Churchill, Winston. Coniston (New York: Macmillan, 1906) 543 p.

One might consider Miss Lucretia Penniman a librarian since she “started the Brampton Social Library, and filled it with such books as both sexes might read with profit.” (p. 8). She later moved to Boston and founded the journal Woman’s Hour. Her principal role in the novel comes when she is sixty five.

Her face, though not at all unpleasant, was a study in character-development: she wore ringlets, a peculiar bonnet of a bygone age, and her clothes had certain eccentricities which, for lack of knowledge must be omitted. In short, the lady was no fool, and not being one she glanced at the giggling group of saleswomen and – wonderful to relate – they stopped giggling. (p. 311).

Miss Lucretia is the voice of morality and justice leading to the satisfactory ending to this barely readable rambling epic.