Eva's apples: A story of jazz and jasper

"Eva's apples" by William Alexander Gerhardie is a novel written in the early 20th century. It appears to be a witty, cosmopolitan social comedy about a young writer, Frank Dickin, who becomes entangled with a charming yet improvident Russian émigré family—especially the sisters Zita and Eva—while being drawn into the orbit of a powerful newspaper magnate, Lord Ottercove. Moving between Innsbruck, Abbazia, Vienna, and London, it blends romance, satire, and the pathos of exile as high spirits collide with scarcity and opportunism.

At the start of the story, Frank leaves Eva waiting in a taxi and nervously ascends to Lord Ottercove’s office, where he reads aloud his manuscript. His tale recounts meeting the voluble Mrs. Kerr, her daughters Zita and “Me-Too” (Eva), restless son John, and the passionate Frau König amid Tyrolean cafés, dances, and comic mix-ups; it follows the sisters’ rivalries, a perilous mountain misadventure that stirs erotic tensions, and Mrs. Kerr’s hapless escapades in Abbazia and Vienna. Scenes of workhouses, émigré salons, and late-night cabarets sketch a community of charming survivors living by nerve and nostalgia. Back in the frame, Ottercove is intrigued, offers to serialize the story, astonishingly grants Frank open access to his bank, and introduces the eccentric Lord de Jones. The opening closes with Frank returning to the taxi to a devoted, forgiving Eva, and a glimpse of how precariously she has been waiting for him in London.