Mademoiselle Miss and other stories by Henry Harland (1893)

This was the volume in which Harland finally showed fully the mettle that I'm guessing gained him the editorship of The Yellow Book. It is a collection of five long stories. The first two are set in Paris exclusively and are quaint elegies of the slightly racy kind about notable young ladies of the demi-monde; an elegant innocent one having departed back to London and left her ripple behind her, and a more selfish but beautiful one of the class of ladies of the streets. This one's cough grows louder and more pronounced until.....the elegy has its point. The third is set in London and is the first exposure of Harland's gift for Wildean wit, where a nonchalant bohemian father is perplexed by the return of the son he gave up at birth, who has been schooled in rigid American ways. The fourth is set again in Paris and then New York and concerns the disappointment inherent in trying to realise a youthful love when ways have long parted. The last is set in a German principality in the midst of a royal succession. The intrigues engulf a traveller and involve a hackneyed resolution. Though these stories read well, they leave relatively little impression. I am waiting for Harland to move me and it hasn't happened yet.