The Fight for the Crown

Full of William Edward Norris's famous wit and told from the viewpoint of a self-deprecating, hapless, first-person narrator who the author manages to keep as clueless as the reader until the very end of the novel—as far as where his proper, appropriate, and most likely success lies in the area of romance.

The story takes place during, and directly involves, the passionate political debate about the "Irish Question" in the 1880s, and the hero's reluctant sojourn in parliament culminates wit...