Paul Leicester Ford (1865–1902)

Peter Stirling, a socially awkward young man, moves to New York City during the 1870s to pursue a law career and to try to mend his broken heart. Over the course of twenty-plus years, he builds a lucrative law practice and amasses a tremendous amount of political influence.

The first half of this book is exceptionally good. It is masterfully written and features a sympathetic protagonist in the person of Peter Stirling, a soon-to-be Harvard grad. Notoriously unsuccessful with women, Peter show more falls in love with and is rejected by Helen Pierce, the girl who eventually marries Peter’s best friend Watts D’Alloi. Pining for his unrequited love, Peter throws himself into building a law career in NYC. He becomes a champion of the slum dwellers in his district and begins to wield political power which he tries to use for good.

Unfortunately, at the halfway point, the narrative suddenly & inexplicably takes a dramatic turn for the worse. Around Chapter 33, all of a sudden the reader is propelled 10 years ahead in time and Peter has unexpectedly become a lying little creep. The heretofore stalwart and trustworthy hero of the tale effortlessly lies about being the father of his erstwhile best friend’s bastard child.

Upon being reunited with Helen--the ‘love of his life’-- after 20 years, Peter observes that she has aged (gasp!), her hair is thin, she is no longer slim, and she is no longer pretty. Why, Peter wonders, did he waste the past 20+ years mooning over such a frump? Peter quickly and readily proves himself to be a colossal jerk!

Even worse, Peter is introduced to Watts & Helen’s 17-year-old daughter Leonore, and the 45-year-old Peter eagerly beings pursuing her with all the ardor and sleazy finesse of a child predator from an episode of Dateline…Ewwwwww! Oddly enough, it never seems to occur to Peter 2.0 that Leonore will age like her mother...go figure.

At one point, when newspapers reveal Peter has a suspicious ‘ward’, Peter disintegrates into a swoon of delirium & histrionics that would put any tantrum-throwing 3-year-old to shame; never fear, however, because sweet little Leonore quickly arrives to soothe his fevered brow…the ick factor just increases on every page at this point.

The entire second half of this book is just a bizarre 180 degree turn from the first half. It’s like the original author ran out of steam at the midway mark, and hired a ghostwriter to finish the remainder of the story. The results are utterly disastrous…& weird.

Also puzzling are the sudden disappearances of Peter’s mother & his young ward. Peter’s mother was an important character for the first 30 chapters, and then just vanishes with no explanation for the rest of the book. Her death is briefly passed over at the very end, but…seriously?

It’s even stranger when Peter becomes the guardian to his best friend’s bastard son (& Peter’s own eventual brother-in-law!); Peter assumes guardianship, enrolls the boy in school, and then the poor kid is never heard from again. Wow.

When I first started this book, I was completely engrossed in the compelling plotline; by the time I finished, I was just plain grossed out.

Don’t waste your time. show less

This is an unusually beautifully bound book. For some reason it warranted top-flight handling. Harrison Fisher contributed 5 b&w illustrations; but more striking, each page is bracketed with scrolly plant-life by Margaret Armstrong, who also designed the binding. There are six different full color scrolls alternating throughout the book. It is a slim volume of 108 pages, and with the very heavy paper and only a paragraph or so per page, it's more of a short story length.
The first 34 pages show more are a prequel to the story, being a conversation among the descendants of the main characters while they are examining an old portrait.
The story itself is not particularly wonderful. I can think of many other books more deserving of this treatment. show less

It took me ages to finish this book and I have really mixed feelings about it, I'm not sure whether I liked or disliked it. I'm not going to read it again, so I guess I didn't. I quite hated this Janice girl, she seemed so shallow and silly. I really didn't care if she was going to get her happily ever after or not. But I think it was an interesting book and I believe many people could really enjoy it.

This was the first book I bought after I decided to collect and read in turn at least one biography of each US President. I paid $8.50 for it in a used book store in Santa Rosa, California and I do not regret the purchase. It is an unusal treatment of an important life, as the chapter headings will indicate: Family Relations, Physique, Education, Relations with the Fair sex, Farmer and Proprietor, Master and Employer, Social Life, Tastes and Amusements, Friends, Enemies, Soldier, and Citizen show more and Office-Holder. The author tried to help his reader to touch and feel the man. The overiding impression I got was that of a very honest person who felt a responsibilty to serve even though he sometimes would rather not have. I gave the book three stars because of its simplistic and unusual approach. show less