The Daltons: Three Roads In Life

This 2-volume work is one of the best-known novels by the Irish writer Charles James Lever, first published in 1852. This carefully crafted e-artnow ebook is formatted for your eReader with a functional and detailed table of contents. Excertp: 'While Ellen loved to dwell upon the great advantages of one who should be like a father to the boy, aiding him by wise counsel, and guiding him in every difficulty, Kate preferred to fancy the Count introducing Frank into all the brilliant society of the splendid capital, presenting him to those whose acquaintance was distinction, and at once launching him into the world of fashion and enjoyment. The promptitude with which he acceded to their father's application on Frank's behalf, was constantly referred to as the evidence of his affectionate feeling for the family; and if his one solitary letter was of the very briefest and driest of all epistolary essays, they accounted for this very naturally by the length of time which had elapsed since he had either spoken or written his native language.'

Charles James Lever (1806-1872) was an Irish novelist and raconteur, whose novels, according to Anthony Trollope, were just like his conversation. He was a born raconteur, and had in perfection that easy flow of light description which without tedium or hurry leads up to the point of the good stories of which in earlier days his supply seemed inexhaustible. With little respect for unity of action or conventional novel structure, his brightest books, such as Lorrequer, O'Malley and Tom Burke, are in fact little more than recitals of scenes in the life of a particular 'hero', unconnected by any continuous intrigue. The type of character he depicted is for the most part elementary.