The Heir of Redclyffe
1853
The novel that outsold Dickens in Victorian England tells the story of Guy Morville, heir to the ancient estate of Redclyffe, whose passionate nature and quick temper threaten to undo the nobility his inheritance demands. Sent to live with the Edmonstone family at Hollywell, Guy finds himself caught in a bitter rivalry with his cousin Philip, whose sinister insinuations and calculated cruelties test Guy's every effort at virtue. Only the gentle Amy, whose quiet faith and unwavering kindness slowly redeem Guy's darker impulses, offers him a path toward the chivalric ideal he desperately seeks. Set against the winter gloom of Hollywell and the romantic wildness of Redclyffe's Gothic halls, the novel traces Guy's agonizing struggle between his inherited savagery and his longing for moral greatness. This was the novel that made Victorians weep, that William Morris and Burne-Jones called a pattern for living, and that defined what it meant to be noble in an age hungry for heroes.
