My Friend the Chauffeur

About the book

Ralph Moray thinks he has found an ingenious solution to his friend Terence Barrymore's financial difficulties: advertise a motor tour conducted by an English gentleman with a title. The difficulty is that Terry has not agreed to the advertisement. Three American women become involved in the resulting expedition, and the motorcar brings people of different expectations into unusually close quarters. The Williamsons divide the narration among several travelers, so that one person's confident reading of a situation can be tested by another's account. European scenery and the uncertainties of early motoring furnish the journey's pleasures and interruptions. Beneath the comedy of money, rank, and mistaken impressions lies a romance in which travel gradually unsettles the roles everyone was expected to perform.

• Travel and self-discovery
• Rank and appearances
• Multiple perspectives

Why read it

The changing narrators allow the same expedition to look quite different from the driver's seat and the passengers' places.

English A. L. Burt edition bearing the 1905 McClure, Phillips copyright