1899 Ready-Money Mortiboy by Walter Besant & James Rice Antique Fiction Book

Besant and Rice were noted for their ability to create engaging narratives grounded in everyday life, and Ready-Money Mortiboy helped establish the literary partnership that would later produce such celebrated works as The Golden Butterfly and The Chaplain of the Fleet. The novel captures the manners and values of Victorian society while presenting memorable personalities and dramatic turns of fortune. Though written in a realistic style, it possesses the warmth, wit and moral insight that made the authors highly regarded among contemporary readers.

This handsome 1899 Chatto & Windus edition is presented in striking embossed blue cloth bindings with gilt titles and decorative panel to the upper cover. It includes the frontispiece portrait of James Rice and represents a particularly attractive late Victorian issue of the authors' first great success. With its richly decorated publisher's cloth and well-preserved appearance, the volume is an appealing example of nineteenth-century book design and a desirable addition to collections devoted to Victorian literature, Walter Besant, or the classic fiction of Chatto & Windus."