Trollope, Anthony: Ayala's Angel. V2. 05 Mar 2012
 

The death of Egbert Dormer, a successful but improvident artist, left his two daughters, Lucy and Ayala, with no means of support. The girls find it hard to get used to their new surroundings. Lucy becomes engaged to one of her father's artist friends but they are too poor to marry. Three different men fall in love with Ayala but none live up to her ideal of the perfect man. Will Lucy be able to marry her sweetheart and will Ayala find her ‘Angel of Light'?
"...possibly the most unjustly neglected of all Trollope's novels ... and yet it is one of the most charming of all the long list. It is the lightest and airiest of them all, it has a gaiety and happiness and playfulness that Trollope, gay and happy though he often was, never exceeded.... what vigour of scene and creation, what vitality of action and dialogue it contains." - Walpole

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