Trashy trashy books - further adventures in the world of Ethel M Dell and her brethen
Thank you everyone for your kind wishes!
For those who think people had better taste in books in older times, I bring you a bunch of book blurb advertisements for novels in the 1920s.
GREATHEART By Ethel M. Dell
There were two of them-as unlike as two men could be. Sir Eustace, big, domineering, haughty, used to sweeping all before him with the power of his personality.
The other was Stumpy, small, insignificant, quiet, with a little limp.
They clashed over the greatest question that may come to men-the love of a girl.
She took Sir Eustace just because she could not help herself-and was swept ahead on the tide of his passion.
And then, when she needed help most-on the day before the wedding-Stumpy saved her-and the quiet flame of his eyes was more than the brute power of his brother.
How did it all come out? Did she choose wisely? Is Greatheart more to be desired than great riches? The answer is the most vivid and charming story that Ethel M. Dell has written in a long time.
-------
The Hundredth Chance By Ethel M. Dell
The hero is a man of masterful force, of hard and rough exterior, who can remake a human being with the assurance of success with which he breaks a horse. Toward the heroine he is all love, patience, solicitude, but she sees in him only the brute and the master. To break down her hostility, and defeat unscrupulous craft which draws her relentlessly to the verge of disaster, the hero can rely only on the weight of his personality and innate tenderness. It is the Hundredth Chance; on it he stakes all.
----
Blue Aloes By Cynthia Stockley
Author of "Poppy," "The Claw," "Wild Honey," etc.
No writer can so unfailingly summons and materialize the spirit of the weird, mysterious South Africa as can Cynthia Stockley. She is a favored medium through whom the great Dark Continent its tales unfolds.
A strange story is this, of a Karoo farm,-a hedge of Blue Aloes, a cactus of fantastic beauty, which shelters a myriad of creeping things,-a whisper and a summons in the dead of the night,-an odor of death and the old.
There are three other stories in the book, stories throbbing with the sudden, intense passion and the mystic atmosphere of the Veldt.
----
The Beloved Sinner By Rachel Swete Macnamara
Author of the "Fringe of the Desert," "The Torch of Life," and "Drifting Waters"
One of the very prettiest of springtime romances-a tale of exuberant young spirits intoxicated with the springtime of living, of love gone adventuring on the rough road-a story, humorous with the gay impudences of a young Eve who is half-afraid and altogether delighted with her fairy-prince.
----
They Were Alone....
The magic of the desert night had closed about them. Cairo, friends,-civilization as she knew it-were left far behind. She, an unbeliever, was in the heart of the trackless wastes with a man whose word was more than law.
And yet, he was her slave!
"I shall ask nothing of you until you shall love me," he promised. "You shall draw your curtains, and until you call, you shall go undisturbed."
And she believed him!
Do you want to see luxury beyond your imagination to conjure,-feel the softness of silks finer than the gossamer web of the spider-hear the night voices of the throbbing desert, or sway to the jolting of the clanking caravan?
Egypt, Arabia pass before your eyes. The impatient cursing of the camel men comes to your ears. Your nostrils quiver in the acrid smoke of the little fires of dung that flare in the darkness when the caravan halts. The night has shut off prying eyes. Yashmaks are lowered. White flesh gleams against burnished bands of gold. The children of Allah are at home.
And the promise he had given her?...let Joan Conquest, who knows and loves the East, tell you in
DESERT LOVE
-----
"I have owned a hundred women!" he answered defiantly.
The girl recoiled as from a blow. Was this man who paraded his conquests before her the same one who had feasted so freely on her lips that moonlit night in Grand Canary?
She was his prisoner now. He had stolen her and brought her to his stronghold in the desert. Her father was also a captive. Pansy Langham's life had crashed in ruins about her. What good were her millions now? The mask had been removed. Raoul Le-Breton was the Sultan Casim El Ammeh!-a Mohammedan!
And yet she wanted no man's kisses but his. Love for him consumed her, but race and religion stood between them.
Little did she guess that the Arab had foreseen this minute, that he had trailed her father, Sir George for fifteen years. The Englishman, a captain at the time, had killed his father. Casim El Ammeh had not forgotten. Revenge was his at last!
He had intended having his way with her and then selling her as a slave-a fate more cruel than a white man could conceive. But love-an emotion an Arab scoffs at-had come to thwart him. Was he to forego his oath of an eye for an eye, or open the doors of his harem and seek forgetfulness?
Read
A Son of the Sahara
By Louise Gerard
Who gives you the real thrill of the Great Desert
----
FAMOUS NOVELS BY VICTORIA CROSS
LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW
It tears the garments of conventionality from woman, presenting her as she must appear to the Divine Eye.
HILDA AGAINST THE WORLD
Fancy a married man, denied divorce by law, falling desperately in love with a charming maiden waiting for love.
A GIRL OF THE KLONDIKE
A stirring story of love, intrigue and adventure, woven about a proud, reckless heroine.
SIX WOMEN
A half-dozen of the most vivid love stories that ever lit up the dusk of a tired civilization.
THE NIGHT OF TEMPTATION
The self-sacrifice of woman in love. Regina, the heroine, gives herself to a man for his own sake. The world, however, exacts a severe price for her unconventional conduct.
SIX CHAPTERS OF A MAN'S LIFE
A bold, brilliant, defiant presentation of the relations of men and women who find themselves in situations never before conceived.
TO-MORROW
A daring innovation of great strength and almost photographic intensity, that appeals to the lovers of sensational fiction; wise, witty, yet touchingly pathetic.
DAUGHTERS OF HEAVEN
As life cannot be described, but must be lived, so this book cannot be revealed-it must be read. Its daring situations and tense moments will thrill you.
OVER LIFE'S EDGE
No one but Victoria Cross could have written this thrilling tale of a girl who left the gayeties of London to dwell in a lonely cavern until the man, who loved her with the passion of impetuous youth, found her.
THE LIFE SENTENCE
A beautifully written story, full of life, nature, passion and pathos. The weaknesses of a proud, cultured woman lead to a strange climax.
My determination to get through the works of Ethel M. Dell continues apace with The Lamp in the Desert which has actually not managed to offend me so far. It is set in India thus is quite orientalizing but as all the characters are British, I don't have to deal with 'native' stereotypes much.
I am a bit puzzled at to why Ms. Dell seems fixated on dead children as necessary to the plot or why she likes to make her heroines widows, but at least the hero of this book (named Everard of all things!) has not killed the heroine's previous husband and has not attempted to rape her, which is already a plus. In fact when, in a delightfully lurid scene, he succumed to hallucionations brought about by malaria and thought she was his wife and kissed her despite her protests, he was utterly appalled when he came to himself and was planning to shoot himself with his army revolver, which I thought was a bit excessive. Heroine, meanwhile, decides to marry him only later for some reason (probably because she read ms. Dell's other books) to decide he killed her husband number 1. Which is rather unfair - she is in the wrong book for that!
Sample of purple prose:
She struggled to avoid them, but her strength was as a child's. He quelled her resistance with merciless force. He choked the cry she tried to utter with the fiery insistence of his kisses. He held her crushed against his heart, so overwhelming her with the volcanic fires of his passion that in the end she lay in his hold helpless and gasping, too shattered to oppose him further.
She scarcely knew when the fearful tempest began to abate. All sense of time and almost of place had left her. She was dizzy, quivering, on fire, wholly incapable of coherent thought, when at last it came to her that the storm was arrested.
She heard a voice above her, a strangely broken voice. "My God!" it said. "What-have I done?"
It sounded like the question of a man suddenly awaking from a wild dream. She felt the arms that held her relax their grip. She knew that he was looking at her with eyes that held once more the light of reason. And, oddly, that fact affected her rather with dismay than relief. Burning from head to foot, she turned her own away.
She felt his hand pass over her shamed and quivering face as though to assure himself that she was actually there in the flesh. And then abruptly-so abruptly that she tottered and almost fell-he set her free.
He turned from her. "God help me! I am mad!" he said.
She stood with throbbing pulses, gasping for breath, feeling as one who had passed through raging fires into a desert of smouldering ashes. She seemed to be seared from head to foot. The fiery torment of his kisses had left her tingling in every nerve.
He moved away to the table on which he had flung his revolver, and stood there with his back to her. He was swaying a little on his feet.
Without looking at her, he spoke, his voice shaky, wholly unfamiliar. "You had better go. I-I am not safe. This damned fever has got into my brain."
...
She watched him fascinated. Over his shoulder he spoke. "You will think me mad. Perhaps it is the most charitable conclusion you could come to. But I fully realize that when a thing is beyond an apology, it is an insult to offer one. The key of the door is under the pillow on the bed. Perhaps you will not mind finding it for yourself."
He sat down with the words in a heavy, dogged fashion, holding the revolver dangling between his knees. There was grim despair in his attitude; his look was that of a man utterly spent. It came to Stella at that moment that the command of the situation had devolved upon her, and with it a heavier responsibility than she had ever before been called upon to bear.
...
"Captain Monck!" she said.
Her voice sounded small and frightened even in her own ears. She clenched her hands with the effort to be strong.
He scarcely stirred. His eyes remained downcast. He spoke no word.
She bent a little. "Captain Monck, if you have fever, you had better go to bed."
He moved slightly, influenced possibly by the increasing steadiness of her voice. But still he did not look at her or speak.
She saw that his hold upon the revolver had tightened to a grip, and, prompted by an inner warning that she could not pause to question, she bent lower and laid her hand upon his arm. "Please give that to me!" she said.
He started at her touch; he almost recoiled. "Why?" he said.
His voice was harsh and strained, even savage. But the needed strength had come to Stella, and she did not flinch.
"You have no use for it just now," she said. "Please be sensible and let me have it!"
"Sensible!" he said.
His eyes sought hers suddenly, involuntarily, and she had a sense of shock which she was quick to control; for they held in their depths the torment of hell.
"You are wrong," he said, and the deadly intention of his voice made her quiver afresh. "I have a use for it. At least I shall have-presently. There are one or two things to be attended to first."
It was then that a strange and new authority came upon Stella, as if an unknown force had suddenly inspired her. She read his meaning beyond all doubting, and without an instant's hesitation she acted.
"Captain Monck," she said, "you have made a mistake. You have done nothing that is past forgiveness. You must take my word for that, for just now you are ill and not in a fit state to judge for yourself. Now please give me that thing, and let me do what I can to help you!"
Practical and matter-of-fact were her words. She marvelled at herself even as she stooped and laid a steady hand upon the weapon he held. Her action was purposeful, and he relinquished it. The misery in his eyes gave place to a dumb curiosity.
"Now," Stella said, "get to bed, and I will bring you some of Tommy's quinine."
She turned from him, revolver in hand, but paused and in a moment turned back.
"Captain Monck, you heard what I said, didn't you? You will go straight to bed?"
Her voice held a hint of pleading, despite its insistence. He straightened himself in his chair. He was still looking at her with an odd wonder in his eyes-wonder that was mixed with a very unusual touch of reverence.
"I will do-whatever you wish," he said.
"Thank you," said Stella. "Then please let me find you in bed when I come back!"
She turned once more to go, went to the door and opened it. From the threshold she glanced back.
He was on his feet, gazing after her with the eyes of a man in a trance.
She lifted her hand. "Now remember!" she said, and with that passed quietly out, closing the door behind her.
How can I refuse such delicious badness?
For those who think people had better taste in books in older times, I bring you a bunch of book blurb advertisements for novels in the 1920s.
GREATHEART By Ethel M. Dell
There were two of them-as unlike as two men could be. Sir Eustace, big, domineering, haughty, used to sweeping all before him with the power of his personality.
The other was Stumpy, small, insignificant, quiet, with a little limp.
They clashed over the greatest question that may come to men-the love of a girl.
She took Sir Eustace just because she could not help herself-and was swept ahead on the tide of his passion.
And then, when she needed help most-on the day before the wedding-Stumpy saved her-and the quiet flame of his eyes was more than the brute power of his brother.
How did it all come out? Did she choose wisely? Is Greatheart more to be desired than great riches? The answer is the most vivid and charming story that Ethel M. Dell has written in a long time.
-------
The Hundredth Chance By Ethel M. Dell
The hero is a man of masterful force, of hard and rough exterior, who can remake a human being with the assurance of success with which he breaks a horse. Toward the heroine he is all love, patience, solicitude, but she sees in him only the brute and the master. To break down her hostility, and defeat unscrupulous craft which draws her relentlessly to the verge of disaster, the hero can rely only on the weight of his personality and innate tenderness. It is the Hundredth Chance; on it he stakes all.
----
Blue Aloes By Cynthia Stockley
Author of "Poppy," "The Claw," "Wild Honey," etc.
No writer can so unfailingly summons and materialize the spirit of the weird, mysterious South Africa as can Cynthia Stockley. She is a favored medium through whom the great Dark Continent its tales unfolds.
A strange story is this, of a Karoo farm,-a hedge of Blue Aloes, a cactus of fantastic beauty, which shelters a myriad of creeping things,-a whisper and a summons in the dead of the night,-an odor of death and the old.
There are three other stories in the book, stories throbbing with the sudden, intense passion and the mystic atmosphere of the Veldt.
----
The Beloved Sinner By Rachel Swete Macnamara
Author of the "Fringe of the Desert," "The Torch of Life," and "Drifting Waters"
One of the very prettiest of springtime romances-a tale of exuberant young spirits intoxicated with the springtime of living, of love gone adventuring on the rough road-a story, humorous with the gay impudences of a young Eve who is half-afraid and altogether delighted with her fairy-prince.
----
They Were Alone....
The magic of the desert night had closed about them. Cairo, friends,-civilization as she knew it-were left far behind. She, an unbeliever, was in the heart of the trackless wastes with a man whose word was more than law.
And yet, he was her slave!
"I shall ask nothing of you until you shall love me," he promised. "You shall draw your curtains, and until you call, you shall go undisturbed."
And she believed him!
Do you want to see luxury beyond your imagination to conjure,-feel the softness of silks finer than the gossamer web of the spider-hear the night voices of the throbbing desert, or sway to the jolting of the clanking caravan?
Egypt, Arabia pass before your eyes. The impatient cursing of the camel men comes to your ears. Your nostrils quiver in the acrid smoke of the little fires of dung that flare in the darkness when the caravan halts. The night has shut off prying eyes. Yashmaks are lowered. White flesh gleams against burnished bands of gold. The children of Allah are at home.
And the promise he had given her?...let Joan Conquest, who knows and loves the East, tell you in
DESERT LOVE
-----
"I have owned a hundred women!" he answered defiantly.
The girl recoiled as from a blow. Was this man who paraded his conquests before her the same one who had feasted so freely on her lips that moonlit night in Grand Canary?
She was his prisoner now. He had stolen her and brought her to his stronghold in the desert. Her father was also a captive. Pansy Langham's life had crashed in ruins about her. What good were her millions now? The mask had been removed. Raoul Le-Breton was the Sultan Casim El Ammeh!-a Mohammedan!
And yet she wanted no man's kisses but his. Love for him consumed her, but race and religion stood between them.
Little did she guess that the Arab had foreseen this minute, that he had trailed her father, Sir George for fifteen years. The Englishman, a captain at the time, had killed his father. Casim El Ammeh had not forgotten. Revenge was his at last!
He had intended having his way with her and then selling her as a slave-a fate more cruel than a white man could conceive. But love-an emotion an Arab scoffs at-had come to thwart him. Was he to forego his oath of an eye for an eye, or open the doors of his harem and seek forgetfulness?
Read
A Son of the Sahara
By Louise Gerard
Who gives you the real thrill of the Great Desert
----
FAMOUS NOVELS BY VICTORIA CROSS
LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW
It tears the garments of conventionality from woman, presenting her as she must appear to the Divine Eye.
HILDA AGAINST THE WORLD
Fancy a married man, denied divorce by law, falling desperately in love with a charming maiden waiting for love.
A GIRL OF THE KLONDIKE
A stirring story of love, intrigue and adventure, woven about a proud, reckless heroine.
SIX WOMEN
A half-dozen of the most vivid love stories that ever lit up the dusk of a tired civilization.
THE NIGHT OF TEMPTATION
The self-sacrifice of woman in love. Regina, the heroine, gives herself to a man for his own sake. The world, however, exacts a severe price for her unconventional conduct.
SIX CHAPTERS OF A MAN'S LIFE
A bold, brilliant, defiant presentation of the relations of men and women who find themselves in situations never before conceived.
TO-MORROW
A daring innovation of great strength and almost photographic intensity, that appeals to the lovers of sensational fiction; wise, witty, yet touchingly pathetic.
DAUGHTERS OF HEAVEN
As life cannot be described, but must be lived, so this book cannot be revealed-it must be read. Its daring situations and tense moments will thrill you.
OVER LIFE'S EDGE
No one but Victoria Cross could have written this thrilling tale of a girl who left the gayeties of London to dwell in a lonely cavern until the man, who loved her with the passion of impetuous youth, found her.
THE LIFE SENTENCE
A beautifully written story, full of life, nature, passion and pathos. The weaknesses of a proud, cultured woman lead to a strange climax.
My determination to get through the works of Ethel M. Dell continues apace with The Lamp in the Desert which has actually not managed to offend me so far. It is set in India thus is quite orientalizing but as all the characters are British, I don't have to deal with 'native' stereotypes much.
I am a bit puzzled at to why Ms. Dell seems fixated on dead children as necessary to the plot or why she likes to make her heroines widows, but at least the hero of this book (named Everard of all things!) has not killed the heroine's previous husband and has not attempted to rape her, which is already a plus. In fact when, in a delightfully lurid scene, he succumed to hallucionations brought about by malaria and thought she was his wife and kissed her despite her protests, he was utterly appalled when he came to himself and was planning to shoot himself with his army revolver, which I thought was a bit excessive. Heroine, meanwhile, decides to marry him only later for some reason (probably because she read ms. Dell's other books) to decide he killed her husband number 1. Which is rather unfair - she is in the wrong book for that!
Sample of purple prose:
She struggled to avoid them, but her strength was as a child's. He quelled her resistance with merciless force. He choked the cry she tried to utter with the fiery insistence of his kisses. He held her crushed against his heart, so overwhelming her with the volcanic fires of his passion that in the end she lay in his hold helpless and gasping, too shattered to oppose him further.
She scarcely knew when the fearful tempest began to abate. All sense of time and almost of place had left her. She was dizzy, quivering, on fire, wholly incapable of coherent thought, when at last it came to her that the storm was arrested.
She heard a voice above her, a strangely broken voice. "My God!" it said. "What-have I done?"
It sounded like the question of a man suddenly awaking from a wild dream. She felt the arms that held her relax their grip. She knew that he was looking at her with eyes that held once more the light of reason. And, oddly, that fact affected her rather with dismay than relief. Burning from head to foot, she turned her own away.
She felt his hand pass over her shamed and quivering face as though to assure himself that she was actually there in the flesh. And then abruptly-so abruptly that she tottered and almost fell-he set her free.
He turned from her. "God help me! I am mad!" he said.
She stood with throbbing pulses, gasping for breath, feeling as one who had passed through raging fires into a desert of smouldering ashes. She seemed to be seared from head to foot. The fiery torment of his kisses had left her tingling in every nerve.
He moved away to the table on which he had flung his revolver, and stood there with his back to her. He was swaying a little on his feet.
Without looking at her, he spoke, his voice shaky, wholly unfamiliar. "You had better go. I-I am not safe. This damned fever has got into my brain."
...
She watched him fascinated. Over his shoulder he spoke. "You will think me mad. Perhaps it is the most charitable conclusion you could come to. But I fully realize that when a thing is beyond an apology, it is an insult to offer one. The key of the door is under the pillow on the bed. Perhaps you will not mind finding it for yourself."
He sat down with the words in a heavy, dogged fashion, holding the revolver dangling between his knees. There was grim despair in his attitude; his look was that of a man utterly spent. It came to Stella at that moment that the command of the situation had devolved upon her, and with it a heavier responsibility than she had ever before been called upon to bear.
...
"Captain Monck!" she said.
Her voice sounded small and frightened even in her own ears. She clenched her hands with the effort to be strong.
He scarcely stirred. His eyes remained downcast. He spoke no word.
She bent a little. "Captain Monck, if you have fever, you had better go to bed."
He moved slightly, influenced possibly by the increasing steadiness of her voice. But still he did not look at her or speak.
She saw that his hold upon the revolver had tightened to a grip, and, prompted by an inner warning that she could not pause to question, she bent lower and laid her hand upon his arm. "Please give that to me!" she said.
He started at her touch; he almost recoiled. "Why?" he said.
His voice was harsh and strained, even savage. But the needed strength had come to Stella, and she did not flinch.
"You have no use for it just now," she said. "Please be sensible and let me have it!"
"Sensible!" he said.
His eyes sought hers suddenly, involuntarily, and she had a sense of shock which she was quick to control; for they held in their depths the torment of hell.
"You are wrong," he said, and the deadly intention of his voice made her quiver afresh. "I have a use for it. At least I shall have-presently. There are one or two things to be attended to first."
It was then that a strange and new authority came upon Stella, as if an unknown force had suddenly inspired her. She read his meaning beyond all doubting, and without an instant's hesitation she acted.
"Captain Monck," she said, "you have made a mistake. You have done nothing that is past forgiveness. You must take my word for that, for just now you are ill and not in a fit state to judge for yourself. Now please give me that thing, and let me do what I can to help you!"
Practical and matter-of-fact were her words. She marvelled at herself even as she stooped and laid a steady hand upon the weapon he held. Her action was purposeful, and he relinquished it. The misery in his eyes gave place to a dumb curiosity.
"Now," Stella said, "get to bed, and I will bring you some of Tommy's quinine."
She turned from him, revolver in hand, but paused and in a moment turned back.
"Captain Monck, you heard what I said, didn't you? You will go straight to bed?"
Her voice held a hint of pleading, despite its insistence. He straightened himself in his chair. He was still looking at her with an odd wonder in his eyes-wonder that was mixed with a very unusual touch of reverence.
"I will do-whatever you wish," he said.
"Thank you," said Stella. "Then please let me find you in bed when I come back!"
She turned once more to go, went to the door and opened it. From the threshold she glanced back.
He was on his feet, gazing after her with the eyes of a man in a trance.
She lifted her hand. "Now remember!" she said, and with that passed quietly out, closing the door behind her.
How can I refuse such delicious badness?