Books with author LOUIS TRACY

In The King of Diamonds, Mr. Tracy has given us a masterpiece of fiction. The entire story pulsates with life, love, adventure and mystery, and after every chapter the reader finds himself speculating as to the possible outcome, which, when it is finally reached, is satisfying in the extreme. "This is a daringly improbably story, but so sympathetically and well told that the reader follows it with enthralled and unquestioning interest. Its hero is Philip Anson, whose mother, sister of Sir Philip Morland, Bart., had married the Dieppe agent of a London firm of coal shippers to please herself and had offended her relatives. Husband and wife were seriously injured in a motor accident two years before the story opens. Mr. Ansen died in a few weeks, but his wife survives him in great poverty, without being able to obtain any aid from her brother and his wife. Lady Louisa Morland, who is scheming to induce Sir Philip to make her son by a first marriage heir. However, Mrs. Anson dies under circumstances detailed in the first chapter. Philip starts as a newspaper boy one thunderous evening, and is the means of saving from a carriage accident, caused by the storm, a young girl, Evelyn Atherley, whose uncle, Lord Vanstone, brutally strikes the lad for interfering. However, the boy ultimately profits by his courageous act, as he does by the storm. For, after he gets home to the wretched tenement in Johnson's Mews, Mile End Road, the meteor falls which contains the diamonds giving the title to this sensational tale. Philip makes excellent use of the wealth thus brought to him, and gains the readers good will, as do some other personages of the novel." -The Publishers' Circular and Booksellers Record "Well worth reading. The idea is daringly original in conception, and the plot is worked out with much reckless magnificence as one can only find its parallel in 'Monte Cristo.' But whereas the hero of Dumas' great romance lived for revenge, and triumphantly ticked off his enemies as they perished one by one, Mr. Tracy's hero shows such an example of magnanimity, and exhibits a spirit of charity so exceptionally Christian, that, for the sake of sensational romance, it is to be devoutly hoped, no other hero, will think himself called upon to imitate him....This new idea of 'pardon all round' is admirably managed in 'The King of Diamonds,' where the hero forgives every knave in the pack, much to the admiration, but, it must be added, to the honest indignation of the judicially discriminating Baron." -London Charivari

Louis Tracy (1863 - 1928) was a British journalist, and prolific writer of fiction. He used the pseudonyms Gordon Holmes and Robert Fraser, which were at times shared with M. P. Shiel, a collaborator from the start of the twentieth century. He was born in Liverpool to a well-to-do middle-class family. At first he was educated at home and then at the French Seminary at Douai. Around 1884 he became a reporter for a local paper - 'The Northern Echo' at Darlington, circulating in parts of Durham and North Yorkshire]; later he worked for papers in Cardiff and Allahabad. During 1892-1894 he was closely associated with Arthur Harmsworth, in 'The Sun' and 'The Evening News and Post'.

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“It’s fine!” said Arthur Warden, lowering his binoculars so as to glut his eyes with the full spectacle. “In fact, it’s more than fine, it’s glorious!” He spoke aloud in his enthusiasm. A stout, elderly man who stood near—a man with “retired tradesman” writ large on face and figure—believed that the tall, spare–built yachtsman was praising the weather. “Yes, sir,” he chortled pompously, “this is a reel August day. I knew it. Fust thing this morning I tole my missus we was in for a scorcher.” Warden gradually became aware that these ineptitudes were by way of comment. He turned and read the weather–prophet’s label at a glance. But life was too gracious at that moment, and he was far too well–disposed toward all men, that he should dream of inflicting a snub. “That was rather clever of you,” he agreed genially. “Now, though the barometer stood high, I personally was dreading a fog three hours ago.” The portly one gurgled. “I’ve got a glass,” he announced. “Gev’ three pun’ ten for it, but there’s a barrowmeter in my bones that’s worth a dozen o’ them things. I’ll back rheumatiz an’ a side o’ bacon any day to beat the best glass ever invented.” All unknowing, here was the touch of genius that makes men listen. Warden showed his interest. “A side of bacon!” he repeated. “Yes, sir. Nothing to ekal it. I was in the trade, so I know wot I’m talkin’ about. And, when you come to think of it, why not? Pig skin an’ salt—one of ‘em won’t have any truck wi’ damp—doesn’t want it an’ shows it—an’ t’other sucks it up like a calf drinkin’ milk. I’ve handled bacon in tons, every brand in the market, an’ you can’t smoke any of ‘em on a muggy day.” “Does your theory account for the old–fashioned notion that pigs can see the wind?” The stout man considered the point. It was new to him, and he was a Conservative. “I’m better acquent wi’ bacon,” he said stubbornly. “So I gather. I was only developing your very original idea, on the principle that “‘You may break, you may shatter, the vase if you will, But the scent of the roses will hang round it still.’” The ex–bacon–factor rapped an emphatic stick on the pavement. Though he hoped some of his friends would see him hob–nobbing “with a swell,” he refused to be made game of. “Wot ‘as scent got to do with it?” he demanded wrathfully. “Everything. Believe me, pigs have been used as pointers. And consider the porcine love of flowers. Why, there once was a pig named Maud because it would come into the garden.” Had Warden laughed he might have given the cue that was lacking. But his clean–cut, somewhat sallow face did not relax, and an angry man puffed away from him in a red temper. He caught scraps of soliloquy. “A pig named Maud!... Did anybody ever hear the like?... An’ becos it kem into a garden.... Might just as well ‘ave called it Maria.” Then Warden, left at peace with the world, devoted himself again to the exquisite panorama of Cowes on a sunlit Monday of the town’s great week. In front sparkled the waters of the Solent, the Bond Street of ocean highways. A breath of air from the west rippled over a strong current sweeping eastward. It merely kissed the emerald plain into tiny facets. It was so light a breeze that any ordinary sailing craft would have failed to make headway against the tide, and the gay flags and bunting of an innumerable pleasure fleet hung sleepily from their staffs and halyards. Yet it sufficed to bring a covey of white–winged yachts flying back to Cowes after rounding the East Lepe buoy. Jackyard topsails and bowsprit spinnakers preened before it. Though almost imperceptible on shore, it awoke these gorgeous butterflies of the sea into life and motion. Huge 23–meter cutters, such as White Heather II, Brynhild and Nyria, splendid cruisers like Maoona, errymaid, Shima, Creole, and Britomart, swooped grandly into the midst of the anchored craft as though bent on self–destruction.

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Louis Tracy (1863 - 1928) was a British journalist, and prolific writer of fiction. He used the pseudonyms Gordon Holmes and Robert Fraser, which were at times shared with M. P. Shiel, a collaborator from the start of the twentieth century. He was born in Liverpool to a well-to-do middle-class family. At first he was educated at home and then at the French Seminary at Douai. Around 1884 he became a reporter for a local paper - 'The Northern Echo' at Darlington, circulating in parts of Durham and North Yorkshire]; later he worked for papers in Cardiff and Allahabad. During 1892-1894 he was closely associated with Arthur Harmsworth, in 'The Sun' and 'The Evening News and Post'.