The Making of a Marchioness by Francis Hodgson Burnett

I was overexcited to read this, having been raised on A Little Princess and Little Lord Fauntleroy. Unfortunately, this was a huge disappointment. I didn't even get to The Methods of Lady Walderhurst, the sequel published in the same volume. Clumsily written (a style endearing for children is lugubrious for adults), melodramatic, banal and classist, this is a typical late-19th/early-20th century plot of a husband accidentally falling in love with (of all people) his wife. One of the characters, Lady Maria Bayne, reads like a disastrous attempt at Wilde-like witticisms. The unassuming, humble, generous Emily Fox-Seton is far more nauseating than endearing, her 'natural', effortless, unconscious 'goodness' is one of the least realistic things that I have ever read about. I will endeavour to forget that Burnett ever wrote anything besides her genius children's novels.