"my Novel" Volume 05: Restored Classics to Go Edition

A novel of sharp social comedy and moral contrast, this story opens with a family debate about how fiction should move, then plunges into a world where class, ambition, and sympathy collide. Leonard Fairfield, earnest and self-taught, finds himself traveling with Richard Avenel, a self-made businessman whose energy, political bluntness, and contempt for old hierarchies are matched by his lack of refinement. Richard's prosperous estate, practical improvements, and rise through trade and shrewd investment mark him as one of the "new men," yet his success is shadowed by vanity, social climbing, and a harsh, calculating view of human relations. As Leonard is drawn into Richard's household and then into fashionable London, the novel widens its range to include Lord L'Estrange, a witty but lonely aristocrat whose cynicism conceals deep compassion. His encounter with the ruined soldier Algernon Digby and Digby's devoted daughter Helen brings the book's humane core into focus: beneath satire and status games lies a duty to the vulnerable. In Screwstown, meanwhile, pedigree and gossip rule the day, and the arrival of the mysterious Mrs. M'Catchley exposes the absurdity of social pretension. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.