The Lady Paramount by Henry Harland (1902)

 This is the second iteration of what I call 'Harland 3'. Harland 1 was the pseudonymous works by "Sidney Luska"; Harland 2 was the early works under his own name. Harland 3 had by far the most success, being the most primary-coloured and concentrated. And the most romantic. I identified the previous iteration of this last group (The Cardinal's Snuff-Box) by saying that it had chocolate- or cigar-box brilliance of hue. This one's the same. A scion of the current ruling family of a mythical Adriatic island, which has been incorporated into the new Italy, decides she will seek out her cousin, of the denuded branch, regarded as the 'true' one. He's living the life of a gentleman in England. As with The Cardinal's Snuff-Box, in some senses, the action centres around fond deception, falling in love, the test of the other's genuineness of feeling, above and beyond the call of money and position. It also has the same concerns with the Catholic church. It clips along very brightly, the intensification of focus keeping it clear and essential. Their relationship leaps along with playfulness and some charm, until the inevitable revelation, and the melding back together of the parts of the family into a royal whole. My interest has been piqued as to how Harland suddenly 'got' that he could achieve this far greater clarity and pointedness. My suspicions lie with his wife as a potential co-writer. Aline Merriam appears to have been a sculptor, but she did apparently complete his last novel after he died. Is she the person responsible for the escalation of definition?