Customer Reviews

Lady Athlyne

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

What was the author of Dracula up to, when not occupied with the undead? Surprisingly, he was writing romances. This book is worth acquiring just to see an entirely different side of Bram Stoker.

The story begins with a girlish joke. Joy Ogilvie, an American beauty, is on an ocean voyage with her family. The Irish stewardess tells Joy there's only one man in the world worthy of her: the Earl of Athlyne, whom Mrs. O'Brien nursed as an infant. Joy, her aunt and Mrs. O'Brien take to calling Joy "Lady Athlyne," and the jest spreads to their circle back home.

Eventually a rumor reaches Lord Athlyne that a woman in New York is claiming to be his wife. As he prepares to investigate incognito, the plot is set in motion.

I'll say no more about the ensuing coincidences, misunderstandings and misadventures in store for the reader, so you may come to them fresh. For me the most astonishing quality of this 1908 novel is its eroticism. A tremendous magnetic attraction arises between Joy Ogilvie and Lord Athlyne from their first meeting. There's no explicit sex, but plenty of smoldering passion. The author exults the physical love between soul mates as an awe-inspiring force of nature, "the last and final touch of the creator's hand."

Bram Stoker was writing this novel at the time of fast changing gender politics. He's by no means a feminist, but he's doing his best to get with the phenomenon of the independent, openly sexual New Woman.

Some of characters are a bit one-dimensional, and their actions obviously contrived to further the plot. But still, Lady Athlyne has a certain charm, with touches of humor, and I'm finding this transitional literary period interesting to explore.