A name you know. A mood you’re in. Ten minutes to yourself. Start anywhere.
What would you like to read about?
A friend helps stage an encounter with a rich cousin, then changes the birthday plan after one small refusal.
A strange boy living in the woods enters a country household just as old disappearances begin to look newly ominous.
A progressive king answers the suffrage movement by making voting compulsory for every woman—and for nearly every office.
A sailor-suited child becomes the charming face of a close election, until his fierce idea of party loyalty takes control of the poll.
A former cavalryman trudges Dorset lanes with household parcels, making an observer question what a diminished life can still contain.
A dying woman's theory of reincarnation becomes harder to dismiss when an otter pursues her favorite grievance.
A wife’s devotion to an untouchable lapdog governs every family plan, until her husband and sister devise a final remedy.
An absent-minded aunt returns from a flawless afternoon of errands and discovers that she cannot remember where she left her niece.
A mild novelist adopts a forceful pen name, then meets a salesman whose persistence gives him a chance to live up to it.
Two poor children invent a criminal life for a sinister shopwindow doll, then watch a rich boy carry her toward an unexpected fate.
Determined to eclipse a rival, Mrs. Packletide purchases a risk-free tiger hunt—and an audience with a very sharp memory.
Mrs. Pendercoet wants an original, dignified costume for a society ball; an irreverent young man supplies the identity she rejects.
Two market shoppers display the benefits of cheap high culture by turning every grievance into history, criticism, and misquotation.
A starving immigrant painter awaits the sale that will prove his genius to a skeptical Soho circle—and teach them what they truly value.
A struggling grocer turns mysterious purchases, foreign coins, and a hunted-looking boy into the best attraction in the suburb.
At a respectable garden party, Reginald turns small talk into social demolition while his companion scrambles to contain him.
Over lunch at the Carlton, Reginald turns a duchess’s moral observations into a survey of social hypocrisy.
During a tragedy, Reginald and a duchess debate morality, empire, religion, and the social uses of contradiction.
In a Russian princess’s salon, Reginald meets political earnestness with fashion, card games, and selective geography.
A woman makes truth-telling a habit and discovers how quickly honesty can empty a visiting list.
Reginald explains why gift-giving fails—and why liqueurs, jewelry, and paid bills are the obvious solution.
Reginald explains the hazards of house parties, from unknowable hosts to shooting etiquette and dangerous dinner conversation.
Reginald avoids the tariff debate by applying protectionism to card partners, houseguests, and everyone who takes life seriously.
Reginald diagnoses fashionable worry as a social accessory best chosen to fit the calendar and the dining hour.
