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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
You will enjoy this if you love Victorian romance, family honor and old English houses, or travel stories set in Malta and Italy, told by a lively storyteller.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Family duty grows into pride
- Julia unsettles Henry's careful plans
- Acmé gives Henry another measure
- The colonel looks beyond prejudice
- George's crisis breaks Henry's resistance
- A tender farewell carries a warning
- Love questions the value of rank
- Memory and friendship deepen the journey
- A name cannot settle every duty
Who’s who
- Sir Henry DelméThe baronet and head of an old family, who has given his life to raising its rank and mistrusts any feeling that threatens the plan.
- George DelméHenry's younger brother, a lieutenant in Malta, who loves a Greek girl against his family's expectations and falls gravely ill.
- Acmé FrascatiA young Greek orphan living in Malta, warm and open, who nurses George through his illness and wants only to stay at his side.
- Emily DelméHenry's gentle sister, proud of her ancestry yet kind to the poor, engaged to a neighbor named Clarendon Gage.
- Julia VernonA young woman of a widowed mother's large family, noble, quiet and sincere, who draws Henry's heart in Leamington.
- Clarendon GageEmily's fiancé, a fair, kind neighbor who writes verses in her album and dares to warn Henry about Julia.
- Oliver DelanceyGeorge's closest friend and brother officer, proud and passionate, who becomes his rival for Acmé.
- Colonel VavasourThe commander of George's regiment, strict on parade and generous in private, who gives Henry plain and surprising advice.
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A Love Story
A proud baronet sails for Malta to save his brother and meets the young Greek woman his brother loves.
Medium level5–10 hours to read20 languages
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“To grieve in secret, and still to love in secret.”
In short
What does a proud man do when his brother is ill, his sister is about to marry, and the woman he loves stands in the way of his dream? A Love Story opens in a grand old mansion where Sir Henry Delmé has spent half his life restoring his family's name.
A Love Story at a glance
- Reading time
- About 5 h 35 min4 h 25 min fast, 6 h 35 min slow
- Length
- 79,300 words
- Library level
- Medium longer sentences, everyday words
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 baronet builds his life on family pride
The story begins at Delmé Park, a vast old mansion with an eagle crest at every corner. Its head is Sir Henry Delmé, who inherited the baronetcy at fifteen, when the estate sagged under his father's debts. He joined the army to earn the money and insisted that every debt be paid.
That sense of duty won his family's love. It also planted something harder in him. The wish to repair the family fortune slowly grew into a wish to raise its rank. A marriage that brought honors seemed worth any sacrifice, so he refused to listen to his heart.
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Details
- Language
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- Reading time
- 6 h 10 min
- Level
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Cite this edition
Christie, William Harvey. A Love Story. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/a-love-story.
Christie, W. H. (2026). A love story. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/a-love-story
Christie, William Harvey. A Love Story. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/a-love-story.
@book{christie2026love,
author = {Christie, William Harvey},
title = {A Love Story},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/a-love-story}
}
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What is A Love Story by William Harvey Christie about?
It follows Sir Henry Delmé, a baronet determined to raise his family's rank. A call from his brother in Malta takes him abroad, where duty, pride and love all pull at him across England, Malta and Italy.
Who is Acmé in A Love Story?
Acmé Frascati is a young Greek woman living in Malta with her relations. She is warm, open and devoted, and she nurses George Delmé through a dangerous illness, which makes Henry reconsider his views.
When was A Love Story written and is it a true story?
It is a work of fiction, with a dedication dated 1841. The author wrote it in Australia, and the settings of Malta, Naples and Rome are drawn with the eye of a traveler.
The author
William Harvey Christie
1808–1873 · Australian politician and civil servant
Politician and civil servant in New South Wales, Australia.
“To grieve in secret, and still to love in secret.”
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