The World Mender

So, as part of my ongoing project to read the entire works of the author Maxwell Gray, I used my recent incarceration as an opportunity to read her 1915 novel The World Mender.

The World Mender is a politico-religious romance following the life of a crusading politician, from his rural childhood to the rise of the Labour movement in the decade before World War 1. It was published in 1915 in the UK by Hutchinson, and in the USA by D Appleton, New York,1916. (The foreword explains that the novel was planned and in part written before the war, but that the author's “personal misfortune” delayed its revision and completion).

The Worldmender
By Maxwell Gray
Author of "The Silence of Dean Maitland," etc.
"The Worldmender" is somewhat akin to the author's previous book, " The Great Refusal," and bids fair to be as successful. It is a long novel, and tells the history of a village boy's rise to be Cabinet Minister, his training, psychological development, and the gradual sloughing of his extreme Socialist and Radical principles as he rises. There is a strong love interest, and the charming scenes and characters of country life, which are a characteristic feature of this author's work, are not the least attractive features of this important novel.
- the Hutchinson blurb

Revision: this post, in much expanded form, has now been incorporated into my book A Wren-like Note: the life and works of Maxwell Gray (Mary Gleed Tuttiett). See the official site, www.maxwellgray.co.uk

- Ray