Irene Iddesleigh

Amanda McKittrick Ros published this melodrama in 1897, financed by her husband as a tenth wedding anniversary present, and readers have argued about it ever since. Irene, an adopted noblewoman, marries Sir John Dunfern while still in love with her former tutor, Oscar Otwell. Love letters expose her, and Dunfern imprisons her in his manor for life. A maid helps her escape, and the elopement carries the couple to New York, where Otwell drinks away their money and Irene is left with nothing. The prose, not the plot, made the book famous. Ros reached for ornament in every sentence, and her alliteration and mangled syntax produce effects no trained writer could manage. Mark Twain called it one of the greatest unintentionally humorous novels of all time, and the Inklings read it aloud to see who could last longest without laughing.