Hypocritical Romance, and Other Stories

Twelve sparkling tales of love, ambition, and manipulation in the Gilded Age. Caroline Ticknor observes the courtship rituals of America's elite with a satirist's eye and a comic novelist's timing. These are not tender love stories but shrewd examinations of what passes for romance when fortune and status hang in the balance. Young heiresses calculate their chances, suitors weigh bank accounts alongside heartbeats, and matrons orchestrate matches like generals planning campaigns. Yet beneath the social chess moves, Ticknor finds something unexpectedly human: the loneliness of transactions disguised as devotion, the small rebellions of hearts that dare to want more than convenience. Written with the lightness of touch that made Ticknor one of the most celebrated young American writers of her era, these stories deliver the pleasures of nineteenth-century comedy of manners while quietly dismantling its illusions. For readers who cherish the social precision of Henry James or the sly humor of Edith Wharton, this collection offers fresh pleasures.