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This page and subordinate pages of
George Moore Interactive are dedicated to
Mark Samuels Lasner
— collector, curator, scholar and friend —
whose generous support made them possible.

A Modern Lover (1883) is George Moore’s first novel and fourth book. It tells the story of Lewis Seymour, a charismatic artist of middling talent who struggles to rise in London’s art scene while enjoying the financial and moral support of his female admirers.

Lewis is a shallow Neoclassicist. He vies for recognition with conservative “medievalists” (Pre-Raphaelites) and progressive “moderns” (Impressionists). Thus the novel reflects Victorian art history as the young Moore lived it.

But art is only the novel’s backcloth; its scenes unfold the sad emotional attenuation of characters in the manner of L’éducation sentimentale: histoire d’un jeune homme (1869), by Gustave Flaubert.

Lewis’s wife Lady Helen appropriately brings the curtain down:

Yet, in this time of ruin and decay,
The fragrance of an unborn summer sighs 
Within the sense, before my dreaming eyes, 
Passes the spirit of an ideal day.

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1. Chapter Titles
2. Chapters
3. A Modern Lover (AI)

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Chapter Titles

The chapter titles of A Modern Lover may be scanned as a topic outline. Expand each volume to view a list of titles.

Volume 1

1. A Picture Collector
2. Painting From Imagination
3. Painting a Venus
4. A Picture Dealer
5. Mr. Vicome
6. Desertion
7. Lewis Seymour’s Early Life
8. In The Country
9. The Decorations
10. An Interlude
11. A Tennis Party
12. Love And Art

Volume 2

1. Enfin
2. A Holiday
3. Jealousy
4. Scandal
5. Work
6. Motherly Love
7. Success
8. Renunciation
9. Farewells
10. Engaged
11. Difficulties Overcome

Volume 3

1. The Bridal Dress
2. In Church
3. The Honeymoon
4. The Honeymoon Continued
5. Passing a Page
6. Married Life
7. A Private View
8. Looking Back
9. Bills
10. More Treachery
11. Friend or Wife
12. Veils Fall From Their Eyes
13. Conclusion

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Chapters

The first edition of A Modern Lover (June 1883) was George Moore’s only three-decker. It was published in three volumes mainly for the commercial circulating libraries of Charles Mudie and W. H. Smith, England’s dominant booksellers at the time.

Charging the author with indecency, the librarians declined to stock, promote or circulate his debut novel, effectively killing it. The mostly unsold first edition purportedly burned in a fire at the publisher’s warehouse.

The second revised edition of A Modern Lover was published in one volume in May 1885. It was further revised and published under the title Lewis Seymour and Some Women in early 1917.

George Moore protested his ban by the circulating libraries in a pamphlet Literature at Nurse in August 1885. However a complete ban on his books remained in place for a decade.

Volume 1

1883-06-01— A Modern Lover — Volume 1 Chapter 1

1883-06-01— A Modern Lover — Volume 1 Chapter 2

1883-06-01— A Modern Lover — Volume 1 Chapter 3

1883-06-01— A Modern Lover — Volume 1 Chapter 4

1883-06-01— A Modern Lover — Volume 1 Chapter 5

1883-06-01— A Modern Lover — Volume 1 Chapter 6

1883-06-01— A Modern Lover — Volume 1 Chapter 7

1883-06-01— A Modern Lover — Volume 1 Chapter 8

1883-06-01— A Modern Lover — Volume 1 Chapter 9

1883-06-01— A Modern Lover — Volume 1 Chapter 10

1883-06-01— A Modern Lover — Volume 1 Chapter 11

1883-06-01— A Modern Lover — Volume 1 Chapter 12

Volume 2

1883-06-01— A Modern Lover — Volume 2 Chapter 1

1883-06-01— A Modern Lover — Volume 2 Chapter 2

1883-06-01— A Modern Lover — Volume 2 Chapter 3

1883-06-01— A Modern Lover — Volume 2 Chapter 4

1883-06-01— A Modern Lover — Volume 2 Chapter 5

1883-06-01— A Modern Lover — Volume 2 Chapter 6

1883-06-01— A Modern Lover — Volume 2 Chapter 7

1883-06-01— A Modern Lover — Volume 2 Chapter 8

1883-06-01— A Modern Lover — Volume 2 Chapter 9

1883-06-01— A Modern Lover — Volume 2 Chapter 10

1883-06-01— A Modern Lover — Volume 2 Chapter 11

Volume 3

1883-06-01— A Modern Lover — Volume 3 Chapter 1

1883-06-01— A Modern Lover — Volume 3 Chapter 2

1883-06-01— A Modern Lover — Volume 3 Chapter 3

1883-06-01— A Modern Lover — Volume 3 Chapter 4

1883-06-01— A Modern Lover — Volume 3 Chapter 5

1883-06-01— A Modern Lover — Volume 3 Chapter 6

1883-06-01— A Modern Lover — Volume 3 Chapter 7

1883-06-01— A Modern Lover — Volume 3 Chapter 8

1883-06-01— A Modern Lover — Volume 3 Chapter 9

1883-06-01— A Modern Lover — Volume 3 Chapter 10

1883-06-01— A Modern Lover — Volume 3 Chapter 11

1883-06-01— A Modern Lover — Volume 3 Chapter 12

1883-06-01— A Modern Lover — Volume 3 Chapter 13

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A Modern Lover (AI)

A Modern Lover (AI) is a PDF of the first edition that may be uploaded to AI applications such as Notebook LM for guided analysis and interpretation.