Reflections of a Beginning Husband

Edward Sandford Martin's Reflections of a Beginning Husband follows Peregrine Jesup from the embarrassment of a broken engagement to the hard-won satisfactions of marriage, turning romance into a witty study of class, money, and social expectation. When Peregrine and Cordelia French discover they still want each other but cannot bear to be "engaged" again in public, their story becomes a sharp comedy of courtship, gossip, and the pressure to perform love according to society's rules. Through Peregrine's amused, self-aware voice, the novel questions a system that encourages attachment before either young person is truly ready for marriage. Reunited after time apart, he and Cordelia spar over wealth, status, and the meaning of a decent life, until practical courage and family approval bring them together on modest means. Married life then becomes the book's true center: conversation, reading, politics, reform, and the daily economics of feeding a household with the help of the capable maid Matilda Finn. As work remains uncertain and a baby arrives, the novel balances dry humor with keen observation of domestic life, parenthood, and the compromises required to build a future in New York. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.