Project Gutenberg 2004-12-03 Public domain in the USA. 202 Major, Charles 1856 1913 Caskoden, Edwin The Touchstone of Fortune Being the Memoir of Baron Clyde, Who Lived, Thrived, and Fell in the Doleful Reign of the So-called Merry Monarch, Charles II E-text prepared by Audrey Longhurst, Mary Meehan, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team "The Touchstone of Fortune" by Charles Major is a historical novel written during the early 20th century. The story is set against the backdrop of the Restoration period in England under King Charles II, focusing on the lives and loves of the socially prominent. The narrative centers around Baron Clyde and his cousin Frances Jennings, who faces the tumultuous social landscape of the court as she seeks a chance to elevate her family’s fortunes. At the start of the novel, we are introduced to the themes of luck, ambition, and moral complexity through the eyes of Baron Clyde, who reflects on the fortunes of his friend, George Hamilton, and the political machinations of the court. Clyde reveals his cousin Frances's beauty and potential and speaks of his plans to secure her a position as a maid of honor to the Duchess of York. The opening chapter establishes Frances’s precarious situation, growing tensions with her father’s fading fortunes, and her burgeoning, yet unsafe, attraction to George Hamilton, meant to illustrate the dangers that lurk within courtly life during a time of moral ambiguity and personal ambition. (This is an automatically generated summary.) Reading ease score: 77.5 (7th grade). Fairly easy to read. en Great Britain -- History -- Charles II, 1660-1685 -- Fiction PS Text Category: Historical Novels Category: Novels Category: British Literature 586214 2025-08-06T08:56:22.170706 text/html 586219 586049 2024-11-06T11:55:50.460092 2023-10-06T12:15:25.674054 text/html text/html 275961 2025-08-06T08:56:29.988674 application/epub+zip 284657 2025-08-06T08:56:24.071683 application/epub+zip 284658 2025-08-06T08:56:22.917727 application/epub+zip 511119 2025-08-06T08:56:34.444668 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 475934 2025-08-06T08:56:29.264690 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 466921 2022-09-07T15:15:52.592480 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 528638 2025-08-06T08:56:21.636703 text/plain; charset=us-ascii 508803 2024-10-28T21:15:26 text/plain; charset=us-ascii 17030 2025-08-06T08:56:34.565632 application/rdf+xml 12781 2025-08-06T08:56:23.418710 image/jpeg 3715 2025-08-06T08:56:23.167707 image/jpeg 271375 2025-08-06T08:56:22.214712 application/octet-stream application/zip Archives containing the RDF files for *all* our books can be downloaded at https://book.klll.cc/wiki/Gutenberg:Feeds#The_Complete_Project_Gutenberg_Catalog en.wikipedia