Janet

Fiction ~ novella / long short story
Published 17th September 1937*
Approx. 19,000 words
(First read 07/10/2013)

This is the second in Benson's quartet of novellas published under the title Old London.  There's no connexion between the four other than the setting, which in this case is Victorian ... I didn't spot any particular clues as to the exact year, probably 1840s or 50s. 

Original dust jacket

Unlike the first in the series ~ Portrait of an English Nobleman, qv ~ this is a humdrum domestic drama, hardly likely ever to set the world on fire.  Read it if every other book on Earth has been burnt.  Otherwise, don't bother.

*These four little books were never published in the UK, only in the US.  I assume that they were specially commissioned for the American market.
 

Portrait of an English Nobleman

Fiction ~ novella / long short story
Published 17th September 1937*
Approx. 22,000 words
(First read 23/09/2013)

This is the first in Benson's quartet of novellas published under the title Old London.  There's no connexion between the four other than the setting.
This was quite good fun.  It's set in the Georgian period ... to be precise in the very last year of that period, 1829-30.  It's the kind of romp you'd expect of Georgian gents (mistress in a pied à terre in London; frosty wife and kids at home in the country ...), and with lashings of historical detail ~ hardly profound but entertaining enough.

*These four books were only published in the United States.
[10/2014] I saw one of the originals in a secondhand bookshop in Wales the other day ~ the only one I've ever seen.  I didn't buy it because I've already got a set of the modern reprints.   At least, I assume they're modern reprints ~ if not, they're in remarkably mint condition, notwithstanding the lack of any dust-jackets.