Garvice, Charles: At Love's Cost. V1. 31 Aug 2010
 

Charles Andrew Garvice (24 August 1850 - 1 March 1920) was a prolific and popular author of romance novels in Britain, the United States and translated around the world. By 1913 he was selling 1.75 million books annually, a pace which he maintained at least until his death. Garvice published over 150 novels selling over seven million copies worldwide by 1914. He was ‘the most successful novelist in England’, according to Arnold Bennett in 1910. Despite his enormous success, he was poorly received by literary critics, and is almost forgotten today.

Excerpt
"Until this moment I have never fully realised how great an ass a man can be. When I think that this morning I scurried through what might have been a decent breakfast, left my comfortable diggings, and was cooped up in a train for seven hours, that I am now driving in a pelting rain through, so far as I can see for the mist, what appears to be a howling wilderness, I ask myself if I am still in possession of my senses. I ask myself why I should commit such lurid folly. Last night I was sitting over the fire with a book—for it was cold, though not so cold as this," the speaker shivered and dragged the collar of his overcoat still higher—"at peace with all the world, with Omar purring placidly by my side, and my soul wrapped in that serenity which belongs to a man who has long since rid himself of that inconvenient appendage—a conscience, and has hit upon the right brand of cigarettes, and now—"