Only an Incident

In Joppa, a lakeside town convinced of its own importance, summer society revolves around parties, picnics and inherited wealth. Grace Denio Litchfield opens this novel with a wry account of the community's pride, church rivalries and carefully guarded social distinctions. Phebe Lane, twenty-four, longs for something beyond its comfortable routines. Readily called upon to help her neighbours, she lives with her stepmother and step-aunt in a house on the edge of the fashionable district.

The personal conversations bring another measure of character into view. Geraldine Vernor defends her treatment of the boy Olly, while the clergyman Halloway argues that guiding children depends chiefly on love. Their disagreement gives the town's polished manners a more searching context. Readers interested in nineteenth-century American social life will find both comic observation and questions about kindness, belonging and the difference between a person's reputation and everyday conduct.