Maurice Guest

On August 27 1908, Henry Handel Richardson published her first novel, Maurice Guest, a study of erotic obsession and the nature of genius which continues to have a strange effect on all those fortunate enough to read it. Maurice Guest is a realistic novel in the great tradition. Set in Leipzig in the 1890s, when that city was a centre of music, it tells the story of a provincial young Englishman, Maurice Guest, permitted by his unwilling parents to abandon school teaching and study music there. In one sense Richardson presents her vast novel as an orchestral work, a glorious story about music and musicians. The works of the great German composers, most particularly Wagner, counterpoint each scene and each change of season. The winding streets of Leipzig weave through the churches and concert halls, cafés and restaurants, practice rooms and rooming houses, all alive with music. (The Guardian)