THE DUCHESS OF WREXE
Reading edition
HER DECLINE AND DEATH
A ROMANTIC COMMENTARY
BY HUGH WALPOLE
Author of "Fortitude," etc.
NEW YORK GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
Copyright, 1914, By George H. Doran Company
TO MY MOTHER A SMALL EXPRESSION OF GRATITUDE BEYOND WORDS
"And we'll have fires out of the Grand Duke's Wood." Letter to Maria Gisborne
THE RISING CITY: I
THE DUCHESS OF WREXE
NOTE: This is an age of Trilogies and Sequels. The title at the beginning of this book, "The Rising City: I," may lead nervous readers to fear yet another attempt in that extended and discursive direction.
To reassure them I wish to emphasize this point—that The Duchess of Wrexe is entirely a novel complete and independent in itself. It is grouped, with the two stories that will follow it, under the heading of "The Rising City" because the three novels will be connected in place, in idea, and in sequence of time. Also certain of the same characters will appear in all three books. But the novels are not intended as sequels of one another, nor is "The Rising City" a Trilogy.—H. W.