A Bankrupt Heart

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.