The Real Charlotte

When Charlotte Mullen, a fortyish flinty Irish spinster, takes in her orphaned cousin, the beautiful nineteen-year-old Francie Fitzgerald who had been living in Dublin with poor relatives, life in a small Irish village is dramatically upended. As Charlotte plots to marry Francie to a local squire’s son, events build to a shocking crescendo with dire effects.

Originally published in three volumes, this Warbler Classics edition is based on the combined 1895 publication and includes an afterword by Malcolm Jones and a biographical note.

Somerville and Ross (Edith Anna Œ. Somerville and Violet Florence Martin, writing under the name Martin Ross) were an Anglo-Irish writing team. They are most known for a series of three books depicting the (mis)adventures of an Irish Resident Magistrate—known collectively as The Irish R.M., which was made into a television series. Their novel, The Real Charlotte, is considered a masterpiece of Irish literature.

Malcolm Jones is the author of the memoir Little Boy Blues and an editor and writer for The Daily Beast where he covers books, music, and photography.

“A masterpiece of Irish literature of the Victorian Age.”
—The Guardian

The Real Charlotte has always seemed to me to be the most substantial and powerful Anglo-Irish novel of the last half of the nineteenth century.”
—V. S. Pritchett