Samuel Hopkins Adams’s Wanted: A Husband is a comic novel of transformation and mistaken identity, published in the early twentieth century and set largely in New York and a New Hampshire resort. It follows Darcy Cole, a self-described “thoroughly nice girl” who feels invisible to men, as she reinvents herself under the tutelage of an actress friend and then must sustain an elaborate romantic lie. The book moves through twenty chapters, from Darcy’s despairing climb to Gloria Greene’s studio through a season of gymnasium discipline and shopping, a tangle of false engagements, and a final unravelling in which the truth sets everything right.
“Oh, I wuh—wuh—wish I were duh—duh—dead!” mourned Miss Cole with violence.”
From a Scrap-Heap to the Altar of the Imagination
A Broken Elevator and a Rejected Design
The novel opens with Miss Darcy Cole climbing four flights of stairs because the elevator has broken down, and her mood is as heavy as her legs. She is a young woman in deep despondency, questioning whether anything is worth the effort, and she resents the light roll of work she carries—a wall-paper design rejected by B. Riegel & Sons. On the way up she discards a second-hand rose given to her by her flat-mate Maud Raines, originally from Maud’s fiancé, and crushes a candy frill from a box sent by the architect Paul Wood to her other flat-mate, Helen Barrett. Nobody, she reflects, ever sends Darcy Cole roses or candy.
She arrives at the studio apartment of Miss Gloria Greene, an actress known to theatre-goers under a slightly different name, and announces that she wishes she were dead. Gloria, beautiful and vital, with an intuitive mission to lend cheer to forlorn people, responds philosophically: most people feel that way at some time. When Darcy insists Gloria has never felt so, Gloria says she is too busy for such nonsense, suggests the feeling is either imagination or indigestion, and offers a pill. Darcy refuses rudely. Gloria then methodically shakes her until her hat falls off, her hairpins scatter, her hair tumbles down, and her buttons pop. Darcy begs to be released, saying she is being killed; asked whether she still wants to die, she says, “Not that way!” Gloria calls this her regular treatment for “dead-wish-ers,” and when Darcy starts to wish again, Gloria threatens to resume shaking.
The Three Honest Working-Girls
Gloria tells her to sit and explain, suggesting she begin in the middle. Darcy explains that Maud has become engaged to Holcomb Lee, the illustrator, and Helen Barrett is going to marry Paul Wood. This breaks the plan by which Maud, Helen, and Darcy were to be the “Three Honest Working-Girls,” keeping up their Fifty-Sixth Street bachelor-girl hall for life. Gloria argues that Maud is pretty and energetic, Helen a soft, fluffy creature men want to care for, and that bachelor-girl agreements last only until the right man comes. When Gloria suggests Darcy will get engaged herself, Darcy accuses her of patronizing her and says she gets enough of that at home from the two fiancées. Gloria expresses astonishment at Darcy’s language, calling her “Amanda Darcy Cole” and invoking her Puritan forbears. Darcy hates the name Amanda, an old-maid name that fits.
The Longing to Be Pretty
Darcy then reveals her longing to be pretty—not beautiful like Gloria, but pretty enough to be noticed, well-dressed, up-to-date, and smart. She says she would sell her soul to the devil for one short year of really living and being something besides a “thoroughly nice girl.” Gloria agrees that is a rotten thing to be called and asks who says it. Darcy says the girls do, and tells Gloria to look at her. Gloria observes an ungirlish, frumpy figure with a lank but bulgy body, inappropriate clothes, muddy complexion, sagging mouth, drooping chin, deranged hair, and big, deep-gray, lusterless eyes. Gloria asks if the problem is some man. Darcy insists she does not care for any man and that she only wants to be in the game as other girls play it—to have attention, candy, or flowers, and not have men look past her like a tree. There is a somebody inside her she cannot get out, she says, and she prays to “raise just a little teeny bit of hell before I die.” Gloria exclaims that Darcy is “real,” and Darcy asks if Gloria thought she wasn’t even that.
Exhibit A and Exhibit B
Gloria asks her to be honest and frank, and to tell her what started this. Darcy shows her a full-page drawing from “Life” magazine by Holcomb Lee, identifying the central figure as herself. Gloria asks what Maud says about Darcy sitting as model for her young man; Darcy says Maud laughed. Gloria agrees it looks like her, noting that Lee knows how to see with his eyes. Darcy explains Lee noticed lines in her face at the piano, asked her to sit for him repeatedly, and said she must have been a beautiful child. Darcy shows Gloria a photograph—”Exhibit B”—of herself at age eleven. Gloria calls it charming. Darcy says Lee told her she was a “spoilt job” and seemed peeved, swearing under his breath while drawing her. Gloria declares she hates waste, calling a wasted human being a practical blasphemy. Darcy explains that at thirteen she had an illness, the family lost its money, her parents died shortly after, and she never regained life, spirit, ambition, or digestion.
Jack Remsen at the Piano
After Gloria leaves, Darcy’s mood collapses: light and vitality die, she resumes her workaday garb, and the long mirror seems to watch her with sardonic commentary. She calls herself a “frazzled botch of a frump,” then an “imbecile,” as glowing ambition fades to mockery. Worn out by unaccustomed emotions, she curls up unsightly on the alcove couch and falls asleep within two minutes. Dream music grows until her dreams burst open; she peeps out and sees a tall, slender young man at the piano, humming a song whose words he has forgotten, puzzling over a passage, then dashing into Gilbert and Sullivan. Gloria enters, pleasure flashing on her face, crosses to him in a dozen light steps, clasps his eyes, lets her hands slip to his shoulders, kisses the top of his head, and cries “Jack!” He swings around, leaps up, catches her hands, and exclaims, “Well, Gloria! It’s a treat to see you.” She says she had begun to think he would never come back and asks where he hails from; he answers “all over the map,” but no place as good as this. His smile sets the final impression of charm on a keen, thin, sensitive face. Darcy instantly decides he is the one man worthy of Gloria Greene and is glad they have found each other.
Gloria asks, “But where’s Darcy?” Jack asks, “Who?” She explains she left a little acquaintance there. Darcy sits up, announces herself, and says she fell asleep. The man fears his “silly hammering” woke her; she stammers that she liked it, falling into her usual “acutely zero feeling” before men. Gloria commands Jack to play again while she takes off her things, then go away and return for dinner, since she and Miss Cole have important things to discuss. Darcy protests that she can come another time and doesn’t want to drive “Mr.—Mr.—-him” away. Gloria calmly names him Mr. Jacob Remsen, saying time is the least of his troubles and he kills it at sight. Remsen tells Darcy not to mind her, calling her “Miss Corey”; Darcy notes the error and wonders petulantly why Gloria didn’t introduce them properly. Her uneasiness dissipates before his cordial simplicity; she volunteers a harmonic solution to the difficult transition he had blundered over, humming the melody while playing her version, which he accepts with enthusiasm, urging her to sing and praising her voice. She stiffens and refuses, not meaning to be ungracious but conscious of a cramped, graceless self; he takes it with good humor, calling back that he is sure she sings and will send her the song—but, she notices, he doesn’t look at her as he says it, since Gloria is in the room. Men never look at Darcy, she reflects, exemplifying her grievance against the scheme of things.
“Nothing for Nothing”
She complains to Gloria, waving toward the door: that is what she has been trying to tell her. Gloria puzzles over “Jack” and what is wrong with him; Darcy says he didn’t even look at her. Gloria notes he politely offered music and is always courteous. Darcy says men are strictly neutral and women merely tolerant and friendly—”Darcy’s such a nice girl”
The Artist’s Eye and the Businessman’s Sketch
Darcy asks the illustrator to keep quiet about the change in her, and he protests that a blind man could feel it ten feet off—he notices because he is an artist, while the girls see too much of her to register it. The narrator explains the transformation: Andy Dunne’s exercises have built muscle and condition, his discipline has built character, and the inner Darcy grows strong almost without her own knowledge. One result is fresh zest in her designing, which expresses itself in experiments off the beaten track—not always to the liking of B. Riegel, active head of the wall-paper firm whose approval and check are essential to Miss Darcy Cole’s plans. Her attitude toward him has always been acquiescent, even humble.
“Too Blank” and the Thirty-Dollar Design
One morning she brings in a design she is well content with. Riegel, first, last, and between times a man of business, barely glances at her and pronounces the sketch “Too blank.” She suggests that makes it restful; he demands “Pep!” She notes it is for a sleeping-room; he ignores her and sets two pencil cross-marks directing ornamentation here and here. She says calmly that she prefers it as it is. Two weeks earlier she would have stepped meekly out and ruined the pattern with the Riegel ornamentation, but Andy Dunne’s “because yah’r game” has put fire in her blood, and her cheeks show it when Riegel looks up in surprise and annoyance. He sees the same shabby, ill-fitting clothes, but now she stands up inside them, confronting him with bright, level eyes. She suggests he try her way; he challenges that maybe she knows more about the business than he does; she says not at all, but it is her design. She rolls it up protectively in her imitation-leather roll and promises another next week. He cries “Wait, now, a minute!” and asks what she will do with this one; she says “Try it on Balke & Stover.” He orders her to leave it, says a check will be sent, and whirls to present a busy back. She asks that it be made for thirty dollars.
The Swivel-Chair Rescue
Riegel reverses so fast that his swivel-chair is thrown off balance and projects him toward a line of open sample paints awaiting a floor test—their lasting quality much stressed. Sprawling beyond human help, he is caught by Darcy, standing in the unconscious but alert poise of rigid physical training, who thrusts a slender but powerful hand, catches him mid-flight, brings him up standing, restores him to the chair and both to the status quo. He gasps “Urf!”, bends on her a look blending wonder, skepticism, and respect, jokes about a job in the trucking department, then growls about the thirty dollars. Unaffected, her confidence stiffened by the chair interlude, she says her prices have gone up. He exclaims, begs pardon (“Miss Watchemame—”), is corrected (“My name is Cole”), and asks whether her work is worth ten dollars more. She reframes it: she thinks he has been paying her ten dollars too little. Fair-minded and shrewd at bottom, and tremendously impressed by her unsuspected physical prowess—catching him mid-flight took no mean muscle, yet this sloppy-looking girl did it without turning a hair—he laughs aloud and proposes twenty-five for the next half-dozen, then thirty, with this one going “as is.” She agrees composedly.
Gloria’s Verdict and the Mouse-Trap Story
Exultant, Darcy goes out into a dusk of wind and rain that would formerly have swamped her spirit, fights joyously through it, takes the apartment flights two steps at a time, singing. A taxi stands outside the door. In the front room she finds Gloria, who stopped on her way to the theater, stretched on the divan talking with the turtledoves. Gloria says she looked in to see how Darcy is getting on and eyes her keenly; Darcy says “Splendidly!” Asked whether everything is all right in the gymnasium and whether Andy—, Darcy hastily breaks in that it is all right, “as right as right can be,” having no mind to hear her felonies discussed by her flat-mates. Helen observes she is awfully chirpy for such a beast of a raw, rainy day; Darcy blandly supposes it is bad but hardly noticed. Maud conjectures another British mail has come in, which always brightens her; Darcy, who neglected to consult the morning papers for incoming steamship entries, says if there is she hasn’t got anything yet. Her myth, the narrator notes, involves so many supporting lies that it is difficult and ticklish to keep properly bolstered up. Helen asks Gloria whether Darcy has told her about the Britisher; Gloria says “Monty Veyze? Of course. I know him.” Helen and Maud cry “You know him!” and ask what he’s like; Gloria says he’s all that Darcy thinks he is, that it’s years since she’s seen him, that to put it Englishwise he was by way of being horribly smart then, and asks where he is now. Darcy says shortly “Near the Siberian frontier.” There is a gleam in Gloria’s eye which she neither understands nor likes. Gloria laughs about one of the twenty-two sub-wars that signalize the universal peace, or is it twenty-nine. Maud muses that long engagements aren’t the thing in England, particularly in these uncertain times when anything might happen. Darcy retorts with carefully assumed sadness that this is pretty horrid of her, smothering a private murderous wish.
A Fellow of the Institute of Life
Darcy denies feeling insulted—it is nothing to her whether people remember her—then announces she has saved up an insult to tell Gloria. She identifies the offender only as “a man,” and Gloria points at the dimple on Darcy’s cheek. Darcy places the incident at Mouseley’s restaurant on the Circle; Gloria warns her the “Mouse-Trap” is not respectable, and Darcy says she only wanted tea, which was very good. The man came to her table, fresh-colored, pinky-brown, dressed like the back page of a magazine, and called her “Miss Glad-Eyes.” She told him he had made a mistake; he said he would like to make one like it every day in the week, pulled out a chair, and sat down. A second man then approached: he had a funny ear and short hair, said he had seen her working out at Andy’s, gave his name as Gillig, and recalled that she had done a good turn for his kid sister. Darcy introduced him to the other man only by explaining the latter had helped himself to the chair without giving his name. Gillig said “That kind does” and advised him to take a run. The pinky-brown caller replied, “Maybe so; maybe not,” claiming membership in the Bouncers’ Union. Gillig identified himself as Spike Gillig, the welter-weight, said he did not practice his art for his health, and declared he would not sit by and see rough stuff pulled on the young lady. The other man, dignified and injured, protested he was as much a gent, was not ducking any muss professional or amateur, weighed a hundred-and-eighty stripped (begging Miss Peach’s pardon), and identified himself as Scrap Gilfillan, shortstop of the Marvels, coming champions of the world—but conceded if the lady was a friend of Gillig’s. Gillig grew angry, purple to his ears, and growled that she was no friend of his: “This is a lady, this is.” Gilfillan asked Darcy if he was in wrong and whether she had ever been to the joint before; she said never; he apologized handsomely and invited the two to have one little one with him to prove it. Gloria calls this important; Darcy says she took sarsaparilla. Gloria solemnly declares “Darcy Cole, formerly Amanda Darcy Cole”
A Hillside Game of War
On a hillside above the village, Darcy turns the war into a game. She treats a wheeling crow as an aeroplane signalling that a regiment is climbing up from below, and identifies a spider on the sheer rock face as a spy in disguise, holding a pebble above it like a bomb. Remsen observes that war is hell and asks why she would add to its horrors. Darcy muses on how far away the war seems, wonders whether “over there” it is as beautiful and peaceful as this hillside one day and then the next, and decides to let her spy spider live. Remsen sits beside her and abruptly asks what her soldier man is like. Startled, Darcy draws on Gloria’s insufficient sketch of “Monty”: short, round, roly-poly. She adds that he is red and fierce-looking with a stubby, scrubby mustache, then amends that he is awfully nice, not really fierce, very brave, and has a lovely barytone voice; they sing together a great deal. Remsen gloomily drops stones over the crest, and Darcy accuses him of alarming the spy, who wigwags and will report. He asks whether she minds his calling her Darcy; she says she likes it. He asks her not to sing “our song” to “him”; she promises not to sing it to anyone again, and he thanks her humbly. She points out four figures on a far road—the enemy approaching—and says they must go meet them. Remsen groans that he must put on his infernal whiskers and wig and his still more uncomfortable manners; she advises toning them down, since Holcomb and Paul are about ready to turn on the haughty Britisher and rend him limb from limb. He notes they seem to be turning toward the village; Darcy says the girls are coming on, probably with the mail, and Remsen asks jealously about foreign letters and a forwarding address. They take the Bungalow trail so he can put on his Veyze outfit, then catch the girls returning from the Farm.
The Newspaper Paragraph
They meet the two brides: Maud carries a folded newspaper like a truncheon of official authority, stern and important; Helen struggles with hysterical excitement. Maud, ignoring the whiskered fiancé, asks to speak to Darcy alone about a private matter the fiancé can hear later; Helen echoes her plea. Darcy refuses, asking whether it concerns Monty; Maud says it concerns him a great deal, so Darcy insists he hear it at the same time, and the fiancé confirms with a “Haw!” and his monocle. Maud says “your-blood-be-on-your-own-head” and gives Darcy the newspaper, pointing to a penciled paragraph on the front page. Darcy keeps a calm face and passes it to her fiancé. It reports that, for distinguished service in the aerial corps, the King of England had the previous day personally decorated Sir Montrose Veyze, Bart., of Veyze Holdings, Hampshire, England.
The Veyze Succession
Darcy was prepared for the death, disappearance, or capture of Sir Montrose Veyze, but not that fame might mark him out and force the issue; it takes her aback. The Darcy of a year before would have collapsed; this Darcy faces her accuser with a quiet smile while her thoughts run in circles like a bevy of little rabbits cut off from cover. Maud, in cross-examining-counsel accents, asks her to explain. Darcy glances at the bogus Sir Montrose, who is also smiling; illogically her heart sings a private Hymn of Hate—why does he stand with a sickly grin when their pretense is being riddled? The narrator notes she is ungrateful and illogical: the face is silly because she compelled him to make it so, and his smile conceals high-pressure thinking. Darcy tears out the paragraph and says the matter is rather involved; Maud demands to know who this man is, and Helen echoes her. Seeing him still smiling, Darcy passes the buck, telling “Monty” to tell them. Remsen, alias Sir Montrose Veyze, rises to the moment and evokes a full-fledged plan. Fixing on Maud as the more formidable antagonist, he impales her on his monocle and asks whether she has heard about the Veyze Succession. Maud says never; he exclaims that the Veyzes are as well known as the Tower of London or the Crystal Palace. Helen explains pacifically that such things don’t reach America; he insists the American press has been full of it and accuses them of spoofing. Hypnotized by the monocle, Helen vaguely recalls something—gratifying to him, since he introduced the press feature on the inspiration of the moment. Maud stays on the main issue: even knowing his family wouldn’t explain Sir Montrose being in America while being received by the King in London. He adds that he wears two swords and that the press report should mention it—”It’s a Veyze prerogative.” Maud asks whether it is a Veyze prerogative to be in two places at once, or whether there are two of him. He answers “Of cawse!” with calm, wondering contempt, then explains the famous Veyze twins—though not rahlly twins any more. Maud weakens and asks what they are famous for; he says there are two of them to the divided title.
The Parting at the Station
Darcy and Remsen part at a train station after an argument. Remsen insists on accompanying Darcy to Meredith despite her refusal, and at Center Harbor he obtains a team to complete the journey. Darcy asks what he will do; he says he does not know and that he must go back, but protests at returning to Boulder Brook without her. As her train arrives, she tells him he has made it impossible to see her again and asks why he did it. She boards, but then reappears on the steps, takes his hands, says she could not leave him so, thanks him for his goodness, and tells him to forget. Remsen stands uncovered until the train’s tail-light disappears, then turns to the lonely road.
Gloria’s Counsel
In her berth, Darcy realizes what has happened to her through the memory of a kiss in the woods. She resolves not to fight for her own happiness because Gloria Greene, who rescued her from a scrap-heap of waste and made her a living creature, loves and is loved by Remsen; she judges Remsen’s feeling a sudden infatuation, though his parting look convinces her conscience is lying. She decides she must be game and fight alone, unwilling to betray Remsen to Gloria. On returning to New York she shrinks from meeting Gloria, feeling disloyal. She must dispose of the obsequies of Sir Montrose Veyze of Veyze Holdings, Hampshire, England, and obtain Gloria’s release from the promise of secrecy. She tells Gloria the whole tale. Gloria suspects reservations wherever Jacob Remsen, alias Sir Montrose Veyze II, appears, and notices a new light in Darcy’s eyes, concluding someone else has given the finishing touch. Gloria decides it is time to own up and offers to handle Maud. Darcy fears becoming Poor Darcy again and being a laughing-stock; Gloria argues that since Darcy is attractive, the invented fiancé will seem a festive joke on her friends rather than a pathetic invention, and that Maud would only earn a reputation for jealousy. Darcy asks about the real Sir Montrose; Gloria says he is engaged to an English girl. Gloria asks how much the bogus Sir Montrose knows, and urges Darcy to tell him herself.
The Cradle-Song and the Confession
Gloria encounters Remsen in the Park without his whiskers, in his proper person as Mr. Jacob Remsen; his case was compromised and he has returned. He says he will work, from ambition, possibly in the Treasury Department in Washington, San Francisco, Savannah, or New York. He has not seen his former fiancée.
The Education of Darcy Cole
The novel’s engine is a wager about self-making. Darcy begins as a woman who believes her unhappiness is a verdict handed down by the world—she is plain, overlooked, and certain that pretty girls receive candy and roses while she receives nothing. Gloria reframes this as a failure of giving: the world, she insists, returns nothing for nothing, and Darcy has spent years hoarding her warmth, her voice, and her looks rather than spending them. What follows is a course of “living lessons” that treats the body and the character as one problem. Andy Dunne’s brutal calisthenics and meager diet strip away physical flabbiness, but the narrator is explicit that the discipline builds something moral too—the firm chin, the level eyes, the capacity to stand up inside shabby clothes and contradict an employer. Darcy’s transformation is measured less by her mirror than by her willingness to risk disagreement, whether with B. Riegel over a wallpaper design or with a man who has taken her chair at a restaurant.
The Machinery of the Lie
The plot turns on a fabrication that keeps breeding new fabrications. Darcy invents Sir Montrose Veyze out of Burke’s Peerage to save face before her engaged flat-mates, and the invention immediately demands maintenance: forged wireless messages, a borrowed country house, a fiancé impersonated by a near-stranger in whiskers and a monocle. Adams mines comedy from the escalating cost of the pretense, but the lie also functions as a kind of moral test. Each character who enters the conspiracy—Gloria, the chauffeur bribed to forget what he has seen, the hapless Remsen himself—must decide how much loyalty the fiction deserves. The novel’s cleverest turn is that the lie becomes the means by which Darcy and Remsen actually find each other: the false Sir Montrose is the man who once corrected a chord with her and never looked at her twice, and the disguise forces him to see her at last.
What the Comedy Is Finally About
Underneath the farce runs a steady argument about the difference between being admired and being alive. Darcy’s original wish—to be noticed, to have men look at her rather than past her—is granted, but the book treats that wish as only half the lesson. What she actually gains is the nerve to act, to refuse, to travel alone, to face her friends with her chin up when the newspaper exposes her fiancé as a decorated hero in two places at once. The closing chapters test whether she can surrender the performance. Her decision to spare Gloria’s feelings at the cost of her own happiness, and her eventual confession that Sir Montrose never existed, mark the point where the invented self gives way to a person who can be honest without being humiliated. The resolution rewards that honesty: the real suitor turns out to be the pretend one, and the wedding trip they plan is a deliberate replay of the journey that began the deception.
A Period Piece with a Modern Pulse
Adams, a prolific magazine writer and muckraker, brings a reporter’s eye for social detail to the novel—the working-girl apartment, the gymnasium with its medicine balls and rowing machines, the department-store wardrobe that consumes Aunt Sarah’s eight hundred dollars, the casual slang of boxers and ballplayers. The book belongs to its moment, with its wartime propaganda letters, its titled Englishman as romantic currency, and its assumption that a woman’s happiness runs through marriage. Yet its central insight is not dated: that confidence is a skill learned by doing, that beauty is partly the visible record of discipline, and that the persona we invent to survive a social squeeze can become the bridge to who we actually are. It is a light novel that takes self-creation seriously, and it ends where such comedies should—with two couples borrowing the same farmhouse and the truth, at last, doing the work of the plot.
