The Emerald Necklace

This Beadle and Adams dime novel, by Rose Kennedy, combines romantic and mystery elements. The narrative opens with Pennon, a young artist dissatisfied with his cramped city lodgings, who decides to spend the summer sketching in the countryside. Arriving at a remote stone farmhouse, he encounters Clematis, a beautiful, refined young woman who discovers a valuable string of emeralds in the family well—an object whose origin remains mysterious. Pennon accepts the family's hospitality for the night. The novel establishes the emerald necklace as a central plot device while developing romantic tension between the protagonist and Clematis. The story balances Pennon's introspective character—depicted as an artist and writer with sensitive temperament—against the pastoral setting and the sudden appearance of this valuable treasure, promising complications to follow.