Success
by Una L. Silberrad (1872–1955)
- Free to read
- 6 hours to read
- 19 chapters
"Success" by Una L. Silberrad is a novel written in the early 20th century. It centers on the price of ambition and the ethics of ownership within a powerful armaments firm, following gifted engineer Michael Annarly as his crowning invention meets corporate jealousy and manipulation. Lady Sibyl Carson’s admiring glamour and Nan Barmister’s grounded sympathy frame his rise and sudden crisis, casting light on class, power, and the uses of influence.
The opening of the novel introduces Annarly revealing his completed aerial-torpedo design to Lady Sibyl at a country-house gathering, where admirers and rivals at Galhardy’s foundries debate his talent and arrogance. Elated, he is swiftly undone: the next day Sir James Shannon and the hostile secretary Brett confront him with allegations that he prematurely opened foreign negotiations; they seize his papers, suspend him, and force him to burn Lady Sibyl’s private letters after he briefly brandishes an (unloaded) pistol. In parallel, we meet Nan Barmister, a keen-eyed Soho dealer, and her circle; after Annarly fails to persuade the firm’s chairman, Sir Joseph Harte, to hear him, Nan finds him rain-soaked and shattered and quietly brings him home for food and rest. Over the following day she helps him compose and send a reasoned memorial to the directors while he explains the contested “foreign rights,” the directors’ reversal, and his despair that, with his notes confiscated, Galhardy’s can still finish the invention without him.
- Engineers
- Inventors
- England · Social life and customs · 20th century
Read the opening
Chapter I
Michael Annarly was talking to Lady Sibyl Carson. He had been dining with the Carsons, and he was staying on after the other guests, deep in talk with his hostess. He was the last to move, excepting, of course, those who were staying in the house. These were all men; Carson did not encourage the idea of women visitors in case they should want to go out with the guns, and Lady Sibyl had few friends of her own sex for whom she cared enough to insist on inviting. The men lounged by the fire in the room, part hall, part billiard-room, to which the company had retired when the more formal guests departed. Lady Sibyl and Annarly were some distance from the others, she in a deep-seated chair which toned in colour with the golden russet of her dress and hair and eyes. Annarly sat beside her in earnest talk, as he had sat ever since their coming into the hall; since then neither had conceded even a pretence of recognising the existence of other people. When the one or two local guests, who had lingered on, came to take leave of their hostess, she for the moment waked to a recollection of their existence, made a few remarks in a charming manner, and then obviously went back in mind to where she was before. Annarly, who in spite of his thirty years was not really well versed in the ways of the world, certainly not of this world, did not acquit himself even so well as that. He remained completely absorbed until a rather pronounced yawn from one of the group by the fireplace arrested his attention and reminded him of the lateness of the hour and the way he had outstayed other people. He rose to say good-bye.
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About this edition
This free edition of Success by Una L. Silberrad comes from Project Gutenberg eBook #78012, released 2026-02-23. It is in the public domain in the United States, so you can read it here in full at no cost, on any phone, tablet or computer.
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