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Patty’s Fortune is divided pretty clearly into two sections. In the first Bill Farnsworth hosts a house party in an empty hotel, and in the second Philip Van Reypen’s aunt attempts to coerce Patty into marrying Phil. Hopefully that will make it easier to talk about. I’ve been struggling with these last few books, mostly because I have a hard time telling them apart.

The house party thing is, I guess, Wells’ chance to revisit the premise of The Dorrance Domain, except with wealthy young people being waited on by shoals of servants instead of children in straitened circumstances mostly waiting on themselves. The party consists of twelve people, including the Kenerleys as chaperones, a new man called Chick Channing, and no Philip. Yay!

The party would be a complete success (Kit Cameron channels Mr. Rochester! Mona and Roger finally get engaged!) except that it’s indirectly the means of Patty’s introduction to Maudie Adams, a theatrical promoter who tries to convince her to go on the stage. Patty is maybe at her least appealing in this book — more human, but not in a likable way. It’s always been a mystery how Patty stays unspoiled in the midst of so much wealth and attention, but sometimes it seems like the answer to that question is, “Well, maybe she doesn’t.”

Without really seeming to have changed, Patty looks as vain and as spoiled as we’ve ever seen her. I guess that’s mostly when she wants to go on the stage, though. Once we get to the second half of the book, all of my sympathies are with her again. Otherwise some of them would have to be with Lady Van, Phil’s aunt, who tries to subtly and then less subtly coerce Patty into an engagement with Phil. Or with Patty’s parents, who willingly go along with the more subtle coercion. Or with Phil, which, no.

When trying to groom Patty for Phil doesn’t do the trick, Lady Van, in her final illness, tries to get Patty to promise to marry him, telling her that she (Lady Van) will die right then and there if she (Patty) doesn’t. It’s underhanded and gross, and thankfully Fred and Nan Fairfield agree with me, because I was starting to distrust them.

Then…well, as if the emotional blackmail wasn’t enough, Lady Van passes her illness on to Patty (I know, I’m being unfair, she didn’t do it on purpose) and between that and her stress over the promise Lady Van forced out of her, Patty ends up in pretty bad shape.

It’s cool, though. She’s saved through vaguely supernatural means and also Bill Farnsworth.

Next up is Patty Blossom. We’re on the home stretch, guys.

Cathlin recommended The Dorrance Domain, and I was frustrated enough with Peter the Brazen (which I’m still reading, bit by excruciatingly awful bit) that I started it almost immediately. It’s by Carolyn Wells, and it’s about a family consisting of four kids and their grandmother, who sick of life in New York boarding houses, decide to try living in a defunct hotel.

It’s a good concept, and it’s Carolyn Wells, so the execution should be good, too. But instead the whole thing just feels kind of halfhearted. I hear “kids living in an empty hotel” and yeah, I think, “oh cool, everyone can choose whichever room they want” and “they can spread out all across the hotel dining room.” And Wells provides that. But I also think I’m going to get kids biting off more than they can chew at first, and making mistakes, and slowly becoming more competent, and there’s barely any of that. Saying “barely any” instead of “none” is really nice of me, actually.

The problem, I guess, is that there’s no conflict. The Dorrance kids are like, “let’s try this thing,” and it goes really well, and then they’re like, “oh, cool, let’s try this other thing,” and that goes really well, too. And the magic of Carolyn Wells is that she can usually make that work, but, for whatever reason, she can’t pull that off here. I’ve talked before about how good she is at making her characters enjoy themselves convincingly, but she only manages it once in a while in The Dorrance Domain. Moments like the one in which Dorothy and Leicester collapse into giggles after signing in their first hotel guests, not knowing that their guests are basically doing the same thing upstairs, were too few and far between.

This feels like hackwork, basically. And — because it’s Carolyn Wells, and she is great — it’s not bad (except for some offensive stereotypes that seemed pretty mild in comparison to the ones in Peter the Brazen) just uninspired.

Several weeks ago, I followed up my reread of Vicky Van with my first ever reading of The Clue, Carolyn Wells’ first mystery novel. It’s possible that it’s also her best mystery novel, although I also kind of think it’s her worst ever use of Fleming Stone.

Unrelatedly, I’m so fond of recieving recommendations from readers that I’ve put up a page specifically for that purpose. You can find it here or in the sidebar.

My new post at Edwardian Promenade is up! It’s about one of my favorite Elinor Glyn books, The Visits of Elizabeth, and two sequels, one by Glyn and one…not.

I found myself thinking, halfway through Elizabeth Visits America, about the way books take place in their own separate worlds. I mean, I often think about how an author’s style sort of creates an alternate universe, so the works of Elinor Glyn take place in a world where women are naturally a bit conniving and men are very simple and countries age like people, but here I was thinking more about how I read a lot of books set in the same time period, but somehow I always relate them in terms of style, not history. Anyway, there’s a bit in Elizabeth Visits America where Elizabeth is in New York, and she talks about young people who aren’t out in society yet, and how the boys and girls are as familiar with each other as siblings, and how their dances are almost like children’s parties, and I suddenly realized that — remember, this is 1909 — hey, that’s Patty Fairfield that Elizabeth is meeting, basically. So, I don’t know, I thought I’d share that.

Anyway, the post is here.

I had meant to finish writing about the Patty Fairfield books in order at some indefinite point in the future, but I had a hankering to reread Patty’s Butterfly Days this week.

Butterfly Days is one of my favorites, I think. I’m pretty sure the only one I’ve read more often is Patty’s Summer Days. In it, Patty is left alone at the seaside with her friend Mona while Mr. Fairfield and Nan take a trip to the mountains. Mona lives in a big, over-decorated mansion, and she and Patty go to a lot of parties, give a few themselves, and are generally unproductive members of society. It’s really enjoyable.

I, um, don’t think I’ve ever had to to this before, but: SPOILERS AHEAD.

So, uh, Bill Farnsworth. 6’3″. Well built. Reads poetry. Patty’s future husband.

This is the first time we meet Bill, and it’s pretty clear from the start that he’s destined to be more to Patty than most of the young men she flirts with. And that makes me happy, because I adore Bill, especially when Wells gives us Phil Van Reypen as the main alternative.

Phil isn’t in this one, which is nice. Neither are Kenneth Harper and Mr. Hepworth, and I assume that’s so Wells has time to acquaint us with Bill. The only one of Patty’s old friends who appears in this one at all is Roger Farrington, who has never been a serious suitor, and is, in this book, being steered towards becoming a serious love interest for Mona.

I’m a little uncomfortable with the idea of heroines needing big strong men to look after them, and that’s pretty much exactly who Bill is and what he does, but I’m going to say, tentatively, that in this case it works. Patty has a lot of skills, and mostly she can take care of herself, but she’s also a little bit spoiled and occasionally reckless, and none of her friends or suitors up to this point have really been capable of standing up to her.

I’m so glad Wells didn’t decide to marry Patty to Phil Van Reypen.

The first two Carolyn Wells mysteries I ever read were The Gold Bag and Vicky Van. I think the choice was dictated by them being the only two available on PG at the time, but it worked out well, since they sort of represent the best and the worst. I’ve read Vicky Van three or [...]

Carolyn Wells apparently discovered mystery novels after having had one of Anna Katherine Green’s books read aloud to her circa 1909. The Leavenworth Case was Green’s first and best-known book, and if it wasn’t the one that Wells heard read, then probably all Green’s books were pretty similar, because The Leavenworth Case reads like a [...]

Tuesday was my birthday, so I chose to spend the day at the library. The main branch of the New York Public Library, to be precise. The have a gigantic non-circulating collection of old books they’ve taken off the shelves because no one is interested in them anymore, but if you get an access card, [...]