An excellent addition to the Jane Austen branch-offs. The diary begins when Henry is 16. Throughout the first part of the book, he and his sister Eleanor are reading a fine, stereotypical gothic novel, complete with dungeons, caves, fiendish noblemen, and a heroine who faints excessively. Henry and Eleanor discuss whether he might have the makings of a Hero, and what are his requisites for a Heroine. He says, "My wife must love to read...Her dowry is unimportant, her family is irrelevant, but she must be a lover of novels." Clearly a man after our own hearts.
