Overlooked

Maurice Baring's Overlooked unfolds as a witty, psychologically alert comedy of manners shaped by memory, misreading, and the elusive truth of other people. In the spa town of Haréville, the blind narrator Anthony Kay turns observation into art, drawing novelist James Rudd into a social experiment among Princess Kouragine, Mrs. Lennox, and the enigmatic Jean Brandon. What begins as lively holiday talk grows into a meditation on how beauty, personality, and even a whole life can be imagined more vividly than they are seen. As the summer ends and years pass, the novel deepens into a study of artistic rivalry and emotional aftermath: Rudd later returns in print with his own version of events, which Kay believes badly distorts the truth. In the later scenes, the focus shifts to Kathleen Farrel, Anikin, and Arkright, where a brass ring, a dead love, and a Sleeping Beauty-like melancholy reveal a world of unspoken feeling, longing, and emotional retreat. Elegant, reflective, and quietly tragic, the book asks who truly knows another person—and whether any memory can be fully surrendered. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.