Linnet

Two English travellers, the poet Will Deverill and his worldly friend Florian Wood, wander into the mountains of the Tyrol and hear a peasant girl singing to her cattle. Her voice is remarkable, and Linnet’s rise from Alpine herd-girl to celebrated opera singer forms the heart of Grant Allen’s romance. Around her the novel weaves questions of art, faith, marriage, and the compromises a woman must make when talent lifts her out of the world she was born to. Allen, better known for his New Woman fiction, gives Linnet real feeling and a sharp eye for the men who claim to love her. First published in 1898, it is a warm late-Victorian love story. Free to read in PDF and EPUB.