The Crimson Bookshelf

The study of a foreign lady who is planted in an American life that is Allen to her has been a favorite subject of Rachel Field's. A few years ago the story of the Prussian Lady who had been married to Samuel Hadlock and brought back to spend the rest of her days under the shadow of the blue Mount Desert Hills on lonely Cranberry Island was told in "God's Pocket." Now in "All This and Heaven Too" there is the same fundamental situation although the details are very different, the characters of Henrlette Doluzy-Desportes and the Prussian Lady are far apart from one another.

The book is essentially in two parts, the first when Henrlette is living in Paris as governess in the home of the Due du Praslin; the second, entirely different and almost entirely divorced from the first, when she is the wife of Henry Field living in West Springfield and then in New York City. But the whole is well knit. Under the gay lights of Paris, before tragedy has struck her life and with the handsome Due Du Praslin at here side, she sees the actress Rachel. Many years later, as Mrs. Henry Field, she again relieves the past in one of the most moving and powerful scenes Rachel Field has ever written when the great French actress comes to New York, and after many resolves she slips across to the theatre, alone, to see her again.

The opening half, set in the Paris that leads to the revolution of 1848, is a compelling story. The many sided and fascinating character of Henrlette opens out and blossoms as she faces the trials of working for a due with whom she is in love and a duchesse whose complete lack of reason and understanding at times make the Praslin mansions mad-houses. Added to this is a story that you cannot set down; every scene, every conversation leads with maddening deliberation to the inevitable crisis.

The American side of the story does not have the thrill and suspense of the impending murder; it is a development of character and a picture of New York life in the pre-Civil War era. But there are the same pictures, the same compelling narrative style, the same intuition and insight into the workings of a woman's mind. "All This and Heaven Too" is Rachel Field's outstanding book. Her old readers will read it anyway; those unacquainted with her will find it one of the best novels of the fall.