This collection of five nineteenth-century romantic tales moves from comic courtship to gothic ruin, tracing love in all its tenderness, vanity, grief, and danger. Oliver Wendell Holmes's "Iris" opens with a witty observer watching a dinner table come alive around a beautiful young woman, a shy "Little Gentleman," and the fragile stirrings of attraction between them. Beneath the playful social satire lies a moving story of a Latin tutor naming his daughter after Virgil's radiant messenger, and of a child shaped by loss, poverty, and the sustaining power of art. Elsewhere, a boarding-house world of appearances and hidden motives exposes the uneasy power of guardianship, desire, and moral posturing. The darkest tale follows Basil Wolgemuth and Isilda into obsession, supernatural terror, and murder, ending in spiritual exile and death. By contrast, "The South Breaker" plunges into storm and surf, where Dan, Georgie, and Faith fight for survival as rescue becomes a test of loyalty, sacrifice, and misunderstood devotion. Together, these stories offer romance as comedy, sorrow, pastoral feeling, and gothic passion. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.