The Heir of Redclyffe

Charlotte Yonge’s enormously popular Victorian novel turns on the contrast between two cousins. Guy Morville, the warm-hearted young heir of Redclyffe, struggles against the fierce temper said to run in his blood, while his cool, self-satisfied cousin Philip spreads insinuations that wreck Guy’s good name and his engagement. Guy endures the slander with a patience shaped by deep religious conviction, and is at last proved innocent. On his wedding journey he nurses the very cousin who wronged him through a fatal fever, at the cost of his own life. Shaped by the ideals of the Oxford Movement, the book moved a whole generation of readers, including the young Pre-Raphaelites. Free to read here as a PDF and EPUB download.