18 h 49 minAudiobook15 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 is a person worth when birth, money, and manners decide who matters?
In Only a Clod, Mary Elizabeth Braddon brings class, ambition, and hidden worth into focus. The title itself carries an insult: a judgment that someone counts for little. Behind it lies a larger question about the heart, and whether social standing tells us anything about a person's true value.
The novel's Victorian world measures people by birth, income, and manners. These judgments open doors or close them, shaping the choices people can make. Against that pressure, ambition becomes a test of character. The desire for security and respect sits beside a quieter possibility: that a plain exterior may conceal a loyal nature.
What you’ll discover
- The weight of rank Enter a society where your place shapes your choices before others know your heart.
- Ambition under pressure Consider what the wish for a better position can reveal about a person's character.
- Worth beneath appearances Look beyond a plain exterior toward the loyalty that social judgments can miss.
- A title that challenges Let a sharp little insult draw you into questions about who deserves respect.
- Feeling with a moral edge Explore emotional drama that asks you to weigh outward standing against inward value.
Who will love it
Readers who love Victorian plots of fortune, scandal and secret marriages, with sparkling social comedy, a worthy hero among the swells, and a smooth villain whose schemes are a pleasure to watch unfold.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A discontented officer and his cheerful servant
- A newspaper advertisement changes everything
- Home to Cornwall and a housekeeper's story
- Twickenham, Maude and Julia
- Coltonslough and a diary with a lock
- Julia's trap and Maude's sacrifice
- A marriage built on debt and a friend with a plan
- Susan found and a jealous wife
- What the story is about
- How the book is told
Who’s who
- Francis TredethlynA Cornish farmer's son and private soldier who inherits a fortune and wants above all to find his lost cousin Susy and be useful.
- Harcourt LowtherA handsome, idle ensign who resents his poverty and plots to win a rich wife and a rich friend's fortune.
- Maude HillaryA spoiled, warm-hearted heiress who must learn what her father's money has hidden and what she truly feels.
- Julia DesmondMaude's poor, sharp-eyed companion who wants a rich husband and a place of her own in the world.
- Susan TredethlynFrancis's gentle cousin who flees a forced marriage and struggles alone to raise her child in London.
- Lionel HillaryA London merchant with a grand house and a hidden business crisis, who leans on his daughter and on Francis.
- Rosa GrundersonA good-natured, outspoken heiress, the daughter of a former market gardener, who collects heroes and speaks her mind.
- Roderick LowtherHarcourt's elder brother, a lazy diplomat who comes home from Belgium looking for a rich bride.
Formats and delivery
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- Large-print eBook
- The same book in bigger, clearer type, from the first page.
- Audiobook
- 18 h 49 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 15 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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Only a Clod
by M. E. Braddon · 1865
A valet blacking boots in Tasmania wakes up owner of thirty thousand a year, and his old master wants a share.
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In short
Only a Clod is a novel by M. E. Braddon, the author of Lady Audley's Secret, who died in 1915. It follows Francis Tredethlyn, a Cornish farmer's son turned private soldier, who is left a vast fortune by a miserly uncle and carried from a convict settlement in Tasmania into the drawing rooms of Victorian London.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A discontented officer and his cheerful servant
The story opens at Port Arthur in Van Diemen's Land, where Ensign Harcourt Lowther of the 51st Light Infantry sits in a hot cottage and complains about everything. His cigar will not draw, the drought is cooking the garden, and he is stuck guarding convicts instead of winning glory in India. He is handsome, musical, a fine rider and a good shot, and he is certain the world owes him forty thousand pounds a year.
His valet is a private soldier named Francis Tredethlyn, a tall Cornishman of twenty-seven who whistles Irish tunes while he polishes boots. Francis is not clever with books. He knows only a few great dates of English history. But he is at home with life. He finds meaning in a cloud, makes friends with the convict gardeners, builds an aviary and keeps stray dogs in a shady corner.
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What is Only a Clod about?
It follows Francis Tredethlyn, a Cornish soldier who inherits thirty thousand pounds a year. He searches for his lost cousin Susan and falls in love with a rich heiress, while a charming schemer plots his ruin.
Who wrote Only a Clod and when?
M. E. Braddon wrote it in the Victorian period. She died in 1915 and was famous for sensation novels full of secrets, scandals and strong female characters.
Why is the book called Only a Clod?
Clod is a word the ensign Harcourt Lowther uses for his valet Francis. The book asks whether a plain, honest man deserves that insult, and shows what he is worth beside smoother characters.
The author
Mary Elizabeth Braddon
1835–1915 · English sensation novelist
Mary Elizabeth Braddon (1835–1915) was an English novelist born in London. She wrote The Trail of the Serpent (1860), Lady Audley’s Secret (1862), and Only a Clod (1865). She also wrote short stories. She lived in Richmond, Surrey, for many years and died there in 1915.
More by M. E. Braddon
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