Description

At a friend's house party, Gerard Buckland, barrister, is introduced to a beautiful, enigmatic young woman. Rachel Davison is living in reduced circumstances since the death of her father. She longs to provide for her mother and sister but, declares that, regretfully, she has only one, unemployable, talent -- sleight of hand, which she demonstrates by producing his silver pencil-case. Gerard is instantly smitten, but Rachel disappears -- from the party, and from society, before he is able to further their acquaintance. When he runs into her again, some months later, in London, she is beautifully and expensively garbed, living with a duchess friend, sister in boarding school and mother comfortably ensconced in pleasant quarters down in Brighton. Whence the transformation? Buckland learns that Rachel is now employed as an artist -- a designer -- at the astonishing salary of £800 per annum. The curious thing is -- no one has ever seen her with a pencil in her hand, she permits no visitors to her off-site studio, and when Gerard is strolling past a theater one evening, he could swear he sees her, disguised as a working woman, flit through the crowd and hand off an object suspiciously sparkly to a tall, broad-shouldered man. Gerard knows he can't trust her, but finds he can't live without her, and so he determines to get to the bottom of the mystery that is the dazzling Miss Davison.

Notes

Florence Warden (1857-1929), whom I'd never heard of before coming across Miss Davison on eBay, was an actress and the author (under her stage name -- her birth name was Florence Alice Price) of dozens of novels published between 1877 and 1924. The photo I'm using for her is licensed under Creative Commons from the National Portrait Gallery in London. The book cover photo is from an eBay listing: the gilt on this title, while gorgeous, unusually fragile and my own copy is in poor shape. It did come with a dust jacket -- Yesterday's Gallery/Babylon Revisited has a copy listed here. The same picture is reproduced in the book as a frontispiece.

Warden is by no means a Conan Doyle, but as pre-Golden Age mysteries go -- and it was being reviewed in British papers in 1908, though the Fly publication date is 1910 -- The Dazzling Miss Davison is really fun. The central puzzle isn't particularly baffling, it moves a bit slowly (I think 21st-century readers are just a lot more sophisticated when it comes to the genre) and Buckland's doggedness comes off as a bit stalkerish -- today's Rachel wouldn't stand for it, much less have her "heart touched and melted by his pertinacious loyalty." (118) There's another character, embodying one of my favorite tropes, that I would have rather seen as the male lead. That being said, the book really pulls you along. Rachel is a pretty damn awesome character and it's refreshing to read about a young woman, "an odd girl...singularly attractive, but eccentric, very eccentric" (133), with incredible "strength of mind and..brilliancy of intellect" -- "You look, may I say it -- 'brainy'" (9) -- who outright lies and dissembles and pretty much outwits everyone. It's also got a strong feminist New Woman message -- the book begins with Buckland arguing that "the barriers of prejudice" will be "pulled down" in their generation and women will "enter...any field where she feels her talents will be best employed." (11) And all the characters, young and old, pretty much accept this as a given (Rachel claims she doesn't, but, surprise, surprise, she's lying). My countrymen and women don't come off particularly well, but this leads to one of the best lines in the book: "Will you give it all up, and give up these dubious American people, and learn to be happy?" (207) so how can I complain? Another favorite line: "People who have anything to be ashamed of don't do eccentric things." (115) I'm not sure that's true, but I want it to be!

The Dazzling Miss Davison, with slightly altered storyline, was filmed in 1917 and is considered a lost silent.

Tags

1900-1909, English, Europe, England, I'm not good enough for you, beautiful/handsome, brave, courageous, can't help loving you/love despite, career, unusual, charming, clever, competent, detective, determined, disguised as dolt, duty before love, f/m, family, sibling, responsible for, fashionable, female, filmed, has been, hair, blond(e), hair, dark, identity, concealed, independent, insurmountable barrier, intelligent, lawyer, love at first sight, loyal, mysterious, mystery, noble/aristocrat, not the type to fall in love, poor, principled, rich, riches to rags to riches, romance, shy, single, spirited, strong, third-person, young

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