With his new edition of The Sylph (Northwestern, 2007), Jonathan David Gross recovered the work of novelist and biopic subject Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire. With Belmour, Gross introduces the modern audience to the only novel of English sculptress Anne Damer.

Belmour chronicles the tangled romances of a group of eighteenth-century English aristocrats. The plot centers on Lord Belmour's pursuit of the lovely and slightly mysterious Emily Melville. The c arismatic Belmour, a man of great feeling and quick perception, goes to great lengths to gain the affection of...