I · 8Victorian Short Stories Of2021

Two collections from Project Gutenberg, Victorian Short Stories of Successful Marriages and Victorian Short Stories of Troubled Marriages, bound back to back as one volume. The title stops short and leaves the reader to finish it from either end.

The covers swap what they should show. The successful marriages open under an image of the Crystal Palace in flames; the troubled ones open under the same building, pristine and intact. Destructive passion on one side, deceptive calm on the other.

Inside, each half keeps its own table of contents and its own typography. The successful marriages are set black on white, as clean and traditional as reading gets, which sits uneasily under a burning cover. Where the troubled marriages begin, the book inverts to white on black. Period paintings open each chapter, chosen to match the register of the story that follows.