Colm Tóibín provides a foreword for this wonderful 19th-century Irish novel about the rivalry between a beautiful Dublin girl and her malevolent cousin
Francie, a young, coquettish, vain, and strikingly beautiful orphan, is transplanted from her working-class Dublin home to a small country town to live with her older cousin,
Charlotte. Socially ambitious, Charlotte schemes to bring about a marriage between Francie and Christopher Dysart, the heir to the local estate. But when Charlotte's plans begin to go
tragically awry, it reveals the depths of her own terrible nature, in this compelling novel that vividly transports the reader to the turbulent world of
Anglo-Ireland at the turn of the century.
