What Will People Say? a Novel

Rupert Hughes drops Lieutenant Harvey Forbes, freshly home from the Philippines, into the glitter and gossip of New York society, where every gesture is watched and every reputation is currency. Forbes falls hard for a spirited young woman, but courtship in this world is governed less by feeling than by the question the title keeps asking: what will people say? Hughes writes the manners, ballrooms, and moral double standards of the era with a knowing eye, poking at a set that prizes appearances above honesty. Beneath the social comedy runs a serious complaint about the way gossip polices women in particular. It is a lively portrait of American wealth and hypocrisy on the eve of the First World War. This free PDF and EPUB edition makes the novel easy to read again.