Frank Arthur Swinnerton Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Basil Davenport

Critical Essay by Basil Davenport

In ["The Georgian House"] the author has assembled a number of well-tried and generally reliable ingredients: an old-fashioned house with a secret panel; a hero who is at the beginning of the book living under an assumed name and is evidently under some sort of romantic cloud, from which he is called home to take his inheritance; a wise old lady who understands the young things; a missing will; a thorough-paced villainess; a black-mailing lawyer's clerk; and other stand-bys too numerous to mention. The sort of book that results from such a combination is in most cases excellent entertainment, and of that we cannot have too much. If "The Georgian House" kept its promise of good traditional melodrama it would be a pleasure to read and recommend it. But unfortunately the good old melodrama never quite comes off.

There appear to be several reasons for its failure. The various parts...
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