Place and Power by Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler (1903)

Fowler, by modern standards, is an absolute joke. How could a writer have thought that it was possible to be both avowedly Christian and Wildeanly witty? Of course, she did, and her first novel sold in the hundreds of thousands. This later one is still in that mode, though the feeling of retreading old paths is beginning to dominate. The first half particularly is sluggish and a little uninspiring, but there is a sense that she may have recognized this; the second half benefits as a result, with the repartee much more evident and as sparkling as ever, and the plot hammering along much more soundly. My other criticism is in the arena of believability - never a major consideration in appreciating Fowler, but the reader's disbelief is not easily suspended in this one. The twist at the end, the results of an election in the last part, and, particularly, a plot-vital medical procedure earlier on, utterly strain credibility. This story of destiny and how it plays out across two generations of British family and politics in the late nineteenth century is underpinned by Fowler's Christianity and the moral background to the characters' decisions. In this she is on safe ground, though, I assume, this may be the most objectionable part to modern minds.