A Fool There Was

by Porter Emerson Browne

Porter Emerson Browne (1879- 1934) was a native of Beverly, Massachusetts, who worked as a journalist and novelist before turning playwright. He was the author of: A Fool There Was (1909), The Spendthrift (1910), Peace at Any Price (1916), Someone and Somebody (1917), Scars and Stripes (1917) and Political Primer (1917). Browne scored a final success with The Bad Man (1926).

Genres: Fiction

318 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1909

Reviews

[Kyle O'Shields]

I picked this one up because I saw a copy for sale and I liked the film version of it. Honestly, before reading it, I was expecting to hate it. Partially, this was because of the book's age (1909). The other reason was because I knew that it would incorporate some very dated ideology (traces of Social Darwinism, for example). While these were certainly there, I was surprised at how nicely-written some of the prose was. Put briefly, I liked it more than I thought I would. It's no great literary classic, but it's not bad.
As for how it compares to the film version, much of the book is cut out of the film. I was somewhat expecting this before I even read the book, so I was on the lookout for the point when the events that take place in the film would start. The events of the film started somewhere around page eighty-five (keep in mind that I have an original 1909 copy, not a reprint with a different type size). That's how much is in the book that isn't in the film. There are also entire characters that were left out of the film version.

[Samantha Glasser]

Read this book online for free through Project Gutenberg:
http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/6...

[Curiosityreadit]

For 1909 I think this was a dark and racy femme fatale story. I loved it when I was younger and read it more than once.