Dross, by Henry Seton Merriman. Herbert S. Stone, Chicago. ©1896, published 1899. 330 pages, several grayscale illustrations.
According to The New General Catalog of Old Books and Authors, Henry Seton Merriman is a pseudonym for Hugh Stowell Scott (1862 May 9 - 1903 Nov 19).
From another book of Merriman’s The Slave of the Lamp
The novel “Dross” was produced in America in 1899, having appeared serially in this country in a well-known newspaper. Written during a period of ill-health, Merriman thought it beneath his best work, and, true to that principle which ruled his life as an author, to give to the public so far as he could of that best, and of that best only, he declined (of course to his own monetary disadvantage) to permit its publication in England in book form.
Its mise-en-scène is France and Suffolk; its period the Second Empire–the period of “The Last Hope.” Napoleon III., a character by whom Merriman was always peculiarly attracted, shadows it: in it appears John Turner, the English banker of Paris, of “The Last Hope”; an admirable and amusing sketch of a young Frenchman; and an excellent description of the magnificent scenery about Saint Martin Lantosque, in the Maritime Alps.
He didn’t like the book, which made it ok to print in America but not England?!
This book has bits of French.
Thanks to Sankar Viswanathan for post-processing this project.