Mr Hornung's Three Goddesses - a Victorian novelist at work

So far as it goes Goddesses Three is an absorbing study of the Pontifex family and (ultimately) of Anglo-Portuguese relations. E.W. Hornung apparently began writing this book in 1894 but put it aside after completing eleven chapters. Set primarily in an English Rectory it is very much a work in progress written partly in pencil and partly in ink and incorporating a vast number of revisions. In addition to deciphering 99%% of the manuscript and producing an edited text for the general reader the editor has examined it on a chapter-by-chapter basis. This results in a fuller notion of how the story was being shaped and the occasional problems encountered - and pinpoints Hornung's consequent changes and instructions to himself. We are as it were looking over his shoulder for the whole time and gain (as a result) a fascinating insight into how a Victorian novel took shape.