Lovel the Widower and Other Stories by William M. Thackeray

Hardcover. Conditon: Very Good. 1905. MacMillan.

Gilt top edge. Mild foxing along edge, but interior mostly clean. Well bound. Gild lettering. Some illustrations.

Frederic Lovel has married Cecilia Baker, who dies eight years later, leaving two children, the little prig Cecilia, and Popham. Their governess, Elizabeth Prior, wins the affection of the doctor, the butler, and the bachelor friend who visits Mr. Lovel and tells the story. Lady Baker’s son Clarence, a drunken reprobate, reveals the fact that Miss Prior was once a ballet-dancer (forced to this toil in order to support her family). Lady Baker orders her out of the house; Lovel comes home in the midst of the uproar, and chivalrously offers her his heart and hand, which she accepts, and he ceases to be Lovel the Widower. Lady Baker, his tyrannical mother-in-law, has become immortal.