The Tortoiseshell Cat by Naomi Royde-Smith

It's nice, in one's ramblings around the internet, to hear about a forgotten novel, download it from Guttenberg, and, upon reading it, to discover that it's actually good. This is the case with The Tortoiseshell Cat, a novel by the prolific and, as far as I can tell, entirely forgotten, Naomi Royde-Smith. The Tortoiseshell Cat was published in 1925, a few years before Radclyffe Hall's The Well of Loneliness, which some seem convinced was the first lesbian novel in English. 

Royde-Smith's novel follows a character, Gillian, to whom lesbians—one in particular—are attracted, and who may have lesbian tendencies herself. It's hard to say, because though she is well read, widely traveled, and perceptive about literature and the arts, she is astoundingly naive, particularly in her lack of understanding of love, and the things people can do and feel when in its grip. The first two-thirds of the novel plays the protagonist's naivete for laughs. In the last third, though, we see what horrors can arise when people who are loved are unable to recognize that and respond in a way that doesn't destroy one or both parties.

The tragedy—the woman who has her eye on Gillian has a male suitor who believes he is foremost in her affections—is well-done. The suicide of this lovelorn male surprises the reader, who has accompanied Gillian through the novel's lighter opening pages, almost as much as it does the protagonist herself; perhaps, however, we readers are more moved by it than, it must be said, the often clueless Gillian. 

The comedy, though, is where Royde-Smith shines. At the sentence-level, the way the characters express themselves is odd in a manner that will recall the wry smiles to which the work of Ronald Firbank or Ivy Compton-Burnett give rise. These characters speak oddly, but not only that; they are odd in a way that is unfailingly amusing, and they move through settings and situations that suit their eccentricities.

I'd like to return to Royde-Smith's world, but alas, this seems to be the only portal to that world that Guttenberg is offering at the moment.