11 h 22 minAudiobook7 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 when public ambition, private faith, and forbidden love each ask for a different life?
In Victorian England, Robert Orange has a public career to build and a faith that makes demands of its own. Forbidden love deepens the conflict. His ambitions and beliefs pull against each other, while the pressure of public life leaves little room for a purely private choice.
John Oliver Hobbes brings these tensions into drawing rooms alive with sharp talk. Politics, religion, and the heart belong to the same conversation. Her quick, ironic speakers and polished prose invite you to listen closely, catching what a pointed remark reveals about a person or the society around them.
What you’ll discover
- A divided inner life Follow a man whose public hopes pull against the demands of his private faith.
- Love under social pressure Explore forbidden love in a world where the heart cannot stand apart from society.
- Drawing rooms with bite Enter conversations where quick wit and irony sharpen the portrait of Victorian manners.
- Faith woven into life Consider belief as a force within ambition and love, rather than a separate subject.
- Prose worth lingering over Enjoy polished sentences and pointed remarks that reward a patient, attentive reading.
Who will love it
Readers who love Victorian drawing rooms, political intrigue and conversations about faith and desire will feel at home. It suits anyone drawn to Catholic England, to Disraeli's circle, or to love stories where conscience pulls strongly.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Sara wants power, not a safe duke
- Pensée's secret and Sara's lie
- Reckage, the Bond, and a divided friendship
- A wedding in the Embassy chapel
- A rumor at luncheon sends two friends abroad
- The honeymoon at Miraflores is cut short
- Agnes questions love and duty
- Sara schemes while Brigit takes the stage
- What the novel is about and how it is told
Who’s who
- Robert OrangeA young Catholic politician and Disraeli's protégé, he loves Brigit and struggles to keep his conscience clear.
- Brigit ParfleteA seventeen-year-old presumed widow with an actress for a mother, she wants Robert always and dreams of the stage.
- Lady Sara de TreverellThe Earl of Garrow's brilliant daughter, she hides her love for Orange and wants a life of power and passion.
- Lord ReckageHeir to an earldom and leader of the Bond of Association, he is charming, vain and always chasing his own glory.
- Pensée Fitz RewesA gentle, devout widow who quietly loves Orange and stands by Brigit through every trouble.
- Agnes CarillonA bishop's daughter engaged to Reckage, she is bound by duty and drawn to the painter David Rennes.
- David RennesA gifted portrait painter, restless and unbelieving, he loves Agnes and cannot bear to see her marry another.
- Prince d'AlchingenThe Alberian ambassador, he is a clever schemer who wants to control Brigit's future and keep her claim quiet.
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- Audiobook
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- Paperback
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- Hardcover
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- Large print paperback
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- Large print hardcover
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Robert Orange
by John Oliver Hobbes · 1900
Soon after his wedding, a rising politician learns his bride may still have a living husband.
Medium level10–20 hours to read25 languages
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In short
Would you marry the safe duke or wait for a man you cannot have? In London in October 1869, Lady Sara weighs that choice while her friend Pensée confides that the very man Sara secretly loves is about to marry.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
Sara wants power, not a safe duke
Lady Sara de Treverell, only child of the Earl of Garrow, is twenty-two and restless. The Duke of Marshire has proposed, and her father badly wants her to accept. Sara is ambitious but not greedy, and what she wants is power, which the gentle duke cannot give her.
The novel opens as she drives with her father from the Carlton Club toward Hyde Park Corner. She tells him she cannot be wise and happy at the same moment, and she drops the name of Robert Orange, a man she calls interesting and strong. Lord Garrow warns her that the English distrust foreign ancestry and that passions destroy a life. Then Lord Reckage gallops after their carriage on a runaway hunter. Back at home, Sara makes tea, but familiar comforts cannot ease her distress.
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What is Robert Orange about?
It follows Robert Orange, a young Catholic politician in 1869 London, on his wedding day to Brigit Parflete. A claim that her first husband lives throws him, Lady Sara, Lord Reckage and others into a web of love, ambition and conscience.
Who is Robert Orange based on?
It places him beside Disraeli and brings Newman and Manning into its account of Catholic life.
Who is Lady Sara de Treverell?
Sara is the Earl of Garrow's daughter, a brilliant, restless woman with a Russian mother. She is courted by the Duke of Marshire but loves Orange, and she hides her feelings behind wit and sudden daring.
The author
John Oliver Hobbes
1867–1906 · American novelist and playwright
John Oliver Hobbes was the pen name of Pearl Mary Teresa Craigie, born in Boston in 1867. She moved to England as a child and died in London in 1906. She wrote novels and plays. Her novels include Some Emotions and a Moral (1891) and Robert Orange (1900).
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