“Pretty, overdressed, jewel-bedecked Octavia Bassett," of Nevada, is one of the most fascinating characters that Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett ever drew. The story of the visit of this dashing young American girl to her father's sister in the staid, respectable, ultra-conservative English village of Slowbridge, and of the consternation which she produced in the society of that place by her frank speech, her dazzling toilets and her unconventional ways, is told with uncommon freshness and spirit in ‘A Fair Barbarian’. The sharp contrasts suggested by the presence amid the stiffness and primness of Slowbridge society of this breezy, brilliant, self-possessed young beauty, whose mother was an actress in San Francisco, whose father is a silver mine owner and who has passed a portion of her life in the mining camps of Nevada, are made the most of by Mrs. Burnett.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1881.

Distributed by the University of Nebraska Press for the University of Idaho Press Octavia Bassett, a beautiful young heiress from Bloody Gulch, Nevada, unexpectedly descends upon her aunt in the sleepy village of Slowbridge, England. As a young woman raised haphazardly by her father in the Wild West of the 1870s, she finds their customs unnecessarily fastidious and difficult to understand.

Reproduction of the original. The publishing house Megali specialises in reproducing historical works in large print to make reading easier for people with impaired vision.