Miss Arnott's Marriage

"Miss Arnott's Marriage" by Richard Marsh is a novel written during the early 20th century. The story centers around Violet Arnott, a young woman grappling with the shame of her husband Robert Champion's conviction and subsequent imprisonment. As she navigates the fallout of his actions, Violet rediscovering her identity underscores themes of shame, societal expectation, and the quest for independence. At the start of the novel, Violet witnesses her husband's sentencing, which leaves her feeling utterly humiliated and alone. As she transitions from being Robert Champion's wife to living independently as Miss Arnott, she confronts her new reality marked by financial strain and societal judgment. The opening chapters introduce additional characters, including Mr. Gardner, a solicitor's clerk, who bears news of a potential inheritance, shifting Violet's prospects dramatically. Her chance encounter with Hugh Morice, a neighboring landowner, hints at evolving relationships in her life, setting up a complex web of emotion as she seeks to escape the shadow of her husband's disgrace. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

Richard Marsh was the pseudonym of the English author born Richard Bernard Heldmann. A best-selling and prolific author of the late 19th century and the Edwardian period, Marsh is best known now for his supernatural thriller novel The Beetle, which was published the same year as Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897), and was initially even more popular, outselling Dracula six times over. The Beetle remained in print until 1960. Marsh produced nearly 80 volumes of fiction and numerous short stories, in genres including horror, crime, romance and humour. Many of these have been republished recently, beginning with The Beetle in 2004. Marsh's grandson Robert Aickman was a notable writer of short "strange stories".