Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall is a fictional memoir of Elizabethan England told by an old ex-soldier who fought appears to have fought a few too many battles without wearing his helmet.
Malcolm François de Lorraine Vernon soldiered in France for many years, attached to the house of Guise and intimately attached to the Duke’s wife, Mary Stuart.
When the now-widowed Mary is imprisoned for plotting against Queen Elizabeth, Malcolm heads for Haddon Hall where Sir George years before had offered him his daughter, Dorothy, in marriage. Dorothy won’t have Malcolm as husband, though she’s happy to have any man hanging around to jump when she flutters her lashes.
Dorothy chooses Sir John Manners, the son of her father’s worst enemy. With Malcolm’s help, she keeps her affair from her father until in a fit of jealousy, she fingers her lover for treason.
Charles Major mingles and mangles Elizabethan history and story lines.
With an absurd plot and ridiculous characters, Dorothy Vernon jerks along like a silent film, which it soon became. Dorothy dons men’s attire and fools her lover; the lover disguises himself as a servant to be with her. Queen Elizabeth, Mary Stuart, and the Duke of Leicester have cameo roles.
I give it two thumbs down.
Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall Charles Major Mary Pickford edition (1908) Illustrated with scenes from the photoplay Grosset & Dunlap 1902 bestseller #3 Project Gutenberg ebook #14671
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