Potts's Painless Cure

George Hunt, a clever but self-absorbed college senior, finds himself trapped between real affection and real guilt when Annie's tenderness proves stronger than his own. What begins as a witty romantic comedy soon turns into a sharp satire of courtship, exposing the uneasy distance between love as a social performance and love as a serious moral commitment. After a smoky debate among college friends about Goethe, duty, and the ethics of jilting a woman one does not mean to marry, Little Potts offers a mock-practical theory: a man should reveal his flaws and make himself unattractive rather than leave a woman in heartbreak. Hunt seizes on that advice and launches a calculated campaign of bad behavior, bad taste, and petty cruelty to drive Annie away. He insults her, embarrasses her before her friend Lou Roberts, and even uses fake sentimental verses and awful songs to test her patience. Yet each maneuver only deepens the psychological tension, as Annie struggles between loyalty, confusion, and disgust while Hunt grows more anxious, more mistaken, and more absurd. By the time he prepares to propose, he is determined to secure one final sign of rejection, only to reveal how thoroughly he has misread both Annie and himself. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.