Nesbit, Edith: Daphne in Fitzroy Street. v1. 23 Oct. 2015
 

DAPHNE IN FITZROY STREET
by Edith Nesbit (1858–1924)

First published 1909. The text of this book is in the public domain in countries where copyright is “Life+70” or less, and in the USA.

Edith Nesbit Bland, English author and poet, is best known for her innovative writing for children. Later in her career she also wrote for adults, publishing several novels and numerous short stories.
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This is perhaps Nesbit’s most autobiographical story, basing the character of Mr. Henry on her long-time friend and probable lover, writer George Bernard Shaw; and including scenes based on her experiences with Russian émigrés.

Daphne and her small sister, ensconced for some years in a French boarding school, are called home to England upon their father’s death, and placed in custody of uncaring aunts and uncles. Daphne, an assertive and independent soul, takes her sister and flees to the artists’ quarter in London. Although she has very little money and is almost entirely unsuited for work available for women in that era, thanks to new-found friends our heroine never encounters the seamiest side of poverty and privation. Would-be bohemian Daphne has, of course, several attractive men falling at her feet, but she becomes enamored of the prickly, self-centered artist Henry.

This book gives us a look at a young woman’s quest for freedom and autonomy – or might it be that she only wants a fairy-tale love story after all?

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Text was obtained from archive.org. Due to copyright restrictions, frontispiece by F. Graham Cootes (1879–1960) was omitted. OCR errors corrected; punctuation, diacritics, and italics formatted; some spelling and punctuation modernized / standardized. Embedded fonts for titles and small-caps.

I had some problems using the in-line Table of Contents when using Kindle Previewer --- please let me know if you have trouble with it on your device, and I will try to find how to fix that.
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Do you think you know how this story will end? Give it a read and find out.
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