E. Phillips Oppenheim

After finishing the complete short stories of Guy De Maupassant, I decided to skip Marcel Proust until at least after the first of the New Year, and I choose instead, to read something by E. Phillips Oppenheim. I can't recall exactly how I discovered Oppenheim, but I found his information on Wikipedia interesting enough to look into his novels.

The question was, which of his more than 100 novels do I start with. The obvious choice would be his first novel, published in 1887, Expiation. Unfortunately for me, Oppenheim's first novel isn't available at Project Gutenberg. However, his second novel, A Monk of Cruta can be found there. After beginning A Monk of Cruta, I discovered that more of Oppenheim's novels, including his first, can be downloaded from Project Gutenberg Australia.

As a strange coincidence, in the library of one of the main characters of the novel, Paul de Vaux, can be found the works of Guy de Maupassant (whom I had just finished reading) and Algernon Charles Swinburne of whom de Maupassant had written.

I've finished reading Oppenheim's 2nd novel and I've begun reading Expiation. Just how far I'll get into Oppenheim's work is anybody's guess at this point.