The English Novels Part B

Volume Six of The Collected Novels of P. C. Wren, The English Novels, contains four novels with a different setting than that of his other novels. The action takes place almost entirely in England, which is why the title of this omnibus edition is the English novels. Part B contains two novels, The Mammon of Righteousness (1930) and Two Feet From Heaven (1940), that are the most psychological, versus action and adventure, of all of Wren's novels. The Mammon of Righteousness is the story of Algernon Coxe, a neurotic young man heavily under the influence of his over-domineering mother, Miranda. He meets and falls in love with a young woman, Giovanna Blayton, of whom his mother disapproves. Algernon's mother persuades him to marry another young woman, but before he does, Giovanna asks him to look after a large traveling trunk or box while she goes away for a while. He does so, but his wife shortly discovers the dead body of Giovanna in the box and Algernon is arrested for Giovanna's murder. The second novel, Two Feet From Heaven, is the story of a vicar, Richard Neystoke, of a small village in the country, and his mental illness. Wren described the story as "quire a new departure, and more of an orthodox novel than a 'rattling good yarn', as the lowest form of review calls the story of action and romantic adventure. . . . The book is, of course, mainly a pathological study, and the 'hero' an abnormal neurotic and something of a Jekyll-and-Hyde. His character on the whole, is admirable, but infirm of purpose and with a weak and cowardly streak. Like all my characters, he is drawn from life. . . . He is, however the victim of an equally fundamental weakness of character-unstable temperament and an injurious mother complex."