A thoroughly enjoyable read, H.G.Wells always precisely manages to deliver the natural consciousness of relationships within changing eras. The narrative is finely told in a diarist method, allowing for hypocrisies to be revealed through written bias against scenarios and actions.

One of my favourite passages from this book, first published in 1938.

"I am, I realize, muddy-minded. My mind is not comprehensive enough and it is too congested by minor issues and impulsions, to take a clear view of existence. It is encumbered like a crystal trying to form in a magma loaded with irrelevant matter. But nevertheless it has a considerable apprehension of potentialities. The shape of the crystal, the form of this world is perceptible to me. It is common lot to be muddy-minded; I am muddy-minded, you are muddy-minded, he is muddy-minded; past, present and future indicative you can conjugate it; nevertheless I believe, that by getting numbers of people to think as hard as they can and state as clearly as they can, and then by bringing their results together, gradually, steadily, a clearing-up is possible."

Just one of the many brilliant passages of which I chewed heavily through one of my bookmarks with the usual tagging of pages with phrases and thoughts that inspired me. Although heavily bound in a narrative that focuses on the character of Dolores, this novel is actually more about the second level of adulthood, reaching forty and what that means to someone who has experienced what H.G.Wells describes as a 'hybrid' life, a modern life, full of divorces and changing wants for existence.

Worth reading, especially if you are only accustomed to H.G.Wells speculative fiction. ( )

Why is it that while some of the other books by H.G.Wells,have such large a number of readers on LibraryThing (7,188 for War of the Worlds for example) this excellent title has only 7 to it's name. The answer no doubt is that like me they had not previously come across it. Now that is a great pity as this is a story that deserves to be better known and more widely read.
It should be bracketed together with 'The History of Mr Polly' and 'Love and Mr Lewisham' and 'Kipps'.
Stephen Wilbeck is one of H.G.Wells select number of 'small men' who feature in the books mentioned above. After an abortive attempt at marriage which quickly fails,he meets and again weds the Dolores of the title.It is with the escalating horrors and the gradual falling apart of the marriage that most of the story is concerned. Dolores is in short a fiend in human guise. She takes over the life of Wilbeck and almost wrecks it,driving him to near despair. This sounds a depressing book,but in fact it is really funny in a way that only Wells can write. Just to give one instance - the episode in which Bayard,the male dog belonging to Dolores meets the female dog who belongs to an aged Baroness,with unfortunate results,is hilarious.
Truly a (largely) forgotten masterpiece. ( )