9 h 35 minAudiobook10 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What happens to love when duty, money and ambition pull the heart in different directions?
In A Love Story, William Harvey Christie places affection under the pressures of Victorian life. Love is not simply a private feeling. Family, rank and money all carry weight, and duty can pull against desire. The romance asks you to linger with those tensions, where what people want meets what their world expects.
The story moves between England, Malta and Italy, with settings that matter as much as feelings. England brings home, family and social expectation into view; the Mediterranean widens the horizon. Through this changing landscape, ambition becomes a question worth watching: what place does love hold when the wish to advance makes its own demands?
What you’ll discover
- Affection tested by duty Explore a romance where personal feeling must contend with obligations beyond the heart.
- Settings with emotional weight Move between England, Malta and Italy, where place helps shape the romance.
- The price of ambition Consider how the desire to advance can put pressure on affection and duty.
- Family and social expectation Enter a world where love and marriage concern more than the people in love.
- Feeling that builds slowly Give the romance time, and attend to manners, conversation and small signs of feeling.
Who will love it
Readers who love Victorian romance, grand tours of Italy and Malta, storytellers who chat with the reader, and tales of family pride tested by the heart. It suits anyone who enjoys ghost stories and travel scenes.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Duty hardens into ambition at Delmé
- A fête, a dinner, and a hidden letter
- A night walk and a hasty departure
- Malta and the young Greek
- Delancey's wound and a night of madness
- Marriage and the first voyage
- A ghost story and a tour of Italy
- Rome, Julia's fortune, and what the book is about
Who’s who
- Sir Henry DelméThe proud baronet who clears his family's debts and then lives only to raise its rank, until love and loss test every plan.
- George DelméSir Henry's warm, sensitive younger brother, an officer in Malta, who loves Acmé and is broken in mind and body by the cost.
- Acmé FrascatiA young Greek orphan in Malta, gentle and frank, who nurses George through his illness and wants only to stay at his side.
- Emily DelméThe baronet's sister, proud of her name but kind to the poor, who is engaged to Clarendon Gage and longs to see her brothers home.
- Julia VernonA calm, noble young woman of little means who loves Sir Henry in silence and bears his sudden departure without complaint.
- Oliver DelanceyGeorge's closest friend and rival, a gifted, dark-browed officer whose heart carries an old and bitter sorrow.
- Colonel VavasourThe respected commander of George's regiment, strict on parade and warm in private, who gives Sir Henry blunt and kindly advice.
- Clarendon GageA fair, cheerful neighbor engaged to Emily, who warns Sir Henry that he is playing with Julia's feelings.
Formats and delivery
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- Large-print eBook
- The same book in bigger, clearer type, from the first page.
- Audiobook
- 9 h 35 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 10 minutes, to read or to hear.
- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
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Una historia de amor
A proud baronet sails to Malta to rescue his brother and finds a young Greek girl whose love will overturn his plans.
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In short
A Love Story is a Victorian novel by William Harvey Christie, who died in 1873. It follows Sir Henry Delmé, the head of an old Norman family in England, whose whole life is bent on raising his house to new heights of rank and fortune.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
Duty hardens into ambition at Delmé
The story opens at Delmé Park, a sprawling mansion with marble balls and an eagle crest at every corner. The family is an old Norman line, and it has only three members left. Sir Henry Delmé is the baronet. His younger brother George is a lieutenant in Malta. Their sister Emily is the youngest.
Sir Henry inherited the title at fifteen and found the estates weighed down with debt. He insisted on paying even the debts the law did not require, and he joined the army to earn his way. He cleared the family fortune and raised his brother's and sister's allowances. Everyone loved him for it.
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What is A Love Story by William Harvey Christie about?
It follows Sir Henry Delmé, a proud English baronet bent on raising his family. A call from Malta draws him to his sick brother George, who loves a young Greek girl, and the story travels through Italy and beyond.
Who is Acmé in A Love Story?
Acmé Frascati is a young Greek orphan living in Malta. She nurses George Delmé through a long illness and becomes his wife, and she brings warmth and music to the brothers' travels.
Where does the story take place?
It begins at the country house of Delmé Park and in Leamington, then moves to Malta, Palermo, Naples, Rome, Florence, Venice, the Tyrol and Bavaria, and later Australia, with a return to England.
The author
William Harvey Christie
1808–1873 · Australian politician and civil servant
Politician and civil servant in New South Wales, Australia.
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