C. N. Williamson (1859–1920)
Author of The Lightning Conductor: The Strange Adventures of a Motor-Car
About the Author
Disambiguation Notice:
Charles Norris Williamson wrote most, if not all, of these works in partnership with his wife, Alice Muriel (nee Livingston). Charles was a motoring journalist and travel writer. Alice apparently said of him "Charlie Williamson could do anything in the world except write stories": she also said "I can't do anything else." There was obviously a synergy between them as the more successful works were joint efforts. Charles wrote some novels on his own, as did Alice after her husband's death.
Please do not combine these two authors, or either's individual author page with any joint author page. Thank you.
Image credit: Charles Norris Williamson
Series
Works by C. N. Williamson
The War Wedding 2 copies
The wedding day 2 copies
Love and the spy 2 copies
Black Sleeves 2 copies
Everyman's land 1 copy
Briar-rose 1 copy
The minx goes to the Front 1 copy
Crucifix Corner 1 copy
This woman to this man 1 copy
The Cowboy Countess 1 copy
The house of silence 1 copy
Champion 1 copy
The love pirate 1 copy
The Demon 1 copy
The night of the wedding 1 copy
Et Krigsbryllup : Roman 1 copy
The dummy hand : a novel 1 copy
Berry goes to Monte Carlo 1 copy
Scarlet Runner 1 copy
Associated Works
The Mammoth Book of Locked-Room Mysteries and Impossible Crimes (2000) — Contributor — 134 copies, 1 review
The Second Christmas Megapack: 29 Modern and Classic Christmas Stories (2012) — Contributor — 3 copies
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Legal name
- Williamson, Charles Norris
- Birthdate
- 1859
- Date of death
- 1920-10-03
- Gender
- male
- Relationships
- Williamson, A. M. (wife)
- Nationality
- UK
- Place of death
- Combe Down, Bath, England, UK
- Disambiguation notice
- Charles Norris Williamson wrote most, if not all, of these works in partnership with his wife, Alice Muriel (nee Livingston). Charles was a motoring journalist and travel writer. Alice apparently said of him "Charlie Williamson could do anything in the world except write stories": she also said "I can't do anything else." There was obviously a synergy between them as the more successful works were joint efforts. Charles wrote some novels on his own, as did Alice after her husband's death.
Please do not combine these two authors, or either's individual author page with any joint author page. Thank you. - Associated Place (for map)
- England, UK
Members
Reviews
I started out this book thinking it would be a 3-star novel. I got farther into it and thought, well...4 stars. Today I finished it and just had to go with 5 stars.
Evidently this married couple, the Williamsons, wrote a whole lot of books together around the turn of the 20th century. This is the only one I've read so far, but I don't think it'll be the last. Evidently they like to write books in which: A) Lots of traveling is done, preferably by automobile (because it was the latest, coolest show more thing) and B) Someone is in disguise.
Both of those qualifications are met in this book. Audrie, a young woman who has just taken up a post as music teacher, owes one of her students a favor for helping her get the job.
The student, a 19-year-old girl named Ellaline, is an orphan and has never seen or communicated much with her guardian, who is just returning from some type of military post in Asia. Ellaline is prejudiced against him and has decided to elope anyway, but her fiance can't come for her right away, so in the interim, she asks Audrie (who is 21) to pose as her and keep the guardian off the track.
Audrie is expecting the guardian to be a gruff, dragon-like old man, but instead she is surprised to meet a kind, fairly normal man who is a young-looking 40. His name is Sir Lionel Pendragon.
Sir Lionel is expecting his ward to be a carbon-copy of her flirtatious, undependable mother, and he is surprised to meet Audrie (whom, of course, he thinks is Ellaline). Audrie is sweet, intelligent, and interested in the same things he is. In fact, he almost immediately views her as a friend.
Sir Lionel's home has just been damaged by a fire, so while it is being repaired, he takes Audrie, along with his sister, on an automobile trip all around England. This is where the book turns into part travelogue. I didn't mind it, and in fact found some of it intensely interesting, but it did make the book a little long.
The book is in the form of letters, mostly from Audrie to her mother, and a few from Sir Lionel to his best friend. I really liked getting to see his side of things. He was an AWESOMELY, awesomely likable character. Both he and Audrie put plenty of description in their letters, and you can tell that they are totally in love with England and all of its medieval history, legends, architecture, people, everything. They both write about it pretty reverently, which is kind of enjoyable to one who has never been and probably never will be at any of those places.
Problems arise in the form of a young man who thinks he's in love with Audrie and also fancies himself a detective. He noses out Audrie's real identity and threatens to tell Sir Lionel if Audrie doesn't invite him along on the roadtrip, AND his aunt, who is scheming to get Sir Lionel to marry her. They are the irritating characters in the book, but don't do any lasting harm at all.
Sir Lionel and Audrie have PLENTY of lovely times together and quickly become genuine friends in spite of the machinations of the villains. It's great. Their travels and touring around England are really just one long spell of courtship, even though Sir Lionel is thinking, "But I'm so much older, and I'm her guardian, and she must think of me as elderly," and Audrie is thinking, "He will really hate me when he knows I've deceived him about Ellaline." The times they get to spend together are totally appropriate for a guardian-ward relationship, but also super sweet and innocent when viewed for what they really are--a courtship.
Seriously, these are a couple of great characters. I'm impressed. show less
Evidently this married couple, the Williamsons, wrote a whole lot of books together around the turn of the 20th century. This is the only one I've read so far, but I don't think it'll be the last. Evidently they like to write books in which: A) Lots of traveling is done, preferably by automobile (because it was the latest, coolest show more thing) and B) Someone is in disguise.
Both of those qualifications are met in this book. Audrie, a young woman who has just taken up a post as music teacher, owes one of her students a favor for helping her get the job.
The student, a 19-year-old girl named Ellaline, is an orphan and has never seen or communicated much with her guardian, who is just returning from some type of military post in Asia. Ellaline is prejudiced against him and has decided to elope anyway, but her fiance can't come for her right away, so in the interim, she asks Audrie (who is 21) to pose as her and keep the guardian off the track.
Audrie is expecting the guardian to be a gruff, dragon-like old man, but instead she is surprised to meet a kind, fairly normal man who is a young-looking 40. His name is Sir Lionel Pendragon.
Sir Lionel is expecting his ward to be a carbon-copy of her flirtatious, undependable mother, and he is surprised to meet Audrie (whom, of course, he thinks is Ellaline). Audrie is sweet, intelligent, and interested in the same things he is. In fact, he almost immediately views her as a friend.
Sir Lionel's home has just been damaged by a fire, so while it is being repaired, he takes Audrie, along with his sister, on an automobile trip all around England. This is where the book turns into part travelogue. I didn't mind it, and in fact found some of it intensely interesting, but it did make the book a little long.
The book is in the form of letters, mostly from Audrie to her mother, and a few from Sir Lionel to his best friend. I really liked getting to see his side of things. He was an AWESOMELY, awesomely likable character. Both he and Audrie put plenty of description in their letters, and you can tell that they are totally in love with England and all of its medieval history, legends, architecture, people, everything. They both write about it pretty reverently, which is kind of enjoyable to one who has never been and probably never will be at any of those places.
Problems arise in the form of a young man who thinks he's in love with Audrie and also fancies himself a detective. He noses out Audrie's real identity and threatens to tell Sir Lionel if Audrie doesn't invite him along on the roadtrip, AND his aunt, who is scheming to get Sir Lionel to marry her. They are the irritating characters in the book, but don't do any lasting harm at all.
Sir Lionel and Audrie have PLENTY of lovely times together and quickly become genuine friends in spite of the machinations of the villains. It's great. Their travels and touring around England are really just one long spell of courtship, even though Sir Lionel is thinking, "But I'm so much older, and I'm her guardian, and she must think of me as elderly," and Audrie is thinking, "He will really hate me when he knows I've deceived him about Ellaline." The times they get to spend together are totally appropriate for a guardian-ward relationship, but also super sweet and innocent when viewed for what they really are--a courtship.
Seriously, these are a couple of great characters. I'm impressed. show less
Though the action is uneven, the descriptions of place just glow. The characters are alive and the phrasing is sometimes superb. I googled their route and some of their stops. What a tour! Glad I went along.
A bit of a departure from normal Williamsons' fare, but it still has some of their trademarks.
Virginia, who is as you may guess a princess, has just finished telling her mother that she will never marry anyone except her ideal man, Leopold, the emperor of a small country. She's maybe only met him once or twice and it was years ago, but she has followed his career with interest and can't help feeling that she'd rather marry no one if she can't have him. She's pretty sure this will never show more happen, since even though she's royalty, her family isn't that important anymore and they have no money.
The words confessing her attachment are hardly out of her mouth when a letter arrives for her mother.
Emperor Leopold wants to marry her.
Serendipitous as it may seem, it's not the whole truth. Unfortunately. The truth is, he knows it's his duty to marry. His counselor has fixed on Virginia as an eligible bride, and Leopold has agreed because: A) She's Protestant, B) She's of suitably royal blood, C) He thinks she'll be "moldable", and D) He despises the idea of marrying for money or prestige, and since Virginia has neither, he won't be beholden to her or her relatives.
Virginia refuses such terms. She wants romance or nothing. She persuades her mother and, under assumed names, they visit Leopold's country to see if he can possibly love Virginia for herself. show less
Virginia, who is as you may guess a princess, has just finished telling her mother that she will never marry anyone except her ideal man, Leopold, the emperor of a small country. She's maybe only met him once or twice and it was years ago, but she has followed his career with interest and can't help feeling that she'd rather marry no one if she can't have him. She's pretty sure this will never show more happen, since even though she's royalty, her family isn't that important anymore and they have no money.
The words confessing her attachment are hardly out of her mouth when a letter arrives for her mother.
Emperor Leopold wants to marry her.
Serendipitous as it may seem, it's not the whole truth. Unfortunately. The truth is, he knows it's his duty to marry. His counselor has fixed on Virginia as an eligible bride, and Leopold has agreed because: A) She's Protestant, B) She's of suitably royal blood, C) He thinks she'll be "moldable", and D) He despises the idea of marrying for money or prestige, and since Virginia has neither, he won't be beholden to her or her relatives.
Virginia refuses such terms. She wants romance or nothing. She persuades her mother and, under assumed names, they visit Leopold's country to see if he can possibly love Virginia for herself. show less
This had all the elements of the normal Williamsons' book: someone is in disguise, people are taking a road-trip and waxing poetic about the sights they see, and there are a couple of sort of cartoon-y villains. But for me it somehow didn't have as much sparkle.
John Winston, a wealthy young British gentleman with an automobile, catches a couple of glimpses of Molly Randolph, an American girl who is just starting on her first-ever automobile trip, with her old maiden aunt. He falls instantly show more in love with her. Because she's having no end of trouble with her car and because her chauffeur is a villain, John offers himself as a chauffeur in order to get to spend more time with her. She hires him, and they proceed to drive around rural France/Spain/Italy, having various car-related mishaps along the way.
It felt like there was even more travelogue stuff in this book than in some of the others, which can make the pace pretty slow. Also, I didn't like the way that John (or "Brown" as he is called when in his chauffeur role) has to force himself to be fairly subservient to Molly and the way she talks about how it's a pity that he's a chauffeur instead of a gentleman. A hundred years ago it was considered an unchanging truth that people didn't really get to escape their social class and that you were in the circumstances in which God wanted you, and that theory pops up in many novels of the period, but in this book for some reason that viewpoint grated on my nerves a bit more. show less
John Winston, a wealthy young British gentleman with an automobile, catches a couple of glimpses of Molly Randolph, an American girl who is just starting on her first-ever automobile trip, with her old maiden aunt. He falls instantly show more in love with her. Because she's having no end of trouble with her car and because her chauffeur is a villain, John offers himself as a chauffeur in order to get to spend more time with her. She hires him, and they proceed to drive around rural France/Spain/Italy, having various car-related mishaps along the way.
It felt like there was even more travelogue stuff in this book than in some of the others, which can make the pace pretty slow. Also, I didn't like the way that John (or "Brown" as he is called when in his chauffeur role) has to force himself to be fairly subservient to Molly and the way she talks about how it's a pity that he's a chauffeur instead of a gentleman. A hundred years ago it was considered an unchanging truth that people didn't really get to escape their social class and that you were in the circumstances in which God wanted you, and that theory pops up in many novels of the period, but in this book for some reason that viewpoint grated on my nerves a bit more. show less
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Statistics
- Works
- 64
- Also by
- 2
- Members
- 367
- Popularity
- #65,578
- Rating
- 3.4
- Reviews
- 20
- ISBNs
- 109