The Courtship of Morrice Buckler

A dusty copy of Horace brings Morrice Buckler back to two eventful years in his youth, from 1685 to 1687. Writing later in life, he recalls how a bookish English student became involved in demanding affairs far beyond his university studies. The opening finds him at Leyden with Jack Larke, whose impatience with lectures and appetite for adventure contrast with Buckler's devotion to classical books. Their fencing practice gives the scholarly narrator another skill to carry into the wider world.

A. E. W. Mason's historical romance combines that retrospective voice with the political setting of James II's reign and memories of a castle in the Tyrol. The courtship scenes also reveal a relationship strained by suspicion, wounded pride and uncertain meanings behind small gestures. Readers can follow Buckler's self-questioning as he tries to distinguish an insult from an invitation, with a fan and a crust of bread becoming signs that demand interpretation.