Florence Henniker was the daughter of a man of letters and had for her childhood companions several of the most celebrated writers of the day. She showed a natural inclination for writing at an early age and later enjoyed a productive career as a fluent, if not particularly daring, writer of fiction, with three collections of short stories and several novels to her credit. Her aristocratic background and connections, along with the gracefulness and gentility that she brought to her work, probably helped her with both publishers and readers in the rich literary culture of the 1890s, but the natural advantages that opened a career for her may also have been limitations in the long run. The inevitable impression, perhaps not an entirely fair one, given by her career is that of a pastime, a brilliant accomplishment, not a vocation to which she devoted all her energies. Her...