Fennel and Rue: A Novel

William Dean Howells

Jan. 1908 · Harper & Brothers Publishers

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A young New York novelist receives a letter from a girl asking for the solution of a serial story he is writing, for she is so ill that she does not believe she will live to finish it. His publishers answer the letter in good faith only to find out that it was all a girlish prank. The vanity wounded author writes her a scathing letter. Later at a Long Island house-party he meets her, as she is the hostess's paid assistant to entertain the guests. The unspoken love story that ensues ends most unexpectedly. Mr. Howells's delicate satire and pungent irony is nowhere more apparent than in this skeleton romance. He sees the weakness and absurdity of human nature as unerringly as he does its strength and weakness and one closes the book feeling it to be merciless but masterly.