sadness ricochets in later chapters of this one, and I'm wondering whether it is a reaction to the early death of the author's first wife; those moments provide a taste I think of what might have been possible in the way of deepening this altogether too light affair. That he was aware of that, and a good sport about it, is indicated by the fact that he allowed the advertising of a parody, The Quest of the Gilt-Edged Girl by Richard de Lyrienne, in the back pages.