Her World Against a Lie

'Not that there's much need for us to make fools of men, the Lord knows, when the majority of them are sent into the world ready made.'

———

'Bah! a fig for your laws. They're as useless as the men who made them.'

———

It is always so in this world. We suffer until the power of suffering seems dead within us; but yet we must order the household, and repair the rents, and hear the children's lessons, though we would thankfully lie down instead and die.

After reading two novels by Frederick Marryat (The Children of the New Forest and Mr. Midshipman Easy), I discovered that his daughter Florence Marryat was also an accomplished author. Although a number of her works are available at Project Gutenberg, Her World Against a Lie is not. Nonetheless, this excellent novel is notable in that the author later wrote a stage drama based on the work, and starred in the role of Hephzibah Horton. Thus, I decided to take it on.

As I worked on the transcription, I was pleased to discover what a truly fun novel it is, and what a shame that it is nearly forgotten. True, it gets a bit didactic at times, but then again I'm a huge fan of Lois Waisbrooker, who was the queen of didactic literature.

The text is taken from this scan of the 1895 single-volume edition, backed up by these scans of Volumes I and II of the 1879 edition. I corrected any obvious typographical errors, but otherwise retained the original spelling.

So here it is: the master HTML version, the home-brew Kindle version, and the actual Amazon publication.

April 13, 2026

ffred's nearly-forgotten treasures