Marigold

On Lucifram, a world of shadows and contrary impulses, power takes an outwardly beautiful but unsettling form. Edith Allonby introduces its prince through a palace, moonlit mist and a web stretching around the planet. The narrator speaks directly to an imagined observer, mixing elaborate description with arguments about knowledge, human limits and divine power. A cast of priests, servants and supernatural authorities gives this fantasy its religious language and social structure.

Marigold, Princess of Ellel, brings a more intimate emotional struggle into that setting. In the middle passage, she watches a mysterious Master show warmth toward the ailing child Timothy while meeting her with coldness. Her attempts to charm him give way to painful attachment, and Timothy becomes a model of patience and restraint. Published in 1905, the novel offers readers an unusual combination of invented cosmology, moral reflection and the close observation of wounded pride.