13 h 14 minAudiobook13 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 loyalty asks for silence?
In All Along the River, Mary Elizabeth Braddon brings longing, loyalty and hidden secrets into the Cornish countryside. This Victorian romance invites you into a world where feeling must contend with duty. Love is not simply a matter of what the heart wants; family, honour and the judgment of others also carry weight.
Braddon is known for fiction shaped by concealment and uneasy households. Here, the appeal lies in slow-burning romance, the pull of things left unsaid and the atmosphere of country life. Read for the tension between private longing and outward conduct, where manners matter and loyalty can be hard to separate from obligation.
What you’ll discover
- Love under pressure Explore the uneasy meeting of heartfelt longing, family expectations and the claims of duty.
- The pull of secrets Enter a romance where concealment invites you to look beneath the surface of ordinary life.
- A Cornish atmosphere Let the countryside draw you into a story shaped by place as well as feeling.
- Manners and private feeling Consider what happens when personal desire must reckon with honour and the opinions of neighbours.
- Braddon beyond the familiar Discover another side of a Victorian novelist known for secrets, suspense and uneasy households.
Who will love it
Readers who enjoy Victorian domestic drama, secrets inside a marriage, seaside and country settings, and old houses with ghosts in the corners. It also suits anyone who likes a love story told with warmth and sharp social humour.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A letter from Burma and a walk in the rain
- A shy wife slowly befriends a peer
- The night of the Hunt Ball
- The colonel comes home to a changed house
- Allegra brings life, and Glenaveril shows its manners
- A birth, a fever, and a feud over a footpath
- A yacht in the moonlight and a sailor in love
- The slander and the trip to London
- South to the sun, and how the story is told
Who’s who
- Isola DisneyA delicate, shy young wife of twenty, raised in Dinan, who loves her absent soldier husband and longs for him through a lonely Cornish winter.
- Martin DisneyHer husband, a Cornish soldier nearly thirty years older, honest and devoted, who comes home from Burma hoping for a happy life.
- Lord LostwithielThe thirteenth baron, a pale, clever, much-talked-of nobleman who owns the Mount and a racing schooner, and who charms everyone he meets.
- TabithaThe Disney family's old servant, shrewd and faithful, who runs the Angler's Nest and watches over her young mistress with a mother's care.
- Allegra LelandThe colonel's lively half sister, an art student who loves painting, rowing and the sea, and who brings fresh air into the house.
- Captain John HulbertLord Lostwithiel's younger brother, a frank and cheerful former naval officer who sails the Vendetta and wants to marry Allegra.
- Vansittart CrowtherA wealthy wool manufacturer who owns Glenaveril, loves rank and display, and fights the village over a footpath.
- Father RodwellA warm, observant Anglican priest whose sermons in San Remo and Rome draw Isola toward honesty.
Formats and delivery
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- Large-print eBook
- The same book in bigger, clearer type, from the first page.
- Audiobook
- 13 h 14 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 13 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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All Along the River
by Mary Elizabeth Braddon · 1893
A lonely Cornish wife with a husband in Burma shelters from the rain in a lord's library, and her quiet life shifts.
Medium level10–20 hours to read25 languages
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In short
All Along the River is a novel by M. E. Braddon, a writer who filled her shelves with popular fiction in the Victorian years. It follows a young wife in a Cornish cottage, a husband far away in Burma, and a neighbour whose charm is hard to resist.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A letter from Burma and a walk in the rain
The story opens on a wet November day at Trelasco, a Cornish village near Fowey. Isola Disney, twenty years old, waits at the window of the Angler's Nest for the postman. When he comes, she tears open a letter from her husband, Major Martin Disney. He is with his regiment in Burma, and he writes that he cannot return for six months, perhaps a year.
Isola is bitterly disappointed. She has been married just over a year, and the doctors forbade her to go with him. Braddon shows her small world in loving detail: the Persian cat called Shah, the fox terrier Tim, the cottage piano, the books of Keats and Shelley. She refuses her husband's suggestion to send for his young sister, since she wants him and nobody else.
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What is All Along the River about?
It tells of a young Cornish wife, Isola Disney, whose husband is posted to Burma. A charming neighbour, Lord Lostwithiel, enters her lonely life. When her husband comes home, the marriage meets doubt, gossip and a long journey to Italy.
Who is Lord Lostwithiel in All Along the River?
He is the thirteenth baron and owner of the Mount, an old manor near Fowey. He is clever, well travelled and fond of his yacht the Vendetta. Neighbours talk about him constantly, and his brother John also appears in the book.
Where is All Along the River set?
Most of it takes place near Fowey and Lostwithiel in Cornwall, along the river that gives the book its name. Later chapters move to San Remo on the Italian Riviera and to Rome, with scenes in Genoa and Venice mentioned along the way.
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.
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