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Vice Avenged
In 18th century England young men gathered in private clubs to devise mischievous and exciting schemes to while away their idle hours.
So it was with Bysshe, the young Marquis of Gore and his friends.
They were bored, very bored. What they wanted was a delicious new game: a shocking, sensational, dangerously different way to spice up their long days. And together they thought up an ingenious idea.
One of them would ravish a virgin of good family, an innocent maiden to be chosen by lot.
Only a game they said.
And so it was until the plan backfired.
Suddenly the game had become a sadistic round of violence and vengeance.
So it was with Bysshe, the young Marquis of Gore and his friends.
They were bored, very bored. What they wanted was a delicious new game: a shocking, sensational, dangerously different way to spice up their long days. And together they thought up an ingenious idea.
One of them would ravish a virgin of good family, an innocent maiden to be chosen by lot.
Only a game they said.
And so it was until the plan backfired.
Suddenly the game had become a sadistic round of violence and vengeance.
219 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1971
3 people are currently reading
162 people want to read
About the author
Lolah Burford
6 books10 followersBurford was the daughter of Joseph Michael Egan and Mae Rene Flanary. She was educated at Bryn Mawr (Class of 1951), and SMU Graduate School (Class of 1954). She served as a teacher at the Norfleet School of Music and Individual Studies in New York, and was an instructor in the SMU English department after receiving her master's degree. She married poet William Skell Burford, who co-founded the literary magazine The Medusa.
She died in Tarrant, Texas in 2002.
She died in Tarrant, Texas in 2002.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
January 3, 2023
What can I possibly say about this book? (Some vague spoilers will follow, as well as discussion of rape.)
I’d been alerted to author Lolah Burford as a writer of intense 1970s gothics by a friend, and upon looking up her catalog of works, this title jumped out at me immediately. I’m always down for revenge tragedies! A darkly sexual romp destroying the life of a Hellfire Club rake? Sign me up!
I was right and I was wrong, as well. This is neither a bloodthirsty revenge tragedy nor a Sadean libertine manifesto. Appropriately enough for a book by a scholar of 18th century literature, it is indeed an examination of sex and morality and dreadful things happening, some of them to the mostly-deserving Bysshe, and some of them to the completely-undeserving Cressida. The introduction describes it as a love story. Maybe. Or maybe not.
We jump right to the setup, wherein a rakes’ club decides to draw lots as to which highborn virgin should be deflowered and which of the club members should do the job. The task falls to the intensely apathetic Bysshe, Marquis of Gore, who isn’t feeling particularly good about it but doesn’t have the moral scruples or capacity for empathy required to say no. When he abducts poor Cressida, daughter of the Duke of Salisbury, he imagines that the tedious task will be over and done with and never trouble him again. Not so, and soon he has to face the wrath of the Duke (I pictured him as the perpetually glowering actor Patrick Magee), who is determined to do two things- save his daughter from scandal, and ensure that Bysshe is made as uncomfortable as humanly possible.
No one outright wins in this novel. No one outright loses, either. Bysshe has his life of indifference perturbed and responds alternately with childish tantrums and the occasional flicker of guilt, until his life turns to such disaster that he is grateful for any humanity anyone is willing to show him. Cressida wants only to be treated kindly, with no care for scandal, and her character growth comes from resignedly deciding to make the best of her lot in life. The Duke’s efforts to avenge his daughter’s honor only make her more miserable, and the happy ending, such as it is, can only come when everyone is trying their best to treat each other civilly.
I suppose this is a story about how love just sort of happens to us based on the situations we’re in. This isn’t a Rosemary Rogers-style bodice ripper where the heroine learns to submit to the brutal lusts of an alpha hero, or a Pamela-style fable about a rake redeemed by the love of a chaste maiden. It’s about three people adjusting to the hand life has dealt them. Bysshe does indeed reform, not out of love or philosophy but through being forced to actually do hard work and occasionally think about other people. Cressida feels for him because he’s the man she has to marry and she has to find some kind of affection out of their relationship. The Duke would have preferred to see Bysshe dead, but being properly humiliated is enough to mollify him.
Would I have liked this book better if it had been more bloody and lurid? Maybe. But it might not have had the odd realism of a story where melodramatic characters blunder their way towards contentment.
I’d been alerted to author Lolah Burford as a writer of intense 1970s gothics by a friend, and upon looking up her catalog of works, this title jumped out at me immediately. I’m always down for revenge tragedies! A darkly sexual romp destroying the life of a Hellfire Club rake? Sign me up!
I was right and I was wrong, as well. This is neither a bloodthirsty revenge tragedy nor a Sadean libertine manifesto. Appropriately enough for a book by a scholar of 18th century literature, it is indeed an examination of sex and morality and dreadful things happening, some of them to the mostly-deserving Bysshe, and some of them to the completely-undeserving Cressida. The introduction describes it as a love story. Maybe. Or maybe not.
We jump right to the setup, wherein a rakes’ club decides to draw lots as to which highborn virgin should be deflowered and which of the club members should do the job. The task falls to the intensely apathetic Bysshe, Marquis of Gore, who isn’t feeling particularly good about it but doesn’t have the moral scruples or capacity for empathy required to say no. When he abducts poor Cressida, daughter of the Duke of Salisbury, he imagines that the tedious task will be over and done with and never trouble him again. Not so, and soon he has to face the wrath of the Duke (I pictured him as the perpetually glowering actor Patrick Magee), who is determined to do two things- save his daughter from scandal, and ensure that Bysshe is made as uncomfortable as humanly possible.
No one outright wins in this novel. No one outright loses, either. Bysshe has his life of indifference perturbed and responds alternately with childish tantrums and the occasional flicker of guilt, until his life turns to such disaster that he is grateful for any humanity anyone is willing to show him. Cressida wants only to be treated kindly, with no care for scandal, and her character growth comes from resignedly deciding to make the best of her lot in life. The Duke’s efforts to avenge his daughter’s honor only make her more miserable, and the happy ending, such as it is, can only come when everyone is trying their best to treat each other civilly.
I suppose this is a story about how love just sort of happens to us based on the situations we’re in. This isn’t a Rosemary Rogers-style bodice ripper where the heroine learns to submit to the brutal lusts of an alpha hero, or a Pamela-style fable about a rake redeemed by the love of a chaste maiden. It’s about three people adjusting to the hand life has dealt them. Bysshe does indeed reform, not out of love or philosophy but through being forced to actually do hard work and occasionally think about other people. Cressida feels for him because he’s the man she has to marry and she has to find some kind of affection out of their relationship. The Duke would have preferred to see Bysshe dead, but being properly humiliated is enough to mollify him.
Would I have liked this book better if it had been more bloody and lurid? Maybe. But it might not have had the odd realism of a story where melodramatic characters blunder their way towards contentment.
January 20, 2013
This book was so utterly entertaining. While reading, I seriously felt like I was watching a movie in my head. Eighteenth century England, a spoiled playboy Marquis, powerful Dukes, a virgin maiden and karma karma karma! Shotgun wedding have been around forever! I really enjoyed that this book did not have the average template of a romance novel, it had actually very little romance. Filled with scandal and humor and atrocities, I read it in one sitting.
June 20, 2020
Vice Avenged: A Moral Tale”, first published in hardcover in 1971, paperback in 1972. This is the authors first book and is dedicated to author GEORGETTE HEYER.
I love how in the ‘author’s note’ before the story begins the author herself says, “Here is an eighteenth-century fairy tale, frankly unserious, frankly unrealistic, for a realistic, serious Age.” Love it!
SPOILER SUMMARY BELOW
Alrighty, this is a bizarre tale, only 224 pages long but what a tale it is! It takes place in England in the 1700s but no specific year is given. Bysshe, Marquis of Gore, is somewhere around 26 years old. He and three of his friends are bored, bored, bored one night while sitting around in a gaming ‘hell’. Viscount Lisle says to them that he’d like to do something that there’s “some risk to”, and something that ladies wouldn’t care to whisper about in their salons. Then he said that he thinks they should ‘seduce the quality’, an unmarried girl.
Each of the four men drew names. Byshee drew the name Cressida “Cressy” Daviot, twenty-two, someone he knew. The next night, May 1st, after leaving his parents home, he went to her home, guessed at which window was hers, climbed up a rope ladder he’d brought, climbed into her room and put a mask on.
He went over to her bed, tied a cloth over her mouth and tied her hands and legs together, threatened to hit her with his fist if she made a sound, carried her over his shoulder and out the window, taking the ladder with him to his carriage. They traveled to nearby hills, layed her down on bearskin rugs and said this horrible thing to her:
“You will wonder why I have brought you here”, he said in a level voice, “and I will tell you. I intend to rape you. You are miles alway from any house, or any road, or anyone who could hear you, scream you never so loud or long. Do you understand me? There is no one, absolutely no one who can hear you who will come to your aid- and there is nothing, absolutely nothing, that can prevent my doing to you exactly what I fully mean to do. I have brought you here to do it, and never doubt I shall. Put all hopes of that aside.”
He took her back home, changed her nightgown, kept the dirty one and cut off a lock of her hair (like a serial killer would do) as proof of what he’d done. Charles, one of Byshee’s friends recognized the nightgown (yeah, right!) as belonging to his cousin, who’s several times removed from the family. Charles felt bad about what happened so he sent a note to Cressy’s father informing him of what happened.
Her father read the note the next day and told her twin brothers about what happened. They came up with a plan…. Cressy’s father invited Byshee to a party at their home and had someone bring him into another room. Her father and brothers were waiting with weapons when Byshee came into the room. They gagged him and her father told him they knew what happened, didn’t say how they knew, and that he was making Byshee marry her. (WTF?! Who want’s their daughter to marry a rapist, I ask you?) Byshee refused then agreed after being threatened with a beating. Byshee was still denying he’d raped her so he wouldn’t sign a paper saying he’d done it, but he did sign some other legal papers.
They brought Cressy in to see Byshee, she didn’t recognize him, they told her he wanted to marry her but she refused and left the room. Her father told her who Byshee was and what he’d done and that he’s making her marry him. Byshee is being held captive there and beaten every day until he signs the paper saying he raped her. But Cressy doesn’t know a thing about the beatings. Byshee breaks down one day, tells her he’s being held against his will and that they should marry right away. The entire family travel to France. (Why?)
After the wedding, the two of them traveled to Italy, where they spent three months. When they finally got back home, Byshee started using opium, which was ‘fashionable’ at the time.
One day at the club, Byshee confronted Charles and told him he knew he’d told Cressy’s father about what he’d done. Charles denied it, called Byshee a liar, so they dueled and Charles got shot in the chest by Byshee but survived. Charles then told Byshee that Cressy was his cousin and that’s why he’d told on him. Charles is about 20 years old.
Cressy’s brothers and father kidnapped Byshee, put him on Cressy’s brother Kit’s yacht and spent six hours traveling to France. Once there, they locked him in a room with a window, chair and table. He cried. He was kept there about a week then was moved to a large one room apartment and was held prisoner there for months. The money for the apartment ran out, he was moved to a small room again and was kept there until about eight months later when he was set free.
He wandered around, came to a home, asked the people if he could bathe and shave and ended up staying there, helping to work the land. About seven months later, he sent Cressy a letter asking her to send his valet to him. Cressy and Byshee’s father traveled with the valet to France. He did not tell her that he was there because her father kidnapped him. Cressy just thought he left of his own free will TWO YEARS before.
They left to go back to England. Byshee still didn’t tell her about her father kidnapping him. Byshee finally confessed to Cressy that he was the one who raped her, and that it had been part of a bet, “a vile, foolish, brutal, stupid bet. But how I won!” During his two year absence, Cressy gave birth to a baby boy.
And they all lived happily ever after!
I grade this 4 stars/B.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 1, 2020
Very well done! It is much more... 'realistic', for lack of a better word, than most historical romance novels I've read. (@BRNTerri: I think it takes place in 1789...)
October 11, 2023
The book is written very well. The story, although it is a romance, is based on the rape of an innocent girl. Somehow, it seems obscene.
July 12, 2022
Avenged, my ass.
September 2, 2025
3.5 stars. This was wild from start to finish. Bysshe was such a scoundrel. It dragged a bit in the middle, but the ending made up for it. Particularly when he finally confessed to what he did and she was like… “yeah, I knew, obviously.” LOL
Kinda crazy what he had to go through in order to become a better man, but hey, it worked out.
I wished she would’ve written more details about their conversations with each other early on, cause the pacing of the book didn’t leave a lot of room for us to learn about their interpersonal dynamic.
The monologue he gave her in the beginning about how like… “here’s what’s gonna happen. I am going to rape you. We can do it the easy way or the hard way” was so funny in its delivery. Like obviously a horrible thing to do, but the way he was so matter of fact about it was hilarious.
Kinda crazy what he had to go through in order to become a better man, but hey, it worked out.
I wished she would’ve written more details about their conversations with each other early on, cause the pacing of the book didn’t leave a lot of room for us to learn about their interpersonal dynamic.
The monologue he gave her in the beginning about how like… “here’s what’s gonna happen. I am going to rape you. We can do it the easy way or the hard way” was so funny in its delivery. Like obviously a horrible thing to do, but the way he was so matter of fact about it was hilarious.
June 6, 2025
In this fairytale, in 18th-century England, getting justice for rape is handled by the victim's family, and they will do what is easiest, by arranging a wedding between the rapist and the raped. What starts as a bet between bored, drunken companions ends up in a happily ever after love story. This book is brief and unengaging.
July 17, 2023
4.5/5!! I’m so tempted to give this a 5 because it is such an easy, entertaining, and heartwarming read. While the topics are a bit heavy and the Marquis a bit of a douche, considering this was written in 1971, I’m kind of amazed it was so good.
April 14, 2023
easy read, victorian type romance.
December 10, 2023
Maybe deserves a better rating. But don't remember it at all. OTOH I kept it.
August 5, 2025
Wonderful if dated effort by a 1970s first-time author to blend her expertise in 18th century novels with the sensibilities of the time.
December 7, 2025
I loved this book, but I didn't love this book at all as a love story.
The sheer joy I had reading this was all down to how, absolutely, thinly veiled, Gore is a Sociopath.
His morals are as impressive and as flimsy as his handkerchief would probably be. At all points in this book, something absolutely vile and inhuman is suggested, Gore judges the person for suggesting it, and then goes and does it because he isn't a bad sport.
He fluctuates between being softly nurturing and absolutely threatenning, and when I say 'fluctuates', I mean he is switching between the two sentence by sentence. He talks about the worst things as if they were conversations to have over Sunday dinner, because everything is on the same level of good and bad to Gore.
He nearly talks himself out of the whole trouble he is in because he is just that good of an actor.
The romance in this story is Gore finding as much of a kindred spirit as he probably could in a woman, in the female lead. I fully believe that as soon as Gore settles back into his old life, the novelty will wear off and his old ways will return.
But I could just read about Gore forever, forever, no matter what bad stuff he does. He is so charming but so ridiculous that it is impossible not to love him anyway.
The sheer joy I had reading this was all down to how, absolutely, thinly veiled, Gore is a Sociopath.
His morals are as impressive and as flimsy as his handkerchief would probably be. At all points in this book, something absolutely vile and inhuman is suggested, Gore judges the person for suggesting it, and then goes and does it because he isn't a bad sport.
He fluctuates between being softly nurturing and absolutely threatenning, and when I say 'fluctuates', I mean he is switching between the two sentence by sentence. He talks about the worst things as if they were conversations to have over Sunday dinner, because everything is on the same level of good and bad to Gore.
He nearly talks himself out of the whole trouble he is in because he is just that good of an actor.
The romance in this story is Gore finding as much of a kindred spirit as he probably could in a woman, in the female lead. I fully believe that as soon as Gore settles back into his old life, the novelty will wear off and his old ways will return.
But I could just read about Gore forever, forever, no matter what bad stuff he does. He is so charming but so ridiculous that it is impossible not to love him anyway.
January 1, 2009
This was my first ever romance novel and I actually enjoyed reading it. It is a regency novel about a set of hellions who can bet on anything. Mostly it keeps to period setting and tone. Reading the novel's dedication to Georgette Heyer lead me to read her books also.
August 19, 2016
Wow... twisted.I bought several old Gothics at the flea market and this was the first sampling. Read it in less than a day. One of those things you don't want to know but can't look away from.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews