Books with title The Lure of the Mask Annotated

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Excerpt from The Lure of the MaskAs the invisible comes suddenly out of the future to assume distinct proportions which either make or mar us, so did this unknown cantatrice come out of the fog that night and enter into Hillard's life, to readjust its ambitions, to divert its aimless course, to give impetus to it, and a directness which hitherto it had not known.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

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The Lure of the Mask is a 1908 novel by Harold MacGrath that was the fourth-best selling book in the United States for that year.In 1906-07, MacGrath made visits to Italy, and his impressions from those trips inspired the novel.The story opens with a jump--literally. A young New Yorker, rich, of course, hears from his window on a night of fog and mist a woman's voice singing divinely. He falls in love with it head over heels and he falls downstairs in about the same way, he is such a hurry to see the singer. But by the time her reaches the street, lo! she has vanished, and only a policeman remains. Late on, this young, adventurous Mr. Hillard again meets the young, adventurous singer under most mystifying circumstances. They dine together, but she comes in mask. What the voice has begun, the masks puts the finishing touches to. From then on Hillard is full forty fathoms deep in love and curiosity. Then the scene shifts to Italy, with the shifting fortunes of an American comic opera company, stranded at Venice. The beautiful singer becomes the prima donna of this company. The soubrette is one Kitty Killigrew, and around her flourishes a most enticing, exciting and enlivening subplot. She dances her way straight into your heart. Amusing things happen at Venice. Thrilling things happen at Monte Carlo. At Florence the climax is reached, and it makes you fairly gasp with its intense interest. At Bellagio, the loveliest of lovely spots in the land of love, the curtain goes down on happy lovers.

Excerpt from The Lure of the MaskAs the invisible comes suddenly out of the future to assume distinct proportions which either make or mar us, so did this unknown mutatrice come out of the fog that night and enter into Hillard's life, to readjust its ambitions, to divert its aimless course. To give impetus to it, and a directness which hitherto it had not knoivn.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

1908. With illustrations by Harrison Fisher and Carl Anderson. MacGrath, a prolific writer, wrote for newspapers until 1890 when he published his first novel Arms and the Woman. The Lure of the Mask begins: Out of the unromantic night, out of the somber blurring January fog, came a voice lifted in song, a soprano, rich, full and round, young yet matured, sweet and mysterious as a night-bird's, haunting and elusive as the murmur of the sea in a shell: a lilt from La Fille de Madame Ango, a light opera long since forgotten in New York. Hillard, genuinely astonished, lowered his pipe and listened. To sit dreaming by an open window, even in this unlovely first month of the year, in that grim unhandsome city which boasts of its riches and still accepts with smug content its rows upon rows of ugly architecture, to sit dreaming, then, of red-tiled roofs, of cloud-caressed hills, of terraced vineyards, of cypresses in their dark aloofness, is not out of the natural order of things; but that into this idle and pleasant dream there should enter so divine a voice, living, feeling, pulsing, this was not ordinary at all. See other titles by this author available from Kessinger Publishing.

In this the third of Boothby's Dr. Nikola novels, Nikola applies his almost hypnotic persuasion to convince an out-of-luck Australian, formerly from England, named Gilbert Pennethorne to assist Nikola unwittingly in an evil scheme. Nikola takes advantage of Pennethorne's intense desire for revenge against a former boss in Australia who stole information about the location of a gold field that would have made Pennethorne immensely wealthy. Using that information the boss made himself rich, living a high life in London, while Pennethorne remained penniless. Nikola contrives a plan and a device for Pennethorne to commit the perfect murder of the wealthy thief. Unknowingly, Pennethorne thus becomes a party to another one of Nikola's insidious schemes.