Anthony Lyveden

Anthony Lyveden is a 1921 adventure novel by the English author Dornford Yates (Cecil William Mercer).
It was first published in monthly instalments in The Windsor Magazine.[2]
It was Mercer's first attempt at a full-length novel, and was succeeded by Valerie French which continued the story of the main characters.

Anthony Lyveden
1925 dustjacket
AuthorDornford Yates
GenreNovel
PublisherWard Lock & Co[1]
Publication date
1921[1]
Media typePrint
Pages308[1]
Followed byValerie French 

Plot

Anthony Lyveden DSO, a destitute ex-officer, is forced to take a job as a footman at the Gramarye estate. The estate's owner, Colonel Winchester, becomes mad and leaves Lyveden in charge under a power of attorney. The situation drives Lyveden himself to madness.

Background

The author was not a happy man at the time, his father having committed suicide early in 1921, and Mercer's biographer AJ Smithers reports a suggestion that at this date he was not far from suffering a nervous breakdown.[3] He defied The Windsor Magazine's tradition that every episode should end with a lovers' meeting, though he was pressed hard by the magazine's editor.[4]

Chapters
Chapter Book Title Windsor Title Date Volume Issue Pages Illustrator
I The Way Of A Man In The First Place January 1921 LIII 313 101-116 Norah Schlegel
II The Way Of A Maid In The Second Place February 1921 LIII 314 205-220 Norah Schlegel
III The Voice Of The Turtle In The Third Place March 1921 LIII 315 311-324 Norah Schlegel
IV The Golden Bowl Livery Of Seisin April 1921 LIII 316 411-425 Norah Schlegel
V An High Look And A Proud Heart A Month's Wages May 1921 LIII 317 517-531 Norah Schlegel
VI The Comfort Of Apples Gramarye June 1921 LIV 318 3-16 Norah Schlegel
VII Nehustan Grey Matter July 1921 LIV 319 109-124 Norah Schlegel
VIII The Power Of The Dog Ex-Parte Motions August 1921 LIV 320 223-239 Norah Schlegel
IX Vanity Of Vanities The Return Of The Spirit September 1921 LIV 321 337-355 Norah Schlegel

Illustrations

The illustrations from the Windsor stories by Norah Schlegel (1879-1963) were not included in the book version.

Critical reception

Smithers considered Anthony Lyveden to be a book of varying quality, and too episodic to be truly called a novel.[5] He criticised the characterisations, suggesting that a reader might with some justice think the hero a pompous prig, one of the young women a humourless, suspicious creature, and the other a trollop manquée.[4]

The original dustjacket included the following quote from the Glasgow Citizen -

  • "There is no man writing to-day who manages to infuse a story with so much wit of the airy, bantering kind, and behind it all there is often a serious note. Not only that, but when Mr Yates pauses in his stream of witty things, pauses but for a moment to describe a scene or a woman, in a few sentences he paints such a picture that the lover of fine phrases and words must need go over it again for the sheer joy of reading it."

References
  1. "British Library Item details". primocat.bl.uk. Retrieved 15 May 2020.
  2. Smithers 1982, p. 103.
  3. Smithers 1982, p. 104-105.
  4. Smithers 1982, p. 105.
  5. Smithers 1982, p. 104.

Bibliography
  • Smithers, AJ (1982). Dornford Yates. London: Hodder and Stoughton. ISBN 0 340 27547 2.
  • Usborne, Richard (1974). Clubland Heroes. London: Barrie & Jenkins. ISBN 0 214 20012 4.
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