A Laodicean tells the love story between George Somerset, a young man who is pursuing his architectural studies and Paula Power, a wealthy heiress of a famous railway contractor. Somerset and Paula first meet when the former comes to inspect the castle Paula inherited from her father. Paula allows him every opportunity to examine the aged castle and carry out restorations after a competition in which his design was chosen. Somerset hires Dare, the son of Captain De Stancy to help him with measurements but finds him lazy and fires him. Somerset starts work in the castle and in the meantime, he falls in love with Paula who is indifferent to his love. In the meantime, she has been approached by Captain De Stancy through his sister Charlotte. However, she is reluctant to marry him. The appearance of her uncle Mr. Anber Power turns the situation upside down. He opposes Paula’s marrying Somerset and helps Captain De Stancy in his proposal of marriage. Mr. Power suggests that Paula goes on a European tour so that she can get rid of Somerset. Captain De Stancy accompanies her in this tour. While she is abroad, Captain De Stancy exerts every effort to marry her and Somerset has nothing but his wish to marry her. But when he knows that Captain De Stancy has joined her in her trip, Somerset decides to follow her but she moves from city to city and country to country and he is unable to see her. Furthermore, Dare, Captain De Stancy’s son fakes some photos for Somerset and sends them to Paula to dishonour Somerset. Dare’s purpose is to revenge Somerset and helps his father in his plans to marry the lady. Paula finally agrees to marry Captain De Stancy and on the wedding day, Dare’s tricks are revealed. Paula decides to have Dare arrested and f...
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...ed that Jocelyn is going to marry her daughter but Avice elopes with her lover so that she avoids marrying this old man. Jocelyn finally meets Marcia Bencombe again and they agree to get married.
Although A Laodicean and The Well-Beloved have love and romance as central ideas, it can be claimed that they are thematically distinct from the love and romance texts in Group A. The two novels are more concerned with the Victorian transition from the medieval or pre-modern world to the modern (Harvey, 2003). In other words, love and romance are associated with modern social realism. On another hand, the idea that the texts of this cluster are grouped together is that they share a distinctive set of terms such as architect, husband, woman, grass, camp, door, wife, dance, room, hall, wall, estate, grave, and lover that suggests architecture and romance as central ideas.