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What if your heart asks for love, but your world keeps asking about money and rank?
In Robert Grant’s A Romantic Young Lady, romance meets the manners of Gilded Age America. New fortunes, crowded drawing rooms and anxious matchmaking shape a society where a young woman’s feelings must contend with social expectations. At its center is a romantic heroine, set against a world that puts a high value on money and rank.
Grant brings a light, observant wit to questions of love and independence. How far should a young woman trust her feelings, and when should she listen to advice? The novel invites you to consider those choices through the comedy of social habits. Its gentle pace leaves room to notice the pressures beneath polite manners and the calculations that can crowd out sincere affection.
What you’ll discover
- Feeling against calculation Explore the tension between a romantic ideal and a society that prizes money and rank.
- Drawing rooms under scrutiny Enter a world of new fortunes, careful manners and anxious matchmaking.
- Wit with a light touch Enjoy Grant’s observant style as he examines the habits of his own social class.
- The cost of independence Consider how following your feelings can clash with the advice others offer.
- Room to notice more Let the gentle pace draw your attention to love, ambition and social expectations.
Who will love it
Readers who enjoy a witty narrator, gentle satire of fashionable crazes, and a heroine with a mind of her own. It suits anyone who likes love stories with a clever plan inside them.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Virginia learns to think for herself
- A fortune becomes a personal test
- Romance meets the question of money
- Disappointment opens a wider world
- New ideas bring familiar foolishness
- Admiration puts her judgment under pressure
- Independence means accepting a trust
- Virginia secretly supports another person’s ambition
- Wealth and love require better judgment
Who’s who
- Virginia HarlanA Boston heiress, quick, stubborn and romantic, who wants to love and to be loved for herself and to use her fortune well.
- Aunt AgnesHer father's sister, severe and bookish, who despises society and champions serious ideas, and who loves Virginia in her own stern way.
- Aunt HelenHer mother's sister, a stylish and anxious little woman who loves fashion and hopes to see Virginia suitably married.
- Roger DaleA smooth, fashionable young man who talks of true love and holds the first place in Virginia's heart.
- Charles Liversage SpenceA poet and philosopher who teaches Moderation and wants his wife to share his rule of living without wealth.
- Paul BarrA bearded poet-painter who believes in passion and excess, and who pursues Virginia with poems and flowers.
- Horatio ChelmHer father's lawyer, dry and kindly, who guides her through her inheritance and helps with her boldest plan.
- Francis PrimeA well-dressed young idealist with a bull terrier named Ike, who wants to prove he can be a merchant prince.
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A Romantic Young Lady
by Robert Grant · 1886
An heiress throws a box of securities into the sea for love, then goes looking for a better kind of freedom.
Medium level2–5 hours to read20 languages
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“Nothing overmuch”
In short
A girl of eighteen is handed a tin box holding one hundred thousand dollars and told to learn what money is for. Within a year she has flung it into the Atlantic.
A Romantic Young Lady at a glance
- Reading time
- About 4 h 30 min3 h 35 min fast, 5 h 20 min slow
- Length
- 64,400 words
- Library level
- Medium longer sentences, everyday words
- First published
- 1886by Robert Grant
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A motherless heiress grows up between two aunts
Virginia Harlan loses her mother at birth and grows up with a father who is a railway magnate, always busy downtown. Two aunts share the work of raising her. Aunt Agnes, her father's sister, is prim and bookish. Aunt Helen, her mother's sister, is neat and stylish.
At school Virginia tries to satisfy both. Helen wants modern languages and Agnes wants serious studies. The strain makes her pale, and a doctor tells her father to take her out of school. A governess follows, and Agnes wins the choice. Miss Jenks is kind, serious and fifty. She teaches Virginia to organize what she knows and to fear shallow thinking.
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Which edition is right for me
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Details
- First published
- 1886
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 5 h 30 min
- Level
- Medium level
Cite this edition
Grant, Robert. A Romantic Young Lady. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/a-romantic-young-lady.
Grant, R. (2026). A romantic young lady. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/a-romantic-young-lady (Original work published 1886)
Grant, Robert. A Romantic Young Lady. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/a-romantic-young-lady.
@book{grant2026romantic,
author = {Grant, Robert},
title = {A Romantic Young Lady},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/a-romantic-young-lady},
note = {First published 1886}
}
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What is A Romantic Young Lady about?
It follows Virginia Harlan, a Boston heiress, through first love, a circle of fashionable philosophers, a large inheritance and a plan to help a young man start a bank. It is told in her own witty voice.
Who is Virginia Harlan?
Virginia is the narrator and heroine, the only child of a railway magnate. She is bright, stubborn and romantic, and she is raised by two very different aunts, which shapes her search for independence.
What is Moderation in the novel?
Moderation is the system of Charles Liversage Spence, who believes nothing should be overdone. It covers speech, food, love and property, and the book uses it to poke fun at the fads of its age.
The author
Robert Grant
1852–1940 · American novelist and jurist
Robert Grant was an American author and judge. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1852 and died there in 1940. He wrote novels, including A Romantic Young Lady (1886) and Unleavened Bread (1900). He also served as a probate judge in Massachusetts.
“Nothing overmuch”
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