Published in 1894, A Bankrupt Heart is a rambling story of enduring love and suicide in the unlikely setting of Panty-Cuckoo Farm. The Academy declared: “There is unfortunately not the faintest scintiallation of talent in the narrative to redeem its unsavouriness.” The Westminster Review, however, found some redeeming points: “The book is brightly written, and the conversations reach a very good level, but the descriptive passages are injured by a certain floridness of style.”
Although Marryat makes some interesting points about marriage, they are rather lost in the sprawling plot, and the narrative is entirely devoid of her acerbic humour.
The book is brightly written, and the conversations reach a very good level, but the descriptive passages are injured by a certain floridness of style.