Set in Silver by C.N. Williamson

I thought I knew all the vintage authors worth reading, but thanks to a friend at Goodreads, I discovered the Williamson writing team. Charles (1859-1920) was a “motoring journalist” at a time when it was still a novelty to own a car. His wife, Alice, turned his travelogues into romance novels, which explains why much of the stories are embedded in facts about quaint, historic English towns.

Set in Silver is a far-fetched comedy of errors that was perfectly delightful. It’s a love story in two senses. First, it’s the tale of a man who comes back to England after many years and rediscovers his passion for the country of his birth. Second, it is the traditional yarn of boy-meets-girl.

I’m prejudiced toward British writers and the Williamsons did not disappoint. The novel was loaded with literary references to Greek mythology, literary classics and the Bible. It was not Christian by any stretch of the imagination (Lionel’s sister is annoyingly religious), but if you know the Bible, the off-hand allusions to scriptural passages were often laugh-out-loud-funny. The frequent references to Arthurian legends were also a big plus for me. (It’s amazing to think that this “light” novel was written with the expectation that people would catch all these references, which they still did in 1909.)

Even though I could hardly put this book down, it took almost a week to read. It was 400 pages on my Kindle and I refused to skim over the descriptive passages (except for the last 40 pages when I just couldn’t wait a second longer to see how it was all going to turn out).

If you like a good vintage novel that is more lighthearted than sappy, this should do the trick. It had me smiling from start to finish. And it’s free for Kindle. 

Blessings,