[Gutenberg 35673] • Our Own Set: A Novel

The set of the title is a group of Austrian nobles living in Rome on long-term holidays, escaping the provincialism of Viennese society -– only to create their own form of it. The harmony of the scene is disrupted when the secretary of the Austrian embassy -– not much of a diplomat, but a fine waltzer -– is sent off to London and replaced by Cecil Sterzl. The set instantly takes a dislike to Sterzl, who fails to play its game... His situation is not aided by his seating on a relatively low rung on the ladder of Austrian nobility, earned only by virtue of his mother’s slim claim to title... very much in the spirit of [Jane Austen’s] work: wise, comic, hyper-attuned to the subtleties of social hierarchies, and full of the business of love and courtship.

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