''The Contrast'' is an 1832 novel by the British writer and politician

Lord Normanby Marquess of Normanby is a title that has been created twice, once in the Peerage of England and once in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. The first creation came in 1694 in the Peerage of England in favour of John Sheffield, 3rd Earl of M ...

, originally published in three volumes. It was his third novel following ''

Matilda Matilda or Mathilda may refer to: Animals * Matilda (chicken) (1990–2006), World's Oldest Living Chicken record holder * Matilda (horse) (1824–1846), British Thoroughbred racehorse * Matilda, a dog of the professional wrestling tag-team The ...

'' (1825) and ''

Yes and No ''Yes'' and ''no'', or word pairs with similar words, are expressions of the affirmative and the negative, respectively, in several languages, including English. Some languages make a distinction between answers to affirmative versus negative ...

'' (1828), all three of which were part of the developing

silver fork Silver Fork is a stream in Boone County in the U.S. state of Missouri. It is a tributary of Perche Creek.''Sturgeon, MO,'' 7.5 Minute Topographic Quadrangle, USGS, 1969 The stream headwaters arise at and the confluence with Perche Creek is at ...

genre focused on the fashionable

aristocracy Aristocracy (, ) is a form of government that places strength in the hands of a small, privileged ruling class, the aristocracy (class), aristocrats. The term derives from the el, αριστοκρατία (), meaning 'rule of the best'. At t ...

and

upper classes Upper class in modern societies is the social class composed of people who hold the highest social status, usually are the wealthiest members of class society, and wield the greatest political power. According to this view, the upper class is gen ...

of the late

Regency period The Regency era of British history officially spanned the years 1811 to 1820, though the term is commonly applied to the longer period between and 1837. King George III succumbed to mental illness in late 1810 and, by the Regency Act 1811, h ...

. It was written at the time of the

Reform Act In the United Kingdom, Reform Act is most commonly used for legislation passed in the 19th century and early 20th century to enfranchise new groups of voters and to redistribute seats in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. ...

and examines the mixing of relationships across classes.

Synopsis

Lord Castleton is in love with Lady Gertrude, but is separated from her by the plot of a fortune hunter. While in the

North of England Northern England, also known as the North of England, the North Country, or simply the North, is the northern area of England. It broadly corresponds to the former borders of Angle Northumbria, the Anglo-Scandinavian Kingdom of Jorvik, and the ...

he falls in love on the rebound with a country girl, Lucy Darnell and marries her. However, when he brings her back to London he finds her plain ways and accent an embarrassment, while she is very uncomfortable in high society. The kindly Gertrude befriends her and tries to assist her integration in London fashion. When Gertrude realises that she and Castleton still have strong feelings for each other, she leaves for

Continental Europe Continental Europe or mainland Europe is the contiguous continent of Europe, excluding its surrounding islands. It can also be referred to ambiguously as the European continent, – which can conversely mean the whole of Europe – and, by ...

to avoid temptation and scandal. Lucy then tragically drowns while visiting her relatives in the north, opening the way for the potential return of Gertrude and marriage to Castleton some time in the future.Copeland p.222

References

Bibliography

* Adburgham, Alison. ''Silver Fork Society: Fashionable Life and Literature from 1814 to 1840''. Faber & Faber, 2012. * Copeland, Edward. ''The Silver Fork Novel: Fashionable Fiction in the Age of Reform''. Cambridge University Press, 2012. * Hopkins, Lisa (ed.) ''After Austen: Reinventions, Rewritings, Revisitings''. Springer, 2018. 1832 British novels Novels set in London {{1820s-novel-stub