The House of Martha

A prosperous bachelor returns from a year in Europe eager to recount his experiences, only to find that his friends would rather describe their own troubles. Even a memorable trip struggles to compete with moving house, a postponed wedding or the great blizzard. Frank R. Stockton gives this comic frustration a first-person voice, introducing a narrator whose comfortable village home includes a private library and study beside his grandmother's rooms.

The House of Martha pairs these observations of social conversation with the narrator's pleasures in travel and solitude. In a later scene, a woodland stroll brings him to a shaded stream, where he settles beneath a tree and watches something swimming towards him. The shift from everyday talk to quiet curiosity gives readers a taste of the novel's changing pace. Its humour rests on familiar habits: wanting an audience, taking comfort for granted and noticing how readily other people turn a conversation back to themselves.