The Ordeal of Richard Feverel (Barnes & Noble Digital Library)

For its time, The Ordeal of Richard Feverel (1859) had a sexual frankness about adultery, illegitimacy, and seduction that had a disastrous effect on Meredith’s reputation as a novelist for many years. Meredith defied Victorian convention and expectations in his three-part story of Richard Feverel’s childhood, adolescence, and manhood.  Abandoned by his mother, who leaves to be with her lover, Richard’s father must raise the boy himself and does so according to his own strict “System,” based on Science and Reason.  Richard eventually rebels and marries a woman whose social class his father disapproves of. Final reconciliation comes at a high price for both father and son.