The Duchess of Wrexe
Note: This is an age of Trilogies and Sequels. The title at the beginning of this book, “The Rising City: I,” may lead nervous readers to fear yet another attempt in that extended and discursive direction.
To reassure them I wish to emphasize this point—that The Duchess of Wrexe is entirely a novel complete and independent in itself. It is grouped, with the two stories that will follow it, under the heading of “The Rising City” because the three novels will be connected in place, in idea, and in sequence of time. Also certain of the same characters will appear in all three books. But the novels are not intended as sequels of one another, nor is “The Rising City” a Trilogy.—H. W.