The New Magdalen

A fairly conventional offering from Collins, with a predictable plot and mostly razor-thin characters. Enjoyable for its flaunting of expected notions of propriety and standards of Victorian womanhood. It's not really a sensationalist novel in the same way many of his other, more extreme books are, but it does include a case of mistaken/switched identity, which you find out about almost as soon as the book opens. Mercy is a bit of a goody two-shoes, but still a likable heroine who was worth cheering for.
Slight spoiler, I guess: leave it to Collins, who lived openly with a mistress for many years, to grant a "loose" woman a happy ending--he's one of the few who would dare to do it (other than female authors, and even then, not many would approach it) during the restrictive nineteenth century. Points for that, even if the ending is somewhat unlikely! ( )