Some of Whyte-Melville's books, such as _Market Harborough_ (1861), are hunting novels pure and simple, so much so that it has been said (rashly) that none but hunting men and women can read them.

Others, such as _Kate Coventry_ (1856), a very lively and agreeable book, mix sport with general character and manners-painting.
Others, such as _Holmby House_ (1860), _The Queen's Maries_ (1862), etc., attempt the historical style.

But perhaps this mixed novel of sport, society, and a good deal of love-making reached its most curious development in the novels of George Alfred Lawrence, from the once famous _Guy Livingstone_ (1857) onwards--a series almost typical, which was developed further, with touches of original but uncritical talent, which often dropped into unintentional caricature, by the late "Ouida" (Louise de La Ramee).

All the three last writers mentioned, however, especially the last two, made sport only an ingredient in their novel composition ("Ouida," in fact, knew nothing about it) and at least endeavoured, according to their own ideas and ideals, to grapple with larger parts of life.

The danger of the kind showed less in them than in some imitators of a lower class, of whom Captain Hawley Smart was the chief, and a chief sometimes better than his own followers.