Le Monsieur de la Petite Dame

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About this book

At a Paris opera, an elderly aristocrat pays more attention to a young American woman and her quiet husband than to the performance. Bertha Villefort attracts sharp comments from Madame de Castro and the amused M. Renard, while her husband carries her belongings and sits behind her. The nickname given to him by a servant becomes a social joke, revealing how readily fashionable society turns appearances into judgments.

Frances Hodgson Burnett follows this marriage through watchful conversations, family visits and the attentions of Bertha's cousin, Ralph Edmondstone, an artist and writer. Later scenes show Bertha exhausted, her husband praised for his steady care, and Ralph increasingly distressed by his feelings for her. Readers interested in social fiction will find a story of affection, pride and misunderstandings, with much of its tension carried by gestures and words spoken in drawing rooms.

About the author

Frances Hodgson Burnett

Frances Eliza Hodgson Burnett was a British-American novelist and playwright. She is best known for the three children's novels Little Lord Fauntleroy (1886), A Little Princess (1905), and The Secret Garden (1911).