The Lightning Conductor

The Lightning Conductor (1902), was published under the name of two authors, Charles Norris Williamson (1857-1920) and Alice Muriel Williamson (1858 -1933). Yet Alice was really the author of the wonderful book you hold in your hands. Although best known for her series of motor travel romances, of which The Lightening Conductor is a preeminent example, she was a literary polymath adept at a wide variety of genres (detective, mystery, Gothic, intrigue, spy, adventure, war, ghost, fairy, pastiche, satire, fictional memoir, muckraking), often published anonymously or pseudonymously, such as Champion: The Story of a Motor Car (1907) as by John Colin Dane (memoirs narrated by the car itself), and her sensational exposé of German war plans on the eve of WWI, What I Found Out in the House of a German Prince (1915).

You hold in your hands a delightful volume that combines several literally forms. It is first and foremost a romance, a very proper romance along the lines of Pride and Prejudice. No bodice-ripping here. In a sense, The Lightening Conductor is a farce as well. The characters bumble along oblivious of each others' station and identity, reminiscent of every Gilbert&Sullivan love story, although I am afraid there are no pirates. Perhaps an old-maid aunt plays the role of nursemaid well as she accompanies Molly, the young heroine, on a ramble from London to Italy in a new-to-the-world contraption, an automobile. Yes, the framework for this tale is a road trip. It is a travelogue in the tradition of early Robert Louis Stephenson ( An Inland Voyage, Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes ), and Mark Twain (Roughing it, Huckleberry Finn). But the most remarkable feature of this wonderful book is that it is one of the best examples of the epistolary form that I have ever encountered. It is written entirely as letters, not between the two protagonists, but between each and a trusted confidante.