I never got to write a proper review about this book, and I still don't really have the time, but let me try: Love in Excess is delightful. It took a while to get through, seeing as it was published in 1719, but it was the most fun "historical" and "classic" books I've ever read.

If you need any other proof that 18th-century mass culture was bawdy, fun, and downright frivolous compared to their Victorian descendants, this is the text for you. It's camp really--Here we have bodice-ripping, disguised identities, fatal love triangles, and every and other ribald and ridiculous scenario you can basically think off. Modern day romance novels have much to owe to Haywood, and seeing the seeds of such a lusty genre was worth the page-long paragraphs that truly tested me at times. I laughed a lot, groaned a lot, rolled my eyes a lot, and yet still kept turning the pages to see what would happen. I loved it.

Thank you Ms. Haywood, you wrote a gem. ( )

How is this any different from Princess of Cleves? It's just as dull, boring, uninteresting, uncompelling, and dreadful. The only difference is that a few elements were ratcheted up several degrees, such as the note-passing, bodice-ripping, and general, deplorable, ghastly, objectionable whoredom. It's too overt a conceit that women who are frank about their sexuality and desires conveniently drop dead, while those who are chaste get to skate. No fair that D'elmont gets to live happily ever after while leaving ruined lives in his wake. How good looking IS this guy anyway, that so many surrendered themselves to him to the ultimate fault? Ladies, there are other gentlemen available on earth, go find one. Jeez, nobody deserves to have so much vaginal pining offered up to him. The book is garbage. ( )

How is this any different from Princess of Cleves? It's just as dull, boring, uninteresting, uncompelling, and dreadful. The only difference is that a few elements were ratcheted up several degrees, such as the note-passing, bodice-ripping, and general, deplorable, ghastly, objectionable whoredom. It's too overt a conceit that women who are frank about their sexuality and desires conveniently drop dead, while those who are chaste get to skate. No fair that D'elmont gets to live happily ever after while leaving ruined lives in his wake. How good looking IS this guy anyway, that so many surrendered themselves to him to the ultimate fault? Ladies, there are other gentlemen available on earth, go find one. Jeez, nobody deserves to have so much vaginal pining offered up to him. The book is garbage. ( )

What a delightful, unique novel! The novel is comprised of three sections, each of which is almost a complete story. In the first part, the protagonist Alovisa falls in love with the charming D'Elmont. As a woman in 18th century Paris, social etiquette forbids her from indicating her interest (until after he proposes!). So Alovisa sends him an anonymous, flirtatious note. At the next ball D'Elmont, meets and begins to court Amena. With the help of devious servants and unfortunate circumstances, eventually D'Elmont is convinced to marry. In the second part, D'Elmont, now married, falls hopelessly in love with a young women of whom he is a legal guardian. His marriage quickly become an unhappy one with a jealous wife maneuvering to discover her rival and the husband plotting seduction. Hijinks ensue, resulting in tragedy for all concerned. In the final section, D'Elmont is in Italy, where once again several woman fall madly in love with him and even more unlikely hijinks ensue.

While the plots are operatic in scope and almost laugh-out-loud ridiculous, many of the female characters were developed into something more than stereotyped temptresses and convent girls (although some were caricatures designed to move the convoluted plots forward). For some reason, I expected the novel to be Alovisa's story and so it felt quite disjointed in the reading. The other major drawback is the complete lack of chapters or line-breaks, making it hard to read in short sessions as it is hard to pick up the story line again. Other than those minor complaints, I thoroughly enjoyed this novel. ( )

‘God! With what an air he walked! What new attractions dwelt in every motion – And when he returned the salutes of any that passed by him, how graceful was his bow! How lofty his mien, and yet, how affable! A sort of an inexpressible awful grandeur, blended with tender languishments, strikes the amazed beholder at once with fear and joy! Something beyond humanity shines around him! Such looks descending angels wear, when sent on heavenly embassies to some favourite mortal! Such is their form! Such radiant beams they dart; and with such smiles they temper their divinity with softness! Oh! With what pain did I restrain myself from flying to him! From rushing into his arms! From hanging on his neck, and wildly uttering all the furious wishes of my burning soul – I trembled – panted – raged with inward agonies.’

That is the effect Count D’Elmont – basically a eighteenth century Spencer from Made in Chelsea - has on just one woman in this lively novel about female desire, love and its consequences. He marries for ambition and the plot is the slow revealing to him of what really matters; loving a woman without a care for her fortune or position – although clearly it helps him if she is an exquisite beauty. Of the women who are his victims, each has a story to tell from the proud beauty Alovysa, foolish, deluded Amena and the virtuous but tempted Melliora. The comic, interfering female role is played by the intriguing Melantha who does not get her just desserts (hurray). ‘Melantha who was not of a humour to take anything to heart, was married in a short time, and had the good fortune not to be suspected by her husband, though she brought him a child in seven months after her wedding.’

Disgraces, cast-off daughters, duels to the death, kidnapped beauties and convents all feature in this exciting work. Haywood’s is a witty, entertaining pen writing stories that eighteenth-century young ladies must have sighed over – especially the dénouement when d’Elmont is alone in bed and his love comes to wake him and tell him her story. ‘Forgetting all decorum, he flew out of the bed, catched her in his arms, and almost stifled her with kisses; which she returning with pretty near an equal eagerness, ‘you will not chide me from me now?’ she cried.