Release date is 2025-09-16

Peter Becker, Laura Natal and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive).

"Dead-sea fruit, Vol. 1 (of 3)" by M. E. Braddon is a novel written in the late 19th century. It follows Eustace Thorburn, a brilliant but nameless young man whose mother’s death drives him to uncover his parentage and avenge her wrongs. Running alongside is a high-society thread about Harold Jerningham, his estranged wife Emily, and editor Laurence Desmond, whose Platonic attachment to Emily tests public decorum and private feeling. The book explores identity, ambition, seduction, and reputation across quiet Belgian canals and London’s drawing rooms. At the start of the novel, Eustace teaches in serene Villebrumeuse until a black-edged letter summons his grief: his mother is dead, and he vows to confront the unknown father who abandoned her. Back in London’s mean suburb, he studies her papers—tender family letters and a cache from a man signing “H.,” an author who courted Celia Mayfield in Bayham, promised a secret marriage, and led to her ruin. His uncle, the gifted but dissipated journalist Daniel Mayfield, confirms there was no marriage, recalls finding Celia in London with infant Eustace, and secures the young man a post as secretary to scholar Théodore de Bergerac through their friend, editor Laurence Desmond. Interwoven chapters sketch Harold Jerningham’s luxurious but broken marriage and Emily Jerningham’s guarded bond with Desmond; and the opening closes with Eustace in Bayham, tracking the old scandal to Celia’s confidante Sarah Kimber—now Mrs. Willows—for the answers he needs. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

Originally published: London: Ward, Lock, and Tyler, 1868