Infatuation

About the book

After her mother's death, Phyllis Ladd and her father become one another's chief emotional support. Robert Ladd's success as a railway president surrounds his daughter with comfort, but their affectionate intimacy also helps form her demanding idea of a worthwhile man. As Phyllis grows into adulthood, the conventional candidates offered by their social world fail to satisfy her. Osbourne sets her romantic choices against the tightly connected society of Carthage, where business power and family reputation reinforce one another. The question of love is consequently also a question of judgment: how much can generosity and intensity reveal about another person, and how much can they hide? The title invites uncertainty about whether a powerful attachment enlarges perception or makes its object impossible to see clearly.

• Fathers and daughters
• Romantic judgment
• Wealth and social expectation

Why read it

The father's role as both beloved companion and model of character gives Phyllis's search for love a distinctive emotional complication.

English Bobbs-Merrill edition of March 1909 with Karl Anderson illustrations