Braddon, M. E. (Mary Elizabeth) 1835-1915 creator text utu 2025 monographic en 1 online resource : multiple file formats "Only a clod" by M. E. Braddon is a novel written in the mid-19th century. It opens as a tale of exile, class resentment, and sudden fortune, contrasting a vain young ensign, Harcourt Lowther, with his steadfast valet, Francis Tredethlyn. A startling inheritance propels Francis from a Tasmanian convict outpost back to Cornwall, where he undertakes a search for his vanished cousin Susan, disinherited by her miserly father. Expect a blend of social tension, mystery, and moral testing across penal colonies and a bleak Cornish estate. The opening of the novel follows Harcourt Lowther’s idle misery at Port Arthur and his uneasy reliance on the good-humoured private, Francis. A newspaper notice brings news of Francis’s uncle’s death; a lawyer’s letter then reveals a vast legacy and the darker fact that Susan, the uncle’s daughter and Francis’s former sweetheart, has disappeared in disgrace. Harcourt, consumed by envy and self-pity even as he clings to hopes of his fashionable beloved, Maude Hillary, contrasts sharply with Francis’s resolve. Francis returns to Landresdale, revisits the grim Grange, and learns from the austere housekeeper Martha Dryscoll that Susan was to be forced into marriage with an old, wealthy neighbour—after which she vanished—leaving Francis determined to find her. (This is an automatically generated summary.) Release date is 2025-09-25 Peter Becker and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) Originally published: London: J. and R. Maxwell, 1881 Psychological fiction Domestic fiction PR London: J. and R. Maxwell, 1881 https://archive.org/details/onlyclodnovel00brad https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/76927 https://archive.org/details/onlyclodnovel00brad https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/76927 UtSlPG 260607 20260610134800.0 76927