The Amazing Marriage — Complete.

George Meredith made a career of anatomising the follies of pride, and in this late novel he turns that gift on a marriage undone almost before it begins. The Amazing Marriage, presented here complete, is Meredith at his most searching and characteristically demanding.

What it's about

The novel follows an impulsive union between two strong-willed people and the long unravelling that follows, as misunderstanding, pride and wounded honour drive a wedge between them. Around the central couple move the vivid secondary figures Meredith drew so well, and behind the whole stands his ironic, watchful narration. The story concerns itself less with outward event than with the inner drama of feeling and self-regard, tracing how good people, through temperament and misreading, make themselves and each other unhappy.

Themes

Pride, honour and the failure of understanding lie at the book's core, along with Meredith's abiding interest in the position and strength of women. He examines the gulf between how people appear and what they feel, the damage done by vanity and rigid notions of honour, and the possibility, hard-won, of clearer sight. As ever, his sympathy tends toward the resilient, independent heroine, and his irony toward the men who fail to see her truly.

Why it still matters

Among the last of Meredith's novels, this work distils the concerns and the style of his long career, its psychological subtlety, its glinting wit, its faith in the intelligence of the reader. Meredith asks to be read slowly, and rewards that attention with insight into character that few of his contemporaries could match. For admirers, it is an essential part of the picture; for newcomers willing to work, a rich introduction to his art.

Who it's for

For lovers of Victorian fiction, for readers who prize psychological depth and stylish, ironic prose, and for anyone drawn to a searching study of marriage, pride and misunderstanding. A rewarding novel for the patient and attentive reader.