It is difficult to pin down the date of the first edition - 1903, 1905, 1890s? Nelson's are one of the publishers who, annoying, did not put dates on many of their books in that period. It only matters in that I would like to know whether it was published before or after The Scarlet Pimpernel of Baroness Orczy arrived on the stage (1903) and then in book form (1905). Both publications feature a well-bred Englishmen spying on the French, often in heavy disguise. One is known as 'the Phantom', the other well-known by the refrain: They seek him here. They seek him there. Those Frenchies seek him everywhere. Is he in Heaven? Or is he in Hell? That damned, elusive pimpernel. When asked how the idea of the Scarlet Pimpernel came to her, she wrote: It was God's will... If Fox Russell's novel predated Orczy's, then God might have had a helping hand!
I haven't found out anything about Russell, not even his dates, but he was responsible for many humorous and sporting articles, as well as a series of books from 1897 onwards:
1897: The Haughtyshire Hunt 1897: The First Cruise of Three Middies 1899: Colonel Botcherby, M.S.H. 1900: The Boer's Blunder: A Veldt Adventure 1900: From a Bachelor Uncle's Diary 1901: Outridden 1901: A Judas of To-day 1901: Sporting Sorrows 1901: A Sportswoman's Love Letters 1904; In the Wrong Box 1904? or earlier: The Phantom Spy
(Information from: At the Circulating Library. A Database of Victorian Fiction 1837-1901.)
None were published by Nelson's.
The story, like the previous Blog's novel (The Smugglers of Haven Quay) is an enjoyable tale - what one once called a schoolboy's yarn! The author had clearly researched, in some detail, Napoleon's designs to invade England the exploits of Wellington and others in Spain and South West France. There is some humour in the descriptions of John Dare, the Phantom Spy, in his evasions of the Frenchies, with a neat explanation as to how, seemingly shot by a firing squad, he lived to a good old age. Another well-drawn character is Mr Nicholas Nobbs, the middle-aged pillar of the local chapel...[who] carried on no trade apparently, and when delicately questioned on the subject by neighbours, more curious than discreet, he at once ended all enquiries by laughingly saying that he had "a small independence" of his own. His rustic, near sedentary image belied the fact that he was the leader of a band of successful smugglers and that his summerhouse sat atop a tunnel which led down to a smuggling cave. Mr Septimus Soundings, the none too bright Excise Officer, who regularly pops in for a chat and a smoke, is undone in a witty chapter toward the end of the book, when he tries to arrest Admiral Sturdy, a bluff Royal Naval officer, in the mistaken belief he is one of the smuggling gang.
No comments:
Post a Comment