The Definite Object; A Romance of New York

The Definite Object is the second Jeffery Farnol book I’ve read. It’s also the second Jeffery Farnol book I’ve picked hoping to find out that it was an early regency romance in the vein of Georgette Heyer, as I’ve read that they  co-created the genre. I guess I missed the subtitle. But I find myself wondering whether the regencies are any different. Do they also all feature disaffected millionaires going incognito in order to hang out with poor people? Perhaps someday I will find out.

The disaffected millionaire in The Definite Object is Geoffrey Ravenslee, who likes to race cars and box with his chauffeur and (apparently) be cheated by his servants. He realizes that he’s not doing anything with his life, so when he finds young Spike Chesterton attempting to burgle his home, he follows Spike home to Hell’s Kitchen, hoping to find someone to fall in love with. He finds Hermione Chesterton, Spike’s sister, who is of course exceptionally beautiful, as well as virtuous and hardworking.

Christmas Stories: The Burglar and the Blizzard

Last night I went to Project Gutenberg’s Christmas Bookshelf and downloaded six stories — seven, if you count Kate Douglas Wiggin’s Romance of a Christmas Card, which I’ve been wanting to reread since last Christmas. I read one story last night and one this morning, and honestly? They were kind of awful. I came to these stories expecting morals, and the significance of Christmas being blown out of proportion, but I was disappointed.

The Burglar and The Blizzard, by Alice Duer Miller, is the story of a young millionaire named Geoffrey Holland. He’s exactly the same as all young millionaires in stories from this era: tall, handsome, and well-built, but kind of apathetic. If he was aged ten years and switched with Geoffrey Ravenslee from Jeffrey Farnol’s The Definite Object, which I read last week, no one would know the difference. 

Holland, his sister Mrs. May, and his millionaire friends all have country houses near a town called Hillsborough, and aside from Holland and Mrs. May, they’ve all been victims of a recent spate of burglaries. The burglar is notable for the fact that he takes only the most valuable objects in the house (at a house owned by a couple with bad taste, he finds nothing worth stealing). Mrs. May isn’t worried about her modest cottage being robbed, because the only things of value there are her silver tea set and her sable coat. Of course, by the end of the open chapter she’s received a telegram telling her that her house has been broken into and the coat and tea set are gone. You know: if the gun comes off in the first act, it goes off in the third, or whatever. Unfortunately, Miller forgets that rule after the first chapter.

The Talleyrand Maxim

After reading The Middle Temple Murder, I downloaded another J.S. Fletcher book: The Talleyrand Maxim (is this where Robert Ludlum got his book-naming scheme? There’s another one called The Rayner-Slade Amalgamation. I think I’m saving it for last.)

I started The Tallyrand Maxim, decided it wasn’t remotely like The Middle Temple Murder, realized that stories about blackmail tend to make me really uncomfortable, and abandoned it for a Joe Muller mystery.

Then I picked it up again, and immediately became completely absorbed.

Emma McChesney

There are, apparently, three books of stories about Emma McChesney, a travelling saleswoman, but I wish there were more. They’re by Edna Ferber, and they are…kind of fantastic, actually. I was skeptical, and I shouldn’t have been.

Emma McChesney is in her mid thirties, but looks younger. She has a teenage son named Jock, who has both faults and flashes of brilliance. She travels for the T.A. Buck Featherloom Skirt Company, and she is almost, but not quite, too good to be true.

When a Man Marries

I’m having trouble putting into words how much I liked When A Man Marries. The is the second Mary Roberts Rinehart book I’ve read, and it’s not much like Dangerous Days. For one thing, nothing particularly tragic happens. For another, it’s mostly pretty funny (I suspect these two things are related). Also, it’s a mystery novel. And at first, I thought  a lot about those differences, but then it occurred to me that the things that make the two books similar–good writing, for example–are at least as important. After that, I got really absorbed, and mostly stopped thinking about anything that wasn’t actually happening in the book for a while.

The Middle Temple Murder

The Middle Temple Murder, by J.S. Fletcher, is another bestselling mystery novel, this time from 1912. Apparently Woodrow Wilson was among its fans. And although there are some iffy bits–there’s something amusingly unlikely about the beginning, and one too many coincidences at the end, I think it deserves fans.

The main character, Frank Spargo, is a journalist, a sub-editor on a paper called The Watchman. Strolling home from work in the small hours of the morning, one of the policeman he always says hi to as he passes by is like, “Hey, check it out! We found a body; come see!” The policeman then invites Spargo to accompany the body to the morgue. Eventually an actual detective shows up, and invites Spargo to investigate the crime with him. It’s kind of bizarre.

American Bestsellers, 1900-1917

I’ve spent some time lately looking at lists of bestsellers from the early twentieth century. I probably won’t ever read all of these books, but the list seems like a good source of recommendations. And Project Gutenberg, as it turns out, has the list handily formatted with links to the available etexts. So here’s that, with the non-fiction sections deleted and maybe a little bit of commentary.

The Gold Bag

The first two Carolyn Wells mysteries I ever read were The Gold Bag and Vicky Van. I think the choice was dictated by them being the only two available on PG at the time, but it worked out well, since they sort of represent the best and the worst. I’ve read Vicky Van three or four times now, but I never reread The Gold Bag until last week.

The main thing I took away from my first reading of The Gold Bag was that Herbert Burroughs, the narrator/detective, was gullible and fond of leaping to conclusions. The book opens with Burroughs’ supervisor telling him, “Burroughs, if there’s a mystery to be unravelled; I’d rather put it in your hands than to trust it to any other man on the force…you go about it scientifically, and you never jump at conclusions, or accept them, until they’re indubitably warranted.” My Delicious bookmark (dated June 2006) says, “I’m sorry, an air of truth isn’t evidence, Mr. Burroughs.”

Actually, now that I’ve said that, I’m not sure anything else needs to be added. But I suppose I can’t let that stop me.

The Port of Adventure

"Nick thought her adorable in her gray motor bonnet"

The Port of Adventure is mostly typical Williamsons — part romance, part travelogue, and a dash of adventure — but something about it leaves an Elinor Glyn-ish taste in my mouth. Maybe it’s the girl from Europe (sort of) traveling through the U.S., as in Elizabeth Visits America, or the unhappy marriage to a European prince, as in The Reason Why and Three Weeks, or the villainess’ generally Glyn-ish aspect, or the red-haired, green-eyed writer who seems like she could have been based on Glyn herself. So, yeah, there are lots of reasons, and much as I enjoy the Williamsons, they don’t compare well when they try to edge into Glyn’s territory. They don’t have her flair for melodrama, or the sharp sense of humor that makes it bearable.

Still, I got pretty invested in the relationship between princess-by-marriage Angela, traveling as a young widow, and former cowboy Nick, using his new oil fortune to see more of the country. They really do seem to have things in common, beyond both being rich and good-looking, but it’s hard to believe that two people can simultaneously instinctively understand each other and constantly misinterpret each others’ actions. Also, there’s a scene where Nick rescues Angela from stampeding cattle in the canary yellow car he named after her, which is probably the most hilarious thing ever to happen in a Williamsons book.

Happy Captain Blood Day!

So, September 19th is the day Peter Blood is sentenced to slavery in Barbados — if he’d been tried any sooner, he would have just been sentenced to death, instead of having the opportunity to become the coolest pirate ever. So you should celebrate, preferably by reading — or rereading — some Sabatini. Here are a few suggestions.