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The Romantic Lady: By Michael Arlen
A book of 4 short stories: The Romantic Lady, Fay Richmond, Consuelo and The Romance of Iris Poole
137 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1921
About the author
Michael Arlen
45 books26 followersOriginal name Dikran Kouyoumdjian. Armenian essayist, short story writer, novelist, playwright, and scriptwriter, who had his greatest successes in the 1920s while living and writing in England. Although Arlen is most famous for his satirical romances set in English smart society, he also wrote gothic horror and psychological thrillers, for instance "The Gentleman from America", which was filmed in 1956 as a television episode for Alfred Hitchcock's TV series Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Near the end of his life, Arlen mainly occupied himself with political writing. Arlen's vivid but colloquial style came to be known as 'Arlenesque'.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 21, 2023
In a London of gentlemen’s clubs, society dinners, ‘noted beauties’ and gentleman adventurers, four stories of love are told…
This is not Michael Arlen’s finest hour. His favourite device of tales told at one remove distances the reader from the characters rather than surprising one by the impact of real feelings glimpsed through layers, as happens in his better stories. The first story in this book, where a supper invitation does not turn out as expected, is by far the best - elegantly constructed and wryly revealing something at once tragic, comic and noble. The second is gently poignant and the third acceptable. The fourth, however, is profoundly irritating in its depiction of a love triangle between two brothers and the wife of one, all of whom come across as deeply unpleasant rather than the ill-starred magnificent creatures Arlen intends. And yet there is something in it which shows what he *could* do, and did go on to do much better with hints of fatal curses of old families and men and women loving each other so much that they cannot understand each other at all. Published in 1921, this is also a book which moves from the grand Society of pre-war London, where an ‘electric brougham’ or telephone were strange modern inventions, through to the post-war influenza epidemic almost accidentally destroying lives, with the wipe-out of a generation of men in between.
This is not Michael Arlen’s finest hour. His favourite device of tales told at one remove distances the reader from the characters rather than surprising one by the impact of real feelings glimpsed through layers, as happens in his better stories. The first story in this book, where a supper invitation does not turn out as expected, is by far the best - elegantly constructed and wryly revealing something at once tragic, comic and noble. The second is gently poignant and the third acceptable. The fourth, however, is profoundly irritating in its depiction of a love triangle between two brothers and the wife of one, all of whom come across as deeply unpleasant rather than the ill-starred magnificent creatures Arlen intends. And yet there is something in it which shows what he *could* do, and did go on to do much better with hints of fatal curses of old families and men and women loving each other so much that they cannot understand each other at all. Published in 1921, this is also a book which moves from the grand Society of pre-war London, where an ‘electric brougham’ or telephone were strange modern inventions, through to the post-war influenza epidemic almost accidentally destroying lives, with the wipe-out of a generation of men in between.
January 15, 2022
Let's just say I won't be seeking out anything else by this author. He seems to know a lot more about overgrown public schoolboys than about women.
April 20, 2014
he Romantic Lady – The story of a beautiful Italian woman who choses her new husband by inviting a man home and forbidding him to ever see her again.
Fay Richmond – A man finds himself a frequent guest and friend in the house of the beautiful Fay Richmond, engaged to an Italian count, and unable to realize that he himself is in love with her.
Consuelo – A man reminisces about a beautiful woman who he loved, although she was married to his best friend.
The Romance of Iris Poole – a beautiful woman is caught between two brothers.
I was surprised by this one, because I didn’t know it was a book of short stories when I started it. I really enjoyed the first three stories though. My favorite was the first one – I would have read a full novel of it. The stories all followed the same pattern, so common in older novels – the narrator meets a man who tells him the story of whatever the plot is, and that story makes up the book. They also ended relatively similarly, with some sort of twist.
The language was really lovely in there. They felt very old-fashioned to me, both in terms of language, and theme.
Fay Richmond – A man finds himself a frequent guest and friend in the house of the beautiful Fay Richmond, engaged to an Italian count, and unable to realize that he himself is in love with her.
Consuelo – A man reminisces about a beautiful woman who he loved, although she was married to his best friend.
The Romance of Iris Poole – a beautiful woman is caught between two brothers.
I was surprised by this one, because I didn’t know it was a book of short stories when I started it. I really enjoyed the first three stories though. My favorite was the first one – I would have read a full novel of it. The stories all followed the same pattern, so common in older novels – the narrator meets a man who tells him the story of whatever the plot is, and that story makes up the book. They also ended relatively similarly, with some sort of twist.
The language was really lovely in there. They felt very old-fashioned to me, both in terms of language, and theme.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews