In Doors and Out

This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design. Oliver Optic's lively collection of domestic and social sketches turns everyday life into sharp, funny moral drama, moving from the parlor and kitchen to the shop and counting-room. These "in doors and out" tales mix romance, commerce, temperance, and household discord, always with a direct eye for human vanity and practical wisdom. In the opening story, Frank Howard, a promising dry-goods salesman, falls for Mr. Allen's beautiful niece, Miss Isabel Allen, and their courtship soon collides with family pride and money troubles. When Frank's business fails, Isabel answers a humiliating financial crisis with a bold, comic act that helps clear the way for their marriage. Other sketches focus on marriage and domestic management: Mrs. Veazie and Mrs. Bagley debate Irish servants, exposing the difference between scolding and kindness; Jim Scroggins' drunkenness threatens the small farm he and his wife have nearly won; and Samuel Lawton learns, through family tension, illness, and near-ruin, to value the counsel of his mother-in-law, Mrs. Harding. The satire closes on Montague's hypocrisy as he complains of expenses while hiding his own indulgences, making the book a pointed, humorous study of pride, duty, and everyday character.