7 h 6 minAudiobook12 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 inside a marriage, where the deepest feelings may never find words?
In Love and Lucy, Maurice Hewlett turns from medieval romances to ordinary rooms and ordinary choices. Lucy and the subject of love stand at the heart of this English domestic novel. Marriage is its ground: not simply a settled condition, but a relationship shaped by the feelings of the people within it.
The interest lies inward, in desire, private thought, and the distance between what people feel and what they say. The novel also carries the manners and expectations of the early twentieth century. What a wife can do, what a husband can ask, and what a family accepts form the setting for this slow study of feeling.
What you’ll discover
- Marriage from the inside Consider a marriage through the feelings that give it life and make it change.
- The pull of desire Explore love as an inward experience, where private feelings matter as much as outward choices.
- What remains unsaid Look beyond spoken words toward the thoughts that others may never hear.
- Ordinary rooms, inward lives Follow Hewlett away from castles and quests into the intimate ground of domestic fiction.
- A marriage in its time Meet the expectations surrounding wives, husbands, and families in early twentieth-century English life.
Who will love it
You will enjoy this if you like witty domestic comedy, characters who surprise you, a clever small boy, and a story about marriage that is tender, funny and full of imagination.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A Marriage Run by Discipline
- A Dinner Party With a Purpose
- A Kiss in the Dark
- Motoring, Opera and a New Friend
- Lucy Begins to Wonder
- Nightingales at Martley Thicket
- A Plan for Norway and a Clever Husband
- The Hardanger and a Husband Who Tries Again
- What the Story Is Really About
- How the Story Is Told
Who’s who
- James Adolphus MacartneyA polished London solicitor of forty-two who hides behind an eyeglass and a cold manner and prizes success without visible effort.
- Lucy MacartneyHis thirty-one-year-old wife, gentle and romantic, who loves her son and longs for a love she has never been given.
- LancelotTheir serious, funny twelve-and-a-half-year-old son at school, who adores Mr. Urquhart and sees more than his parents think.
- Jimmy UrquhartA rich, bold adventurer and storyteller who has been a smuggler and harbour master and now wants Lucy for himself.
- Francis LingenA pale, elegant poet and collector, always short of money, who is almost openly in love with Lucy.
- Mabel CorbetLucy's sharp, hunting-loving younger sister, who sees through everyone and says what Lucy dare not say.
- Vera NugentUrquhart's talkative, worldly sister, who watches the others with a clear eye and gives her brother fair warning.
- CrewdsonThe Macartneys' whiskered butler-valet, who guards the household's routine and gets upset over small tables and missing boot polish.
Formats and delivery
- eBook
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- Large-print eBook
- The same book in bigger, clearer type, from the first page.
- Audiobook
- 7 h 6 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 12 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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Read and hear Amore e Lucy in 25 languages and switch at any time. Or read two side by side, paragraph by paragraph: the way to learn a language with a book you love.
Amore e Lucy
by Maurice Hewlett · 1916
A kiss in a dark drawing room makes a lonely wife see her stiff husband anew, and a pirate guest has other plans.
Easy read5–10 hours to read25 languages
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In short
Love and Lucy is a novel by Maurice Hewlett, who died in 1923. It follows a married couple in the London of the early motor age.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A Marriage Run by Discipline
The story opens in Onslow Square on January the twelfth, the day of a dinner party. James Adolphus Macartney is forty-two and a successful solicitor. His office on Cork Street serves bishops, peers and deans, and he is known for his sharp trousers and his eyeglass. Behind the glass he practises a cold, effortless manner, and he counts success without visible effort as his highest good.
His wife Lucy married him when she was barely eighteen. He proposed under a cedar tree, expecting her to say yes, and she felt she could not say no. In twelve years of marriage they have become polite neighbours. James believes in discipline, and in giving a wife things to give up.
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What is Love and Lucy about?
It follows James Macartney, a cold London solicitor, and his romantic wife Lucy. A kiss in a dark room makes Lucy believe her husband loves her, and a charming adventurer named Urquhart complicates things.
Who is Urquhart in Love and Lucy?
Jimmy Urquhart is a rich, bold adventurer who has been a smuggler, a harbour master and a pilot. He wins Lancelot's heart at a dinner party and falls in love with Lucy.
What does the eyeglass mean in the novel?
James's eyeglass is his armour. It gives him an air of cold success, scares clients, and keeps his feelings hidden. Lucy blames it for much of what is wrong in their marriage.
The author
Maurice Hewlett
1861–1923 · English historical novelist
Maurice Hewlett (1861–1923) was a British novelist, poet and essayist. He was born in Weybridge, Surrey, and later lived in Broad Chalke, Wiltshire, where he died. His novels include The Forest Lovers, published in 1898, and The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay, published in 1900.
More by Maurice Hewlett
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