The Green Mouse.

What if love could be captured by a machine, its unseen currents made visible like wireless waves in the air? On that playful premise Robert W. Chambers spins a bright comedy of courtship among fashionable young New Yorkers.

What it's about

Chambers, better known for his eerie tales, turns here to romantic comedy, imagining a fanciful contraption meant to detect and reveal the workings of love as though it were a form of energy to be tuned in like a broadcast. Around this conceit he arranges a series of interlinked episodes in which eligible young men and women of comfortable society are drawn together, matched and mismatched, by the whimsical operations of the device. Light, teasing and full of banter, the book is a diversion rather than a puzzle, played entirely for charm.

Themes

The novel gently sends up the fashionable romance of its era and the period's fascination with new science and invention, treating love as a delightful mystery that resists all attempts to reduce it to mechanism. Beneath the froth runs an affectionate belief that the heart will find its own way regardless of any gadget.

Why it still matters

It offers a charming glimpse of an early twentieth-century America enchanted by wireless and invention, and shows a popular author of weird fiction relaxing into pure comedy. As a light period entertainment, it captures a moment when technology and romance first began to flirt in the popular imagination.

Who it's for

Readers looking for an easygoing vintage comedy of manners and courtship, and anyone curious to see the author of darker tales in a sunnier mood. Ideal for a light, undemanding read with a period flavour.

Sources and references

Verified references for this edition: Open Library, WorldCat.