Love's Shadow: A Novel

By Ada Leverson

The heroine of Love's Shadowis the delightful Edith Ottley. She lives with her husband Brace and her two children in a very new, very small, very white flat in Knightsbridge. As we follow Edith's fortunes we enter the enchanting world of Edwardian London, bewitched by the courtships, jealousies and love affairs of Edith's coterie - Hyacinth, Eugenia, Charles and Cecil, Vincy, Madame Frabelle and many more.

Love's Shadow is part of The Bloomsbury Group, a new library of books from the early twentieth-century chosen by readers for readers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
• Release date: Dec 1, 2010
• ISBN: 9781608191819

Ada Leverson

Ada Leverson (1862-1933) was a British novelist. Born into a middle-class Jewish family, Leverson was raised alongside eight siblings by Samuel Henry Beddington, a wool merchant, and his wife Zillah. At 19, she married Ernest Leverson, with whom she would raise a daughter, Violet. In the 1890s, she embarked on a career as a professional writer, submitting stories and articles to Punch, The Yellow Book, and The Saturday Review. Through her work as a theater critic, she gained a reputation for her abundant wit and satirical tone, parodying friends and enemies alike in some of England’s most popular magazines and newspapers. She was a devoted friend of Oscar Wilde, who supported her literary pursuits and shared her humorous outlook on life. When Wilde was put on trial for his homosexuality, Leverson offered him a place to stay and continued corresponding with the Irish author until the end of his life. She wrote several novels throughout her life, including The Twelfth Hour (1907) and Little Ottleys (1908-1916), a trilogy inspired by her troubled marriage to Ernest, who abandoned her in 1905 to move to Canada. Although far from a bestselling author in her time, Leverson has come to be seen as a pioneering artist whose works display a keen understanding of society’s triumphs and shortcomings.

Book preview

Love’s Shadow

A Novel

Ada Leverson

NEW YORK • BERLIN • LONDON

Love’s Shadow

Love like a shadow flies

When substance love pursues;

Pursuing that that flies,

And flying what pursues.

SHAKESPEARE

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

1 Hyacinth

2 The anxieties of Sir Charles

3 Anne Yeo

4 The sound sense of Lady Cannon

5 A proposal

6 The little Ottleys

7 Hyacinth’s little dinner

8 Lord Selsey

9 The peculiarities of Raggett

10 A musical afternoon

11 The troubles of the Ottleys

12 At the National Gallery

13 More of the little Ottleys

14 Lady Cannon’s visit

15 Raggett in Love

16 Archie

17 Bruce’s play

18 Hyacinth waits

19 Eugenia

20 Bruce has influenza

21 ‘Engaged’

22 The strange behaviour of Anne

23 Bruce convalescent

24 The wedding

25 Accounts

26 Confidences

27 Miss Wrenner

28 Anne returns

29 The ingratitude of Mitchell

30 Mitchell behaves decently

31 Jane’s sister

32 The drive

33 The quarrel

34 Anne and Eugenia

35 ‘That woman’

36 Raggett’s sense of humour

37 Sir Charles

38 Rehearsing

39 The solution

A Note On the Author

Imprint

Hyacinth

‘THERE’S only one thing I must really implore you, Edith,’ said Bruce anxiously. ‘Don’t make me late at the office!’

‘Certainly not, Bruce,’ answered Edith sedately. She was seated opposite her husband at breakfast in a very new, very small, very white flat in Knightsbridge – exactly like thousands of other new, small, white flats. She was young and pretty, but not obvious. One might suppose that she was more subtle than was shown by her usual expression, which was merely cheerful and intelligent.

‘Now I have to write that letter before I go,’ Bruce exclaimed, starting up and looking at her reproachfully. ‘Why didn’t I write it last night?’

Edith hadn’t the slightest idea, as she had heard nothing of the letter before, but, in the course of three years, she had learnt that it saved time to accept trifling injustices. So she looked guilty and a little remorseful. He magnanimously forgave her, and began to write the letter at a neat white writing-table.

‘How many g’s are there in Raggett?’ he asked suspiciously.

She didn’t answer, apparently overtaken by a sudden fit of absence of mind.

‘Only one, of course. How absurd you are!’ said her husband, laughing, as he finished the letter and came back to the table.

She poured out more coffee.

‘It’s a curious thing,’ he went on in a tone of impartial regret, ‘that, with all the fuss about modern culture and higher education nowadays, girls are not even taught to spell!’

‘Yes, isn’t it? But even if I had been taught, it might not have been much use. I might just not have been taught to spell Raggett. It’s a name, isn’t it?’

‘It’s a very well-known name,’ said Bruce.

‘I daresay it is, but I don’t know it. Would you like to see the boy before you go?’

‘What a question! I always like to see the boy. But you know perfectly well I haven’t time this morning.’

‘Very well, dear. You can see him this afternoon.’

‘Why do you say that? You know I’m going golfing with Goldthorpe! It really is hard, Edith, when a man has to work so much that he has scarcely any time for his wife and child.’

She looked sympathetic.

‘What are you doing today?’ he asked.

‘Hyacinth’s coming to fetch me for a drive in the motor.’

His face brightened. He said kindly, ‘I am so glad, darling, that you have such a delightful friend – when I can’t be with you. I admire Hyacinth very much, in every way. She seems devoted to you, too, which is really very nice of her. What I mean to say is, that in her position she might know anybody. You see my point?’

‘Quite.’

‘How did you meet her originally?’

‘We were school-friends.’

‘She’s such a lovely creature; I wonder she doesn’t marry.’

‘Yes, but she has to find someone else whom she thinks a lovely creature, too.’

‘Edith, dear.’

‘Yes, Bruce.’

‘I wish you wouldn’t snap me up like that. Oh, I know you don’t mean it, but it’s growing on you, rather.’

She tried to look serious, and said gently, ‘Is it, really? I am sorry.’

‘You don’t mind me telling you of it, do you?’

‘Not at all. I’m afraid you will be late, Bruce.’

He started up and hurried away, reminding Edith that dinner was to be at eight. They parted with affectionate smiles.

When he had gone down in the lift, Edith took an inextensive walk through the entire flat, going into each room, and looking at herself in every looking-glass. She appeared to like herself best in the dining-room mirror, for she returned, stared into it rather gravely for some little time, and then said to herself: ‘Yes, I’m beginning to look bored.’

Then she rang the bell, and the nurse brought in a pretty little boy of nearly two, fluffily dressed in white, who was excited at the prospect of his great morning treat – going down in the lift. Speaking of him with some formality as Master Archie, she asked the nurse a few questions, which she mistakenly supposed gave that personage the impression that she knew all that there was to be known about children. When she was alone with him for a minute she rushed at him impulsively, saying, privately, ‘Heavenly pet! Divine angel! Duck!’ in return for which he pulled her hair down and scratched her face with a small empty Noah’s Ark that he was taking out with him for purposes of his own.

When he had gone she did her hair up again in a different way parted in the middle. It was very pretty, wavy, fair hair, and she had small, regular features, so the new way suited her very well. Then she said again –

‘Yes, if it were not for Hyacinth I should soon look bored to death!’

Hyacinth Verney was the romance of Edith’s life. She also provided a good deal of romance in the lives of several other people. Her position was unusual, and her personality fascinating. She had no parents, was an heiress, and lived alone with a companion in a quaint little house just out of Berkeley Square, with a large studio that was never used for painting. She had such an extraordinary natural gift for making people of both sexes fond of her, that it would have been difficult to say which, of all the persons who loved her, showed the most intense devotion in the most immoderate way. Probably her cousin and guardian, Sir Charles Cannon, and her companion, Anne Yeo, spent more thought and time in her service than did anybody else. Edith’s imagination had been fired in their school-days by her friend’s beauty and cleverness, and by the fact that she had a guardian, like a book. Then Hyacinth had come out and gone in for music, for painting, and for various other arts and pursuits of an absorbing character. She had hardly any acquaintances except her relations, but possessed an enormously large number of extremely intimate friends – a characteristic that had remained to her from her childhood.

Hyacinth’s ideal of society was to have no padding, Hyacinth’s ideal of society was to have no padding, so that most of the members of her circle were types. Still, as she had a perfect passion for entertaining, there remained, of course, a residue; distant elderly connections with well-sounding names (as ballast), and a few vague hangers-on; several rather dull celebrities, some merely pretty and well-dressed women, and a steadily increasing number of good-looking young men. Hyacinth was fond of decoration.

As she frankly admitted, she had rather fallen back on Edith, finding her, after many experiments, the most agreeable of friends, chiefly because in their intercourses everything was always taken for granted. Like sisters, they understood one another without explanation – à demi-mot.

While Edith waited impatiently in the hall of the flat, Anne Yeo, her unacknowledged rival in Hyacinth’s affections, was doing needlework in the window-seat of the studio, and watching Hyacinth, who, dressed to go out, was walking up and down the room. With a rather wooden face, high cheekbones, a tall, thin figure, and no expression, Anne might have been any age; but she was not. She made every effort to look quite forty so as to appear more suitable as a chaperone, but was in reality barely thirty. She was thinking, as she often thought, that Hyacinth looked too romantic for everyday life. When they had travelled together, this fact had been rather a nuisance.

‘Why, when you call at the Stores to order groceries, must you look as if you were going to elope?’ she asked dryly. ‘In an ordinary motorveil you have the air of hastening to some mysterious appointment.’

‘But I’m only going to fetch Edith Ottley for a drive,’ said Hyacinth. ‘How bored she must get with her little Foreign Office clerk! The way he takes his authority as a husband seriously is pathetic. He hasn’t the faintest idea the girl is cleverer than he is.’

‘You’d far better leave her alone, and not point it out,’ said Anne. ‘You’re always bothering about these little Ottleys now. But you’ve been very restless lately. Whenever you try to do people good, and especially when you motor so much and so fast, I recognise the symptoms. It’s coming on again, and you’re trying to get away from it.’

‘Don’t say that. I’m never going to care about anyone again,’ said Hyacinth.

‘You don’t know it, but when you’re not in love you’re not yourself,’ Anne continued. ‘It’s all you live for.’

‘Oh, Anne!’

‘It’s quite true. It’s nearly three months since you – had an attack. Blair was the last. Now you’re beginning to take the same sort of interest in Cecil Reeve.’

‘How mistaken you are, Anne! I don’t take at all the same interest in him. It’s a totally different thing. I don’t really even like him.’

‘You wouldn’t go out today if you were expecting him.’

‘Yes, but I’m not . . . and he doesn’t care two straws about me. Once he said he never worshipped in a crowded temple!’

‘It’s a curious coincidence that ever since then you’ve been out to everyone else,’ said Anne.

‘I don’t really like him – so very much. When he does smile, of course it’s rather nice. Why does he hate me?’

‘I can’t think,’ said Anne.

‘He doesn’t hate me! How can you say so?’ cried Hyacinth.

‘Doesn’t he?’

‘Perhaps it’s because he thinks I look Spanish. He may disapprove of looking Spanish,’ suggested Hyacinth.

‘Very likely.’

Hyacinth laughed, kissed her, and went out. Anne followed her graceful figure with disapproving, admiring eyes.

The anxieties of Sir Charles

LIKE all really uncommon beauties, Hyacinth could only be adequately described by the most hackneyed phrases. Her eyes were authentically sapphire-coloured; brilliant, frank eyes, with a subtle mischief in them, softened by the most conciliating long eyelashes. Then, her mouth was really shaped like a Cupid’s bow, and her teeth were dazzling; also she had a wealth of dense, soft, brown hair and a tall, sylphlike, slimly-rounded figure. Her features were delicately regular, and her hands and feet perfection. Her complexion was extremely fair, so she was not a brunette; some remote Spanish ancestor on her mother’s side was, however, occasionally mentioned as an apology for a type and a supple grace sometimes complained of by people with white eyelashes as rather un-English. So many artistic young men had told her she was like La Gioconda, that when she first saw the original in the Louvre she was so disappointed that she thought she would never smile again.

About ten minutes after the pretty creature had gone out, Anne, who had kept her eyes steadily on the clock, looked out of the window, from which she could see a small brougham driving up. She called out into the hall –

‘If that’s Sir Charles Cannon, tell him Miss Verney is out, but I have a message for him.’

A minute later there entered a thin and distinguished-looking, grey-haired man of about forty-five, wearing a smile of such excessive cordiality that one felt it could only have been brought to his well-bred lips by acute disappointment. Anne did not take the smile literally, but began to explain away the blow.

‘I’m so sorry,’ she said apologetically. ‘I’m afraid it’s partly my fault. When she suddenly decided to go out with that little Mrs Ottley, she told me vaguely to telephone to you. But how on earth could I know where you were?’

‘How indeed? It doesn’t matter in the least, my dear Miss Yeo. I mean, it’s most unfortunate, as I’ve just a little free time. Lady Cannon’s gone to a matinée at the St James’s. We had tickets for the first night, but of course she wouldn’t use them then. She preferred to go alone in the afternoon, because she detests the theatre, anyhow, and afternoon performances give her a headache. And if she does a thing that’s disagreeable to her, she likes to do it in the most painful possible way. She has a beautiful nature.’

Anne smiled, and passed him a little gold box.

‘Have a cigarette?’ she suggested.

‘Thanks — I’m not really in a bad temper. But why this relapse of devotion to little Mrs Ottley? And why are you and I suddenly treated with marked neglect?’

‘Mrs Ottley,’ said Anne, ‘is one of those young women, rather bored with their husbands, who are the worst possible companions for Hyacinth. They put her off marrying.’

‘Bored, is she? She didn’t strike me so. A pleasant, bright girl. I suppose she amuses Hyacinth?’

‘Yes; of course, she’s not a dull old maid over forty, like me,’ said Anne.

‘No-one would believe that description of you,’ said Sir Charles, with a bow that was courtly but absent. As a matter of fact, he did believe it, but it wasn’t true.

‘If dear little Mrs Ottley,’ he continued, ‘married in too great a hurry, far be it from me to reproach her. I married in a hurry myself – when Hyacinth was ten.’

‘And when she was eighteen you were very sorry,’ said Anne in her colourless voice.

‘Don’t let us go into that, Miss Yeo. Of course, Hyacinth is a beautiful – responsibility. People seem to think she ought to have gone on living with us when she left school. But how was it possible? Hyacinth said she intended to live for her art, and Lady Cannon couldn’t stand the scent of oils.’ He glanced round the large panelled-oak room in which not a picture was to be seen. The only indication of its having ever been meant for a studio was the north light, carefully obstructed (on the grounds of unbecomingness) by gently-tinted draperies of some fabric suggesting Liberty’s. ‘Life wasn’t worth living, trying to keep the peace!’

‘But you must have missed her?’

‘Still, I prefer coming to see her here. And knowing she has you with her is, after all, everything.’

He looked a question.

‘Yes, she has. I mean, she seems rather – absorbed again lately,’ said Anne.

‘Who is it?’ he asked. ‘I always feel so indiscreet and treacherous talking over her private affairs like this with you, though she tells me everything herself. I’m not sure it’s the act of a simple, loyal, Christian English gentleman; in fact, I’m pretty certain it’s not. I suppose that’s why I enjoy it so much.’

‘I daresay,’ said Anne; ‘but she wouldn’t mind it.’

‘What has been happening?’

‘Nothing interesting. Hazel Kerr came here the other day and brought with him a poem in bronze lacquer, as he called it. He read it aloud – the whole of it.’

‘Good heavens! Poetry! Do people still do that sort of thing? I thought it had gone out years ago – when I was a young man.’

‘Of course, so it has. But Hazel Kerr is out of date. Hyacinth says he’s almost a classic.’

‘His verses?’

‘Oh no! His method. She says he’s an interesting survival – he’s walked straight out of another age – the nineties, you know. There were poets in those days.’

‘Method! He was much too young then to have a style at all, surely!’

‘That was the style. It was the right thing to be very young in the nineties. It isn’t now.’

‘It’s not so easy now, for some of us,’ murmured Sir Charles.

‘But Hazel keeps it up,’ Anne answered.

Sir Charles laughed irritably. ‘He keeps it up, does he? But he sits people out openly, that shows he’s not really dangerous. One doesn’t worry about Hazel. It’s that young man who arrives when everybody’s going, or goes before anyone else arrives, that’s what I’m a little anxious about.’

‘If you mean Cecil Reeve, Hyacinth says he doesn’t like her.’

‘I’m sorry to

Reviews for Love's Shadow

[libbromus · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

If it weren't for Bruce Ottley, I would have given it 5 stars. It's light and very funny; in the vein of An Ideal Husband, even sharing the description of a certain piece of jewelry - I don't wonder that they (Leverson and Wilde) shared it on purpose. Bruce Ottley must be the most exasperating character ever drawn. If such a man exists I hope I never meet him. I'm liable to smother him to death in his sleep or poison his food without the least compunction. I was looking forward to reading the two sequels, but I'm not sure how much more of Mr. Ottley I can take. I will read them, however, and continue to hope that Bruce comes to a violent end.

[paradoxosalpha · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Many readers of Ada Leverson first approach her as a "friend of Oscar Wilde," and so she is denoted on the back cover and the in the "note on the author" in this reissue of her early novel Love's Shadow. My interest in her was instead initially fueled by knowing her to be the acrostic dedicatee of Liber Stellae Rubeae, and a sometime mistress of Aleister Crowley, who described her in print as "easily the daintiest and wittiest of our younger feminine writers." (She was thirteen years his senior.) In fact, her relationship with Crowley was at or around the time she was writing Love's Shadow, but there are no conspicuous Crowley characters in her novels. This book may translate some elements of Crowley's relationship with Leverson into the love of young Cecil Reeve for the older Eugenia Raymond. Cecil is 34; Crowley was in his early thirties when he was involved with Leverson.Although the book is in no sense a roman a clef, readers interested in the biographical penumbrae of the novel will want to know that Hyacinth Verney is doubtless based upon Leverson's friend Kitty Savile-Clark (later Mrs Cyril Martineau), while Edith Ottley is almost certainly an attempt at retrospective self-portraiture. I shudder to think that Leverson actually endured twenty-one years of marriage to anyone like Bruce Ottley, but hopefully his character tremendously exaggerates the faults of Ernest Leverson. The Bloomsbury Group 2009 edition of this 1908 novel is attractive and conveniently packaged--a small trade paperback that fit in my coat pocket. But it preserves a handful of errors from earlier editions. For example: "I don't think you'll look you're best tonight." (p. 33)On its own literary merits, Love's Shadow does have droll characterizations and clever dialogue; a fair amount of plot, and yet seemingly little story. The apparent weakness of the ending may be mitigated by the two volumes to follow in the "Little Ottleys" trilogy. Those who enjoy comedy of manners should find some value in it.

[kasthu_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Love’s Shadow is a very short novel about a group of upper-class people living in Edwardian London. There are Bruce and Edith Ottley; Hyacinth Verney, a local debutante; Cecil Reeve, an eligible bachelor; Anne Yeo, Hyacinth’s companion, who imagines herself to be an elderly spinster (although she’s no more than thirty); and others.The biggest problem I had with this novel is that there doesn’t seem to be much of a plot. The pace picks up at the end of the book, when a misunderstanding threatens Hyacinth and Cecil’s happiness; but the book is more a series of character studies than anything else. However, the characters aren’t very well fleshed out (with the exception of Bruce, who’s a fantastic bore and I can’t really understand why Edith stays with him).The potential for the novel is there, it just doesn’t hinge together well. Hyacinth and Cecil’s marriage occurs halfway through the book, and so the rest of their relationship seems very anticlimactic to me. The concept of loving someone while still living in the shadow of that person’s love for someone else is interesting, but I just didn’t like the way that the book played out. The book is set in London, but really it could have taken place anywhere for all the description the author gives us. Overall, the book feels very dated (eg, the author’s use of the word “flapper” to describe various young women in this story; it probably didn’t mean the same thing at the time the book was written as it did in the 1920s). It’s disappointing because I wanted to like this book so much, but it didn’t live up to the expectations I had for it.

[madamlibbytellsall · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I just couldn't finish this. Though parts of it were fun, I found myself putting the book down and forgetting all about it for days at a time. The description of the author's life was much more interesting that anything her characters did. I'll look for a biography of Ada Leverson, but I doubt I'll pick up another one of her books.

[loritt_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

“Love’s Shadow” follows the “problems in love” comedy plot line filled with a cast of stock Edwardian characters. The heroine of the story is Hyacinth Verney the “lovely creature” who is admired by all for her beauty and her sweet disposition. The disposition seems primarily due to the fact that everyone in her life has always given her exactly what she wanted. That is, until she meets Cecil Reeve. Reeve is a young man about town whose chief occupation appears to be waiting to inherit his uncles’ estate. Reeve is not interested in Hyacinth he is deeply infatuated with a somewhat bohemian older woman. Hyacinth also has a Guardian, Sir Charles Cannon, who doesn’t think that any man is good enough for her with a wife who considers herself the last word in manners and society (based largely on the prior century). Her other deeply committed admirer is her “companion” Anne Yeo whose sole purpose is to serve and be near Hyacinth. Reeve’s uncle is the classic “collector” who finds more comfort in things than in people and who finally selects a wife for her ability to care for his things. The theme of the book is getting Hyacinth and Cecil together. The counter-balance to Hyacinth and Cecil is the already married couple of Edith and Bruce Ottley. Why a sensible woman like Edith would ever marry a horse’s ass like Bruce was the actual question of this book for me. I think Edith is the much more interesting character. As " Love’s Shadow "is the first of three novels featuring the “Little Ottleys", my guess is that Ada Levrson also found Edith to be the more compelling character.

[emperatrix_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A close friend of Oscar Wilde's, Leverson's style and tone is similar to Wilde's biting, quick wit. Love's Shadow offers an engaging look at the ludicrous things we do for love. Like Wilde, Leverson offers a meddlesome cast of characters whose actions only serve to confuse one another. At the heart of the story are the Ottleys, Bruce and Edith, a very ordinary middle-class Edwardian couple wishing for a little more excitement in their very ordinary lives. Edith's friend, Hyacinth Verney has all the excitement and independence that Edith craves, but only wants for the attention of Cecil Reeve, a young man who only has eyes for a much older woman who refuses to indulge his fancy.Love's Shadow is a fast-paced, amusing romp, Leverson revealing the foibles of her characters in a series of vignettes. It almost reminds me of Colette's Claudine and Annie, particularly the dissatisfaction that seems to accompany love as experienced by Edith and Hyacinth.Gricel @ things-she-read.org

[camelama_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

"Love's Shadow: Book One of the trilogy The Little Ottleys"I received this book through the Early Review group. I have to say I was a bit tentative at first, based on the description, but was soon drawn into the story. This was the kind of book where I want to stay up late reading more, and resent having to go to work where I can't read!I enjoyed all the characters, though some did seem too cliche' and one-trick-pony-ish. The cast of characters is wide enough for a good variety, with people from different walks of life interacting realistically and enjoyably.The writing was clean yet imaginative, descriptive without going overboard - just how I like it! There was one part of this book really grated on my nerves - the scenes with one of the characters who was written quite cliche'd, and also overdone. His scenes could have been much shorter, and less frequent, and edited down a LOT. I was rolling my eyes at the author at those moments, and would even page ahead to see how long this chap went on babbling. Enough already, we got the point. He's an idiot. Move on. Other than that annoyance, I found the book very enjoyable. It reminded me a bit of Barbara Pym and Angella Thirkell (especially the male characters who are full of themselves - very Thirkellesque!). If you like the works of Pym or Thirkell, Muriel Spark, E. M. Delafield, or even E. F. Benson's female characters, you might like this book. I'm looking forward to the rest of the trilogy!

[scohva · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Love's Shadow was an interesting and farcial glimpse of a segment early Edwardian society. The plot, such as it is, revolves around the courtship, and later marriage, of beautiful Hyacinth Verney to intelligent and handsome Cecil Reeve, and includes many scenes of the marriage of Hyacinth's friend, Edith Ottley, to her husband Bruce. All of the characters, except for Edith, tend toward being too exaggerated, but Leverson manages to include scenes that bring most of them back from that edge. The exception is Bruce, a character that I couldn't stand and did not find at all funny. This marred by enjoyment of the book somewhat, and I didn't quite find it funny enough to overcome that. 6.5/10

[almigwin · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I didn't realize this was part of the 'Little Ottleys' when I asked for it from the Early Reviewers. I had read 'The Little Ottleys before, and was hoping for something different by Leverson. I certainly disagree with Oscar Wilde about her cleverness. I think the love affairs or lack of them are intensely boring, and the characters brittle and unappealing. If you are interested in comedies of manners among the British upper middle classes between the wars, by all means read it. Otherwise try Muriel Spark, or Oscar Wilde himself.

[mstrust · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Hyacinth is young, beautiful and popular with her London social set. So why does she fall in love with Cecil, who is in love with Eugenia, on older, plain widow? And why does Eugenia want to marry Cecil's uncle, since she admits she doesn't love him any more than she loves Cecil? And how does Hyacinth's friend Edith stand her arrogant prig of a husband, Bruce? Actually, it seems that no one can stand Bruce.I had never heard of Leverson but the blurb on the back cover of Oscar Wilde calling her the wittiest woman in the world convinced me that I had to try this and I wasn't disappointed. This book moves quickly with short chapters, characters all bumping into each other and gossiping about what each has seen and heard and showing the ridiculous lengths people will go to attract their 'ideal' and the unhappiness that success can bring. Here's a brief dialogue between husband and wife:Bruce: "Odd. Very odd you should get it into your head that I should have any idea of leaving you. Is that why you're looking so cheerful-laughing so much?"Edith: "Am I laughing? I thought I was only smiling."

[merigreenleaf · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Leverson was a contemporary and friend of Oscar Wilde and, according to the back cover of the book, was called "the wittiest woman in the world" by him, so I had high hopes for this book going into it (I love wit and I love Wilde). To give a short summary, "Love's Shadow" is a comedy about a small group of interconnected people from London, their interactions with each other and the quirks and small problems each of them have. I don't really want to give away more, since that's really the plot of the book.Even after finishing it, though, I'm not really sure what I think of the book. I can't think of anything I hated about it and the dialog was very good, but... Well, for one thing the most important thing to me when I read are characters- and the character in this book were very flat and had very little character development or personality. That said, however, I think that was rather the point; they read like caricatures of people from that time, which I have a feeling was what Leverson intended.I did enjoy the dialog (and this book is mostly dialog), but it wasn't quite as witty as I'd hoped from Wilde's lauding, and it didn't make up for the lack of plot. A few small things happened and people talked about other people and themselves, but the plot was nonexistent.It took me a while to finish this book because it's not much of a page-turner, but, for all that this review is negative, I did like the book and will be on the lookout for more of Leverson's works (she's definitely worth giving a second chance!). It's not the best book I've ever read, but it's not a bad read, either. I'll give "Love's Shadow" three stars out of five.Unrelated to the story, there is one thing I really didn't like- the cover. Everyone kept assuming I was reading a trashy romance novel, which couldn't be farther from what this book is. Unfortunately, the book is too large to fit in my paperback book cover, but too short to fit in my hardback cover. It's not that the cover is ugly (it's not), it's just that it's bright pink and the book is called "Love's Shadow".

[carlym_35 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I enjoyed this book, but it's hard to say why--I can only think of negative qualities about it. I suppose it's entertaining in spite of itself. Love's Shadow is a comedy of manners about a small group of tenuously-connected Londoners. The Ottleys are a young and relatively poor couple (they live in a small flat and only have a full-time nanny and at least a part-time cook and housekeeper, poor things). Bruce Ottley is an annoying hypochondriac who isn't at all nice to his extremely patient and boring wife Edith. Edith is friends with Hyacinth Verney, a beautiful young heiress in love with a man who doesn't love her because is is in love/fascinated by another, older woman. Her guardian and his wife appear in the novel as well, without any particular purpose. Things happen to the characters, but I never had the feeling that there was any real plot. There isn't any sense of anticipation, or any climax of events; some stuff happens and then the book ends. With the exception, perhaps, of Hyacinth's odd lady companion, the characters are flat and unoriginal. I didn't particularly like any of them, and I didn't think I was supposed to. I kept thinking of Oscar Wilde as I was reading this. It was like reading a less-witty prose version of some of his plays. While the characters are often over-the-top and obviously satirical, the satire isn't quite pointed enough--it's missing something. Nonetheless, I liked the book well enough.

[chelseagirl_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I first knew of Ada Leverson as “Sphinx,” a good and loyal friend of Oscar Wilde’s, who took him into her home in the middle of his trials, and was the first to greet him on his release from prison. I’d heard of her “little Ottleys” novels, but knew mostly that they were about marital discord, which didn’t have me rushing to the nearest used and antiquarian bookstore to find a copy. In fact, Love’s Shadow (1908) does center on marriages (some unhappy, others still with their possibilities), but with a wit reminiscent of her famous friend. But as Leverson was herself a contributor to The Yellow Book in the Nineties, as well as the author of six Edwardian novels, it seems clear that this is her own voice, not merely an attempt at copying. At the center and, and yet, almost on the sidelines of the novel are Edith and Bruce Ottley, a charming and sensible woman and her self-involved Foreign Office clerk of a husband. Bruce pays less attention to his job than he ought, overspends, is hypochondriac, is thoroughly and blindly selfish in his relationships with others, and yet somehow it is all Edith’s fault. He is a comic masterpiece and yet there is just enough truth reflected there that many readers may look at their partners and say “No, nothing like . . . well, maybe just a little bit . . . “ The Ottleys provide a backdrop and a counterplot to the remainder of the novel, but they come into the fore in the remaining novels in the series, which I will certainly read now.The novel’s real protagonist is Edith’s glamorous school friend Hyacinth Verney, beautiful and sought-after and thus hopelessly in love only with the one man who seems uninterested, Cecil Reeve. Cecil is far more interested in an older woman, Eugenia Raymond, who is completely immune to his charms. Edith’s companion, Anne Yeo, who is determined to turn herself into a caricature spinster, is a wonderful character, but her plot deserves more development than it gets – or perhaps, as an independent woman, she just interested me more than some of the others. Finally, there is Sir Charles Cannon, Hyacinth’s guardian, married to the sort of unbearable grand dame who is “upholstered” into her velvet evening dresses, and would be played by Margaret Rutherford in old movies.I made the crucial mistake of taking the book on a long train trip. The plot itself, dealing as it does with romantic and marital misunderstandings, is slight, and Hyacinth, like the dear friend who phones up constantly to talk about her romantic woes (I have both been and had this friend), grows a bit tedious, taken in large doses. This is a novel to be read and enjoyed it small bites, but with that caveat, I do recommend it.

[doxtator · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I received this book as part of the LibraryThing's Early Reviewer program.Love’s Shadow by Ada Leverson is a novel about the personalities of a group of social individuals in England sometime after the turn of the century. First published in 1908, it excludes the style and flavor of literary style at that time, with both pointed and subdued humor and cynicism about the personalities of the time. It focuses mainly on Edith Ottley and her too-droll, and hypochondriac husband Bruce (whom the reader will come to wonder why anyone puts up with him, least of all, overly-tolerant Edith) and Hyacinth Verney who is as lovely as her name. Hyacinth adores the handsome Cecil Reeve, who has become infatuated with a slightly older woman who wants very little to do with Cecil. The die is cast for hurt feelings, much sobbing and huffing about, and a quaint little expose of the inner life of these society folks. So very much depends upon their personalities, as the plot is calm and slow, but the reader entirely comes to wonder how things will work out between them all. Reminiscent in some ways of Wodehouse’s Jeeves and Wooster, it is a turn-about in that it focuses on the female’s point of view more than the male’s, and is a delightful lighthearted story about romances.

[chilirlw_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I really thought I was going to like this book a great deal more than I actually did. As a comedy of manners, it falls flat. Aside from a few truly amusing set pieces (as when the insufferable bore Bruce is expounding on his new notion of writing a play: "And it really won't make any difference to the success if my play pleases the public, which I don't mind telling you I know it's sure to do; because, you see, it'll have all the good points and none of the bad ones of all the successful plays of the last six years. That's my dodge. That's how I do it.") the book on a whole fails to entertain. None of the characters achieve more than cardboard status, nearly all the men are bores or idiots, and nearly all the women are long-suffering. The encomium from Oscar Wilde on the cover "the wittiest woman in the world" led me to look forward to some sparkling dialogue, which could have made up for the one-note characterizations, but alas, there was very little of that to be found. A disappointment.

[belgrade18 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A charming comedy of manners, somewhat post-Victorian, but not altogether modern. The style is high wit and humor, and hearing that the author was a buddy of Oscar Wilde is no surprise. Sometimes the camp goes a little over the top and becomes a bit suffocating. Ultimately, it is difficult to like or empathize with any of the characters, very few of whom have any redeeming qualities beyond wealth, beauty and sometimes a sense of style. But the prose flows, and the author creates just enough suspense to propel the reader to the end of the book with ease. Recommended as a light exercise in turn of phrase and witty repartee, but not for those looking for something serious or intense.

[elizajane_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Reason for Reading: I'm reading all the Bloomsbury Group books.Summary: This is Edith Ottley's story, though I wouldn't call her the main character. Though it is through Edith that all the characters can be traced back (as in the six degrees of Kevin Bacon). Edith and Bruce Ottley are a young married couple with a two year old son. Bruce is hard to describe without making him sound like a chauvinistic brute. He is also a hypochondriac and would rather not work and be served upon day and night. This is Bruce's character, but it is a pastiche of the weak yet dominating husband, though not mean-spirited, just self-centred. Edith takes advice from friends, especially her mother-in-law, and always complying cheerfully she never looses the upperhand and laughs off Bruce without him even knowing it. There is also Edith's friend Hyacinth, the real main character, who is a young twenties girl living on her own, with a companion, who is in love with a man who is love with someone else. Every other man is in love (or infatuation) with her including her friends' husbands, her former guardian and her ladies companion.Comments: Hyacinth's story becomes the main focus of the plot while Edith and Bruce's stays in the foreground being the centre from which all other story arcs are in one way or another related. These other story arcs are filled with secondary characters having relationship problems themselves. Hyacinth's love, Cecil, is in love with an older woman Eugenia, who has vowed never to marry again and thinks of him as a boy anyway. Anne, Hyacinth's ladies companion gives very intelligent advice but is jealous of anyone who will take Hyacinth away from her. Then there's Bruce, who like everyman, is attracted to Hyacinth as well, but from afar and by drilling his wife on her visits with her.Many other characters are intertwined as well and the dialogue is full of wit and repartie. Every character is simply adorable and lovable, even the mysterious Mr. Raggett who we never really fully understand but who, unlike the other men in this story, has fallen for Edith and woos her. Bruce, himself, does take some getting used to, being the only non-likable character but he always comes up short against Edith, without even knowing it and this quiet battle of the sexes is quite humorous.It took me several chapters (short as they are) to get into the book but once I'd met everyone and the story got going I was completely smitten with everything, everyone and all the goings on in Knightsbridge, England. This is an intelligent, bright, witty romantic comedy. A truly delightful story that can be summed up in that ubiquitous term "the British cozy".

[susanbooks · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

What a surprising book! I went through several changes of opinion as I read, beginning & ending by being charmed. (The initial charm was borrowed: seeing that it's in a series with Rachel Feguson's "The Brontes Went to Woolworths" was a minor thrill.) Leverson's breezy, comic irony begins as a delight. Soon, though, for me, the repartee becomes tiresome: the characters talk as if they had been left out of bad, early drafts of Oscar Wilde plays. If I hadn't rec'd the book as an Early Reviewer, I would have stopped 40 or so pages in.I'm so glad I persevered. Either the bad Wilde talk stops or I stopped noticing it, but the atmosphere of Wilde remains (the back cover quotes him in priase of Leverson). The gender play is right out of "The Importance of Being Earnest." Confirmed bachelors and single women in mackintoshes have their troubles but remain independent. Heterosexually married characters, on the other hand, live in several kinds of suffocating nightmare. I smiled even as I read about the most nigtmarish pairing, the Ottleys (titular characters in a later Leverson book). I'm torn between my furor on behalf of Mrs. Ottley & delight with Leverson for creating her & Mr. Ottley.All is done with a gentle humor. A partner in a marriage of convenience (they seem to be acting as each others' beards) describes her husband as having "the disposition of an angel and the voice of a gazelle." She amends this, realizing gazelles aren't known for their song. But the word "gazelle" is lovely & the sentiment sounds as if it should be meaningful. This space between appearance & actuality is representative of the book. All is done decorously, all seems correct, even if characters are discussing financial distress, or in love with those they can never marry. Stylistically the book itself is a sort of singing gazelle, covering issues of real pain and readerly discomfort with its veneer of light wit: Mrs. Ottley is treated horribly by her husband; Anne, in love with a woman, is exiled from England; Hyacinth, the book's main character, is utterly trivial. All of this detracted from my pleasure. But then I put on my English professor hat: Someone could have quite a bit of fun writing an essay on this book's parodic repetition (in Judith Butler's sense) of hetero norms. Considering it alongside Woolf's "Mrs. Dalloway" could be interesting, too. I'd love to hear about how this book is read in an upper level or graduate class. And so, my opinion changes once again and I end as I began, charmed.