George Manville Fenn, English writer of juvenile stories, was born in London January 3, 1831. He was educated at private schools, then attended Battersea Training College for Teachers from 1851 to 1854. He was Master of a small school in Lincolnshire for a time, then became a printer and published a small magazine of poetry, “Modern Metre,” in 1862. Two years later he was part owner of the Hertfordshire and Essex Observer, another unsuccessful venture. He then began writing for various periodicals, such as Chamber’s Journal and All the Year Round, and was editor of Cassell’s Magazine in 1870, and of Once a Week from 1873 to 1879. He soon began to pour out a flood of books for boys, as well as a few novels, many of which were reprinted in America, and before his death he had published between 175 and 200. He was married in 1855 to Susanna Leake, and by her had two sons and six daughters. He died August 26, 1909.

The earliest European settlers in South Africa were mostly Dutch. They were known as Boers, the Dutch word for farmer. They were doing well, and even though the British had come to rule the country, their comfortable and profitable existence was all that most of them wanted. However, an Irishman of the name of Moriarty thought otherwise, and urged them to rebel against the British, simply because there is a class of Irish people that enjoy fights, and the English are their nearest neighbours, and Ireland was part of Great Britain.

Val Moray is the son of John Moray, who is farming in South Africa, and he has a brother, Bob. There is also a Kaffir worker on the farm, Joe, or by his preference Joeboy. Joeboy is a co-hero of the story. Moriarty arrives with a few of the Boers and demands that Val be handed over to him to go and fight the British. Val has to go, but manages to escape. He gets to a place where his father has whispered to him would be where Joeboy was to wait for him. They meet up with a Light Horse unit of the British army, where Val meets an old friend, Denham, and they take part in various skirmishes against the Boers, in which they are injured and captured, but manage to escape with the help of Bob and John.

There is plenty of action, but one can’t help feeling that the author has bitten off more than he can chew, as these skirmishes in real life became more than that, and the whole thing became a real, if pointless, war.

The first edition of this book is dated 1890. The edition used is dated 1890. The publisher was W & R Chambers, Ltd., London and Edinburgh. The number of pages is 383.

George Bruton, son of Captain Bruton is a young teenager. His father’s plantation is in Georgia. The time is around the middle of the eighteenth century. Although not keen on the idea of slavery, Captain Bruton determines that he will buy one of them and will try to treat him extremely well. The man has a son, whom the family nickname Pompey, Pomp for short. Eventually these two become relaxed, realising that there will be no hard treatment for them, and the two boys, George and Pomp, become fast friends. They have various adventures, including attacks by alligators, floods, fire, Red Indians, Spaniards, snakes, ants, and several other nasties.

The book very largely consists of dialogue between the two boys, starting at the point when Pomp can barely speak English, which he soon masters after a fashion (which his father never does), and going on to the point when Captain Bruton decides to free the two slaves, who had comported themselves well during a prolonged series of attacks by Indians, and later by Spaniards from Florida as well.

It’s quite a long book, but the action is well-sustained, and you will enjoy it.

The first edition of this book is dated 1890. The edition used is dated 1890. The publisher was Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, London. The number of pages is 552.

Marcus is eighteen, and his father had been a great Roman General, Cracis, who had fallen from grace some years before and was living quietly, farming in a small way in southern Italy. An old ex-soldier, Serge, works on the farm, and is helping to bring Marcus up. Marcus would like to be a soldier, and is encouraged in this by Serge, but his father has forbidden any discussion of the topic.

One day a stranger comes to the door. This turns out to be none other than Caius Julius, later Caesar, who begs Marcus’ father to join him in a war against the Gauls. He agrees, and goes, having made Marcus and Serge promise that they would not try to follow him.

But they do, independently, and then meet accidentally. Serge was being attacked by bandits, and Marcus sees this happening and rushes to the rescue, so they are reunited, later to be joined also by the household dog, Lupe, who has tracked them across Italy. On reaching Rome they are just in time to join the last unit of the Roman army as it leaves for the war. They make their way across the mountains and into Gaul (France), where battles ensue, in which they distinguish themselves, and are brought to the notice of the Generals, whom they had rescued from personal disaster during the battle. So Marcus’ military career is assured.

The first edition of this book is dated 1904. The edition used is dated 1904. The publisher was Ernest Nister, London; E.P. Dutton & Co, New York. The number of pages is 384.

As per the title, the story revolves round the cliffs of the north shore of Devon, in South West England. It is 1752. There are three local teenage boys, who are all boarders at the nearby Barnstaple Grammar School. It is the summer holidays. Bob Chowne is the son of a local doctor, and is a bit cross in his manner; Bigley Uggleston is the son of a local fisherman (or smuggler), and is a very pleasant-mannered boy; while Sep Duncan, the “I” of the story, is the son of Arthur John Duncan, a naval officer, who has just bought an extensive stretch of the cliffs.

The boys decide to move a rock from the top of the cliff, to the bottom. They use explosives, and there is exposed a rich vein of galena, a lead and silver ore, so Sep’s father begins a mine, which does very well.

The boys get up to various daring escapades, which generally end up in near-disaster, from which they are rescued by various turns of fortune, including being rescued from way out at sea by a Frenchman, a smuggler of course, who is in league with Bigley’s father.

There is a French attack on the coast, but they were definitely looking for the twenty boxes of silver bullion Sep’s father has amassed. Luckily they don’t get away with it.

The first edition of this book is dated 1887. The edition used is dated 1887. The publisher was Blackie & Son, 49-50 Old Bailey, London E.C. The number of pages is 376.

In some ways this book is reminiscent of “The Lost Middy”, by the same author, but I suppose that with a similar theme, a nosey midshipman taken prisoner by a gang of smugglers, there are bound to be other points of similarity. Anyway, it is a good fast-moving story, with lots of well-drawn human interest.

It starts off with a comic scene, where the Excise patrol vessel is cruising near an area suspected of being heavily involved with smuggling. Suddenly a large object is seen swimming in the water, and it turns out to be a cow. Then there’s all the business of milking the cow on the deck of a sailing-vessel. Pretty soon, however it gets serious, and we meet various characters living nearby. Soon the inquisitive midshipman is taken prisoner, and it falls to another teenager, the son of one of the chief rogues, to bring him food. Both boys become friendly with each other, but the midshipman can only express it by appearing to hate the farm-fisher boy, whom he considers to be socially far beneath him. The farm-boy tries so hard to be kind to the midshipman, who is so rude in return.

Eventually the midshipman escapes, the smugglers are caught, and the farm-boy becomes a seaman on the Excise vessel.

The first edition of this book is dated 1890. The edition used is dated 1910. The publisher was Henry Frowde, Hodder & Stoughton, London. The number of pages is 368.

Lindon, known as Don, is a boy in his late teens who has left school, and who lives with his mother and uncle Josiah, his father being dead, and works as a clerk in the office, the business being sugar and tobacco importation, in Bristol, England, which he does not much like.

One day some money is missing from the office. It’s pretty obvious who the thief is, but Uncle Josiah continues to accuse Don. Another worker has a row with his new young wife, and Don and he (Jem) decide to go away for a bit, both feeling rather ill-used. Unfortunately they are taken that night by the press-gang, and after some attempts to get away, they sail away to New Zealand. Here they manage to escape from the ship, though the search for them is keen. They fall in with some Maoris, among whom lives an Englishman, who is actually an escaped convict, but a good chap nonetheless. They assist the Maoris in their own battles against other tribes.

The scene turns to some English settlers. They become friendly with our heroes. A Maori tribe attacks then, having been set up to do so by three villains, who have also escaped from the convict settlement at Norfolk Island. They hold their own, but there is a timely intervention by the police. One of the three villains turn out to have been the man who actually stole the money from Uncle Josiah’s office. From this point things begin to turn out for the better, and the two heroes return to England, and all is forgiven.

The first edition of this book is dated 1896. The edition used is dated 1896. The publisher was S.W. Partridge & Co. Ltd, Old Bailey, London. The number of pages is 408.

This is a short book by G.M. Fenn’s usual standards, but you will enjoy reading it. The hero is John Grange, a young gardener on Mrs. Mostyn’s estate, who finds himself to be in love with Mary Ellis, the daughter of the bailiff, James Ellis. But as he is no more than an under-gardener Ellis is angry with him for even thinking of Mary.

There is an accident when John has ascended a large cedar tree that had lost a bough in a gale, and a broken branch needed to be tidied up. John falls from where he was sawing, onto the ground, landing on his head. He recovers from the concussion, but is now blind.

His rival not only for Mary’s hand but also for promotion to Head Gardener when Dunton, the present Head Gardener, now very old, dies, is Daniel Barnett, who of course gets the job. But he is a nasty man, not very good at his work, while the blind John can do his work almost as well as before, working by touch. Barnett plays a number of most unkind tricks on his rival John. Eventually John disappears without trace and rumour is rife that Daniel Barnett had made away with him, so that he might have a clear run to Mary’s hand—not that Mary is interested in him.

There is a surprise ending to the story, of course.

All the characters are beautifully drawn, and this little book is quite a masterpiece. It was published by the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge, and must have been within their guidelines, without being excessively pious. Do read it—it won’t take you long.

The first edition of this book is dated 1894. The edition used is dated 1894. The publisher was Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, London. The number of pages is 236.

This story is so packed with action that it is hard to know where to begin. There is a small colony of Europeans in this part of Siam (now Thailand), and there is the King in his Palace, a very modern-thinking man, who loves his people and works incessantly for their good. There is a sort of second King, who takes the totally opposite view of progress, and wants to halt and reverse the steps forward taken by the King. One of the two boys in the title is the son of an English resident, and the other is the princely son of the King, the heir to the throne. The second King initiates an uprising, and all the houses of the English are torched. The boys play a big part in sorting all this out.

But before the uprising begins, there are several interesting descriptions. One of these is when some natives bring a huge serpent in a basket for the Doctor’s collection, but when the basket is opened the serpent is not there: it had escaped! What a scene transpires as they all hunt frantically for where the wretched thing had got to. Another detailed and well-written description is of a crocodile hunt. Worth reading.

The first edition of this book is dated 1898. The edition used is dated 1936. The publisher was Dean & Son Ltd, 6 La Belle Sauvage, Ludgate Hill, London. The number of pages is 242.

This is a very short book, probably intended for a younger market than most of Fenn’s books. An old seaman finds a ragged and hungry young boy, to whom he talks, finding out that the boy was being brought up by an aunt and her brother. The uncle used to beat the boy too severely to bear, and he had run away from home. The seaman, Jack Jeens, decides to take charge of the boy, but both of them are taken by the press-gang, and end up serving on HMS Victory. The boy, Phil Leigh, gets on well with the other seamen, but is especially fond of Jack. At first he doesn’t get on well with the other ship’s boys, but one day they are chasing each other round the rigging, and one of the boys, Tom Dodds, falls. Phil is made, as a punishment for causing the fall, to be Tom’s nurse, for Tom has broken his leg badly.

In the next scene we find ourselves in the midst of the Battle of Trafalgar, and Phil’s protector, Jack, is very badly wounded, so now Phil has a second person to nurse.

In the final scene we are back in Portsmouth, where the Aunt appears, and tells Phil that the Uncle has gone away, and that he should come home. Phil is unwilling to leave Jack, but the Aunt promises to have him come with them, and be nursed at her house, so that is where the story is complete.

The first edition of this book is dated 1904. The edition used is dated 1900. The publisher was Ernest Nister, London. The number of pages is 36.

Glyn Severn and the Maharajah of Dour, both about 15 or 16, have been sent together to an English Boarding School. Glyn’s father has been for many years a Colonel in the Maharajah’s father’s army, but now the old Maharajah is dead, and his son, known at school as “Singh”, has inherited the title. The Colonel is Singh’s guardian.

There are the usual schoolboyish rivalries and fights, in particular involving a nasty individual called Slegge. A menagerie owner lives nearby, and among his animals is an elephant who is sometimes in a bad mood. It turns out that Glyn and Singh, who have had dealings with elephants in India, are rather good at bringing it under control.

Singh has brought one of his Princely regalia, a heavily bejewelled belt. One day it disappears. Several people are known to be short of cash, so are suspected of the theft. Nearly half the book is spent in chasing out the culprit, but we get there in the end.

However, there is a surprise ending to the book.

It should be mentioned that the title is a little misleading, for “schooldays” covers well over a decade, but the action in this book covers only a few days.

The first edition of this book is dated 1904. The edition used is dated 1904. The publisher was W & R Chambers, Ltd, 38 Soho Square, W. The number of pages is 412.

Lawrence is a boy in his late teens, who has consumption, which makes him feel very tired and helpless. He says one day that he would love a holiday somewhere hot and sunny. He has no relations, but there is a guardian, a local lawyer; and a doctor and a retired professor elect to go to Turkey with him, to look at the antiquities.

They travel first to Greece, where they find a lot of dishonesty, in particular in the crew of the little ship in which they sail to Turkey. Luckily they had sent their luggage on ahead, but the experiences they had were not very nice. They had already employed a very charming and resourceful Turk as guide.

But when they get to Turkey, they find that as they travel inland people become progressively less helpful, until eventually they are captured by bandits, and a ransom is demanded. How do they get out of this? And is Turkey still like this?

An exciting thriller. Recommended.

The first edition of this book is dated 1887. The edition used is dated 1890. The publisher was Blackie & Son, Ltd, Old Bailey, London E.C. The number of pages is 346.

A number of the actors in this tale speak in a broad Lincolnshire Fenland dialect, which may make it a little hard for some readers. Some of the more unusual words are annotated in square brackets.

The Squire sees the gradually encroaching bog and marsh in his land, and realises that with drainage he could reclaim this as good farm land. On the other hand some of the locals would rather see the fen remain, along with their various occupations, and the wonderful and fragile wet-land natural history. When digging begins there are a number of nasty incidents—torching of houses, malicious woundings of horses and cows, gunshot wounds to humans, and even murders.

A constable is called in, and takes a dislike to Dick, the Squire’s son, and to his friend Tom. He tries to pin the blame on them. At times even Dick’s father is inclined to think that way, too. But eventually the culprit is found. There are the tense moments typical of this author, and you will perhaps learn a lot about fenland natural history. A good read, and better still to listen to it.

The first edition of this book is dated 1888. The edition used is dated 1920. The publisher was Blackie & Son Ltd., London, Glasgow and Bombay. The number of pages is 375.

Joe Carstairs is a boy on a farm in Australia. His father is a keen naturalist who, some years before had set off for New Guinea in search of specimens, and never been heard of again. Joe is old enough to mount a search expedition, and takes with him a local doctor and an aboriginal worker on his farm. They find themselves joined by a stowaway, Jimmy, whose father is a squatter (farmer) nearby, together with his dog, Gyp.

This team sets off, arrive in New Guinea, hire some more porters, and travel guided by some sixth sense straight to where Mr. Carstairs has been kept a prisoner, along with another Englishman, whose mind has gone, under the stress of his imprisonment.

There are the usual close shaves and tense moments, but finally they achieve their end, and return home triumphantly.

The first edition of this book is dated 1885. The edition used is dated 1929. The publisher was Blackie & Son, Ltd, 50 Old Bailey, London. The number of pages is 376.

This book is set in the Court of George the First, a Hanoverian King who was not very popular. To make himself feel more comfortable he had introduced into his Court a number of German people, and also Dutch ones. The hero of the story is 17-year old Frank Gowan, who is a page in the ante-room of the Prince of Wales, the King’s eldest son. His father is an officer in the King’s Guard. Another page is Andrew, whose father is pro-Jacobite, as Andrew is himself.

One evening a German Baron deliberately insults Frank’s father, and a duel ensues, in which the German is very badly wounded, but eventually recovers. However, Frank’s father, who is very loyal to the King, is sentenced to be kicked out of his Regiment, and to leave the country.

The rest of the book is a series of searches for Frank’s father, Sir Robert Gowan, roof-top escapes, working out who are the spies, and who the heroes in disguise. Most of the action takes place in the Palace, in the Park which is still adjacent (and a very pretty part of London), and in a house in a street just the other side of the Park from Saint James’s Palace. As always with this author there are a number of close shaves.

The first edition of this book is dated 1896. The edition used is dated 1900. The publisher was SW Partridge & Co. The number of pages is 410.

Steve Young is an orphan whose uncle, Captain Young, has disappeared on a voyage to the Spitzbergen area, well to the north of Britain. Some of the Captain’s friends charter a Norwegian vessel to go in search of him, and, much to the disgust of the ship’s doctor, who thinks boys are nothing but a nuisance, Steve goes with them.

Steve is a sixteen year old, unconscious of his own good looks, but needing a few hard lessons in life, which the trip provides in plenty. Encounters with Polar Bears, the intense cold of the arctic winter, gales and storms, strong currents, ice floes, the total darkness of the winter, and the occasional bad humour of various of the men of the rescue party.

George Manville Fenn is a master of suspense, and in this book he reveals his usual talents. All of the characters are very well drawn, and we are even amused by the cowardly and idle antics of a young Scottish Highlander, who is not at all typical of the noble and brave Highlander.

Eventually they find Captain Young and most of his crew, and off home they go.

The first edition of this book is dated 1893. The edition used is dated 1893. The publisher was S W Partridge, Old Bailey, London. The number of pages is 408.

A small private naturalist’s expedition is about to take place up one of the Paraguay rivers. The eponymous hero, Rob Harlow, is a teenager. They are going to be rowed up the river, and the larger vessel that had brought then there, with its Italian captain, is to wait for them. The captain’s son, Giovanni, is very keen to come with them, and his father thinks it would be a very good idea. The other adults on the trip are not so happy about the responsibility, but eventually he is allowed to come. He is about the same age as our hero, Rob.

There ensue the usual desperate situations we always get from this author. Serpents; people getting lost and eventually found, having lost their reason; attacks by Indians; insects; pumas; jaguars; and various other problems with animals. There are even quarrels between the boys, arising from a silly misunderstanding.

It’s good stuff, and will be numbered among G Manville Fenn’s best, which is rather a long list.

The first edition of this book is dated 1907. The edition used is dated 1907. The publisher was S W Partridge & Co Ltd, London. The number of pages is 408.

In this excellent book of smuggling life on the south coast of England, dating about 1830, from some of the passing comments made by the author, we read of the adventures of two boys living on a small off-shore island. One is the son of the local doctor, the other the son of the squire, or owner of the land round about. The boys are friendly with an old fisherman called Daygo. It is thought that he is of Spanish descent, from the Armada, but despite his name and appearance, he denies it. He likes taking the boys out fishing, but feeds then a load of yarns about the safety of a particular part of the cliffs, saying that vessels getting too close to it have been known to disappear. This is actually quite true in a way because there is a huge cave, quite big enough to accommodate a small vessel.

The boys borrow Daygo’s boat, without his leave, and explore the forbidden cave. Of course they discover all the recently smuggled goods. But a few days later they are in there, having discovered another way in by land, and are captured by the smugglers, who are French, and kidnapped. After that there are all sorts of exciting and perilous situations, and it looks likely that the boys will not come out of it alive.

But they do, of course! A good read.

The first edition of this book is dated 1895. The edition used is dated 1894. The publisher was S W Partridge & Co, 8 & 9 Paternoster Row, London. The number of pages is 410.

The boy hero of the book, his father and his three uncles live in Canonbury, London, and run a factory in Bermondsey, the other side of the Thames in London. But they feel they need to expand, and they buy a steel working business in the North of England. Here they try to introduce various profitable practices, such as improved methods for working the steel, and various ingenious and new items of factory equipment.

But these new ideas are objected-to by the Trades Unions, and the despicable behaviour of the work-force is due to this attitude. All sorts of the most dreadful and wicked deeds are perpetrated, and unpleasant things are done to the few workmen who seem to be coming round to sense. The Uncles reflect on how much more amenable and sensible a London workforce would have been in the same circumstances. But eventually various incidents occur in which it can be seen what excellent people the hero and his Uncles really are, and the whole town starts to welcome them. Hence the title of the book—“Patience Wins”.

It’s not a long book, but there is plenty of action. It is not in the general tradition of Manville Fenn books, but it is a very good read.

The first edition of this book is dated 1886. The edition used is dated 1886. The publisher was Blackie & Son ltd, London, Glasgow and Dublin. The number of pages is 344.

This book was written just before the end of the century, when it would have been expected that travel by steamer was pretty safe. Carey, a teenage boy making his way by steamer “Chusan” to meet his parents in Australia, becomes very friendly with the ship’s doctor, and also with one of the seamen, Bob Bostock. But somewhere out in the Indian Ocean he has an accident, falling from the ship’s rigging, and is unconscious and possibly may not live. His telescope took the brunt of the fall. But while he is lying unconscious, a great gale springs up, the vessel loses power, and is driven onto a coral-girt volcanic island.

Some of the passengers and crew get away on the ship’s boats, but Carey is not fit for the journey. The ship lies on the reef, but mostly undamaged. The Doctor and Bostock remain with him. After they are settling in, and Carey is recovering well, a “beachcomber”, who reckons he is king of these islands, makes his appearance with a retinue of aborigines. He is quite a nasty piece of work. However one of the aborigines becomes friendly with Carey and the others. The beachcomber shoots the doctor, but then fall down a stairway, breaking both legs. Since he can’t get the doctor, he dies. At this moment Carey’s father appears, as the other passengers had reached Australia, and contact had been made.

There are the usual tense moments with various saurians, and other nasties, but perhaps not such a high level of tension as is usual with this author. A good easy read, nevertheless.

The first edition of this book is dated 1899. The edition used is dated 1899. The publisher was Ernest Nister, London; E P Dutton & Co, New York. The number of pages is 312.

In passing, the title of the book, Menhardoc, never once appears in the body-text of the book. But it has a sort of mysterious Cornish sound to it, and that does the trick.

Mr. Temple and his two 15 or 16 year old twin sons have come to stay for the summer holidays in a Cornish fishing village. The two boys are very different. Arthur, or Taff, is very foppish and afraid of getting wet, hurt, or in any way inconvenienced. The other boy, Richard, or Dick, is the exact opposite, always running hither and thither, always wanting to get involved in anything that is going, ready to make friends with all and sundry, while Arthur believes himself to be very grand and much above the fisher men and boys that they meet on this holiday.

Will Marion is one such boy. But he is a very clever studious boy, as well as one who gets on with the day-to-day fishing business. He has had a good grammar-school education, and Arthur is quite put out to discover that Will is better than he at his Latin and Greek, in those days forming a large part of a good education.

Josh, Uncle Abram, and several others complete the principal cast. The boys get out on various boating expeditions, in which they, and we, learn a great deal about the life of a fishing village of perhaps 1850. We learn about the various fishes, and how they are caught, and they have various narrow shaves down mines, in caves, and after various unfortunate accidents.

This book is beautifully written, very informative and interesting, and as full of thrills as any book by G Manville Fenn, the master of suspense.

Of course there is a surprise waiting for us at the finish.

The first edition of this book is dated 1885. The edition used is dated 1885. The publisher was Blackie & Son, 49-50 Old Bailey, London E.C.; Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dublin. The number of pages is 344.

I don’t know where they get titles for books from. The subtitle is “The Boy with no Skid to his Wheel”, and that is the only mention of the word “skid” in the entire book. The only “wheel” mentioned is when the boy hero does cartwheels round the drawing-room. And the said boy is referred to as “a globule of quicksilver”. So I suppose it is something the author had in his mind before he began the book.

Unlike most of Fenn’s books, which involve dire situations with pirates in the China Seas, and other such places, the entire action of this book takes place in a small English village. The local doctor, having retired childless, decides he would like to adopt a boy. Being a Governor of the local Institute for the Poor he goes there and selects a boy who at the age of two had been a foundling, and who is now eleven or twelve.

Everyone is keen to make this work, but there is a big difference in social manners between a boy brought up in an Institute, and the boy the doctor would like to have. So a certain amount of retraining has to take place. Of course this is successful in the end, but there are a lot of blips long the way. Our hero makes friends with a local boy who is definitely “non-U”. They run away together in a boat they have nicked for the purpose. For a few days they have various adventures, some enjoyable, but most of them not.

On being brought back our hero is sent to a small private school run by a clergyman, who beats the boy mercilessly, so that he runs away from the school, back to the doctor’s, but remains hidden in an out-house. He is found, but becomes very ill, so the whole household is taken to a rented house in the Isle of Wight, where he eventually recovers. At which point it is discovered who his real parents are, and he is “U” after all, so everyone feels good about it.

The first edition of this book is dated 1889. The edition used is dated 1889. The publisher was Blackie and Son Ltd, London Glasgow Dublin Bombay. The number of pages is 382.

Another very exciting nautical novel by this author, who is a master of suspense. HMS Teaser, a clipper-gunboat, is patrolling the China Seas on the lookout for pirates. At the time of the story she has proceeded up the Nyho river, and is at anchor off the city of Nyho. The teller of the story is one of three young midshipmen, Nathaniel Herrick. A most important character is Ching, the Chinese interpreter, who would love to be much more important than he is. The boys and Ching find themselves in various situations which look pretty terrifying at the time, but the author manages to slip them out of these situations just in the nick of time. One particularly well-drawn scene is where the boys beg Ching to take them to a Chinese theatre, and he decides upon something that he thinks will really interest them. Unfortunately it is a public beheading of some pirates whom the Teaser has brought to justice, but the boys do not enjoy the scene. They realise that if they tried to walk out they would most probably be beheaded themselves, so they have to sit tight.

It’s a full-length novel with a great deal of suspense, so there’s plenty to enjoy here.

The first edition of this book is dated 1893. The edition used is dated 1912. The publisher was Henry Frowde, Hodder and Stoughton, London. The number of pages is 378.

This book is by an author who revels in putting his heroes into tense and dangerous situations, and never more so than in the Western plains of North America in the middle of the nineteenth century. The Indians were armed with rifles, and had immense prowess at creeping up unseen upon their enemies. In addition there are rattlesnakes, bears, and other nasty things.

The young hero, Bart for short, is out there with his uncle, seeking for a new life. And they all but got the next life out of it! After enduring these and other privations, they find a massive rocky eminence, which they find to have a good lode of silver in it, one which had been mined before, perhaps thousands of years before. It is also fairly difficult to get up to the summit of this great hill, which makes it easier to defend, but when you do get up there you find a large area of good grazing for their cattle and horses. So they make their home there, but of course the Indian attacks continue right up to almost the end of the book.

Though the mine had been worked before there was still plenty of good ore in it, so they start to mine it commercially.

Eventually a railway is made up to the mine, thousands of workers settle there, and our heroes are heard bemoaning that their way of life is no longer as dangerous and thrilling as once it was. They’ll just have to put up with the boredom, I’d say.

The first edition of this book is dated 1884. The edition used is dated 1893. The publisher was Sampson Low, Marston & Co, Fetter Lane, London E.C. The number of pages is 341.

As always with this author there is plenty of action in this book. Two teenage boys of about the same age come from families which have been in intense rivalry for centuries. Each of them lives in a castle set among the wild and desolate hills of Derbyshire, an almost mountainous district in the Midlands of England, known generally as the Peak District.

The boys know each other but as enemies. Yet events occur which draw them together as allies, but they dare not call themselves friends. A roguish band of ex-soldiers have arrived in the district, and set up camp out on the moors, from whence they descend to steal from, rob and loot the houses of the poorer folk.

The boys privately form an alliance using the men working on their father’s land as a private army, to attack and rid the land of these desperadoes. Their first attack results in dreadful failure. But then they revise their ideas of what they can use for weaponry, and are finally successful.

Yet another excellent book from the prolific pen of this great author.

The first edition of this book is dated 1896. The edition used is dated 1896. The publisher was W & R Chambers Ltd, London and Edinburgh. The number of pages is 342.

The setting is the northern part of what is now South Africa, in the middle of the nineteenth century. Mr. Rogers is a British settler in South Africa, a “cottage farmer”. The earlier Dutch farmers and settlers are called Boers. The two teenage sons, Jack and Dick, have often asked if they could all go out on a trek to visit the northern parts of the country, for a natural history collecting expedition. They had come out to South Africa for the health of Mrs. Rogers, but she had died, and of the two boys, Dick was not very strong, while Jack was very robust,

Off they go, together with two Zulu boys who live on their land, the Zulu boys’ father, who is a Chieftain whom they nickname “The General”, and an Irish cook, who is always getting into trouble in every situation, in a most infuriating manner. There is also Peter the driver, and Dirk who is a foreloper, the man who walks ahead of the oxen to guide them into the best way.

They expect to pay for the trip with ivory from elephants, feathers from ostriches, animal skins, etc.

The various adventures include encounters with snakes, rhino, hippo, giraffes, elephants, crocodiles, cataracts, tsetse fly, marauding native tribes, a bush fire, hundreds of miles of dreary grinding effort taking many months just to cover the ground, scorching heat, and sometimes cold. And more besides.

As usual with this author there is sustained tension throughout the book. An interesting and instructive book.

The first edition of this book is dated 1881. The edition used is dated 1889. The publisher was Sampson Low, Marston & Co. Ltd., London. The number of pages is 331.

This must be one of Manville Fenn’s very best books. The suspense is totally gripping, right to the very end. Normally Fenn places his moments of terror at the very end of a chapter, so that this book with 52 chapters must have quite a few of them.

When preparing this book for publication on the web, the editor was truly sorry when the work ended, so greatly had he enjoyed every moment of it.

The action takes place in Cornwall, in and around an old tin-mine, possibly dating back to Roman and Phoenician days, for these people obtained much of the tin they needed to make bronze, from Cornwall, and many of the mines are still there, with many miles of workings, often going out far beneath the sea.

You should enjoy reading or listening to this book very much— as much, I hope, as the editor of it has done.

The first edition of this book is dated 1896. The edition used is dated 1899. The publisher was S.W. Partridge & Co. Ltd, Grosvenor Gdns, London. The number of pages is 312.

Here is another book by George Manville Fenn, full of mystery, suspense and terror—to coin a phrase. Ned, a boy of sixteen, who has just left school, and who has been brought up by an uncle who is a naturalist and who is often away, begs that he may be allowed to come on the uncle’s next expedition. By the way, how could he have been brought up by an uncle who was often away? Simple, he was placed as a boarder in the house of a local clergyman, who educated a few boys in his house: this was often the case in the nineteenth century.

They get to somewhere in Burma, and travel up a river till they come to a settlement where there are some British. At that time Burma was a British Protectorate. The local Burmese ruler is an absurd and loathsome tyrant. Ned makes friends with a local English boy, Frank, and they have various adventures together, including the capture of an eighteen foot crocodile. However, the British people in the settlement fall out with the Rajah, who has his eye on a 21-year-old British girl, and wishes to add her to his harem. This is where the major perils begin.

Some of the perils are similar to those in “The Middy and the Ensign”, which is not surprising, as the action takes place in the same part of the world.

As always with this author, it is a brilliant read or listen.

The first edition of this book is dated 1891. The edition used is dated 1891. The publisher was W & R Chambers, Ltd., London and Edinburgh. The number of pages is 274.

A tense tale, such as we expect of George Manville Fenn. A group of English people are in the Swiss Alps. But it is not just the beauties of the scenery they are after, but crystals which may sometimes be found in caves near the top of the glaciers. They manage to find a guide who promises to be discreet about what they do. But someone else is on the mountain, and he is just as interested in what they are up to, and what they find, as they are themselves.

Of course, as we expect in a Manville Fenn novel, there are tense moments when people fall down crevasses, when there are avalanches and ice-falls, when icy rocks break off and come tumbling towards them. But what about the unknown person who is making off with their hard-won specimens?

There is a surprise ending. It is a good readable book, well worth the effort of making an audio book and listening to it.

The first edition of this book is dated 1892. The edition used is dated 1930. The publisher was Dean & Son, Ltd, 6 La Belle Sauvage, London E.C.4. The number of pages is 241.

This time the Manville Fenn formula of peril after peril does not lead us abroad but to an almost ruined castle on the north-west coast of Scotland.

Max is the son of a London lawyer, from whom the Clan Chieftain has been borrowing large sums of money and not repaying them, so that in the end the Castle is distrained upon. Meanwhile Max, who has been sent up to the Castle to stay with the Mackhais, has been put through test after test of his bravery by the Chieftain’s son and his gillie.

With this information the end of the story is almost predictable, yet we read of peril after peril, and still we feel sure that this one must be the last.

A very good tale.

The first edition of this book is dated 1889. The edition used is dated 1914. The publisher was Henry Frowde, Hodder & Stoughton, London. The number of pages is 376.

Yet once more George Manville Fenn’s talent for writing books so packed with tensions, so full of dreadful situations, is presented to us.

Mark is the son of a sea-captain, who has always longed to follow his father to sea. The old captain tells him that life at sea is pretty boring, but eventually agrees to take both Mark and his mother on his next voyage. Of course this turns out to be full of perils and adventures.

Set in the Java Seas, we meet with pirates, sharks, serpents, volcanoes, unfriendly natives, adverse weather, geysers, fire at sea, and many other dire situations.

A very good read.

The first edition of this book is dated 1888. The edition used is dated 1893. The publisher was Blackie & Son, Ltd, 49 Old Bailey, London E.C. The number of pages is 343.

A Huguenot settlement in the Derbyshire dales, in the middle of England, in the mid-nineteenth century.

The Vicar’s son, and the mill-owner’s son are great friends. They become friends with a visiting artist, who is lodging in the house of one of the key-workers at the Mill, where they manufacture silk. The artist falls down an old mine-shaft up in the hills, and the boys find him. At home they are missed and a rescue party is sent out, and finds them all.

One day the mill mysteriously goes on fire, and, equally mysteriously, the fire pump has been disabled. Just in time it is repaired by the man the artist is staying with. The man’s name was originally Boileau, but like so many Huguenots, he has anglicised it to Drinkwater.

Drinkwater goes mad, and has an obsessional hatred for the mill-owner. It is thought possible that he actually set the fire having previously disabled the fire-pump.

But far worse is to befall. One night, in the autumn rains, the dam that feeds the mill bursts its banks, and the village is flooded, with much being washed away. Did Drinkwater do this too? There is a dramatic finish to the book.

The first edition of this book is dated 1903. The edition used is dated 1902. The publisher was Collins Clear-type Press, London and Glasgow. The number of pages is 180.

A young army officer has been captured during the wars in Soudan, and is being held as a slave in the stronghold of the Mahdi. For years it had been thought that he was dead. His friends in London decide to go and try to rescue him. One of them is a well-known and proficient surgeon. They arrive in Cairo, and proceed on down into the Soudan, where they get in contact with an influential Sheikh. They establish themselves by doing many cures, where it is possible, and gradually work themselves nearer and nearer to the place where they estimate the missing Harry to be. Eventually they are able to make contact. Harry breaks his own arm in order to be brought to the surgeon, or Hakim, for a cure.

Eventually they are able to escape with him, but to do so they have to run right through a battle. They had brought out with them a personal manservant, at his own request, and he had been in a semi-disguise, by staining the skin a very deep colour. This very nearly results in his being killed on the battlefield through which they are escaping.

An informative book, quite a long one, in a good Manville Fenn style, which is well-known for sustained tension.

The first edition of this book is dated 1899. The edition used is dated 1935. The publisher was Dean & Son, Ltd, 6 La Belle Sauvage, London E.C.4. The number of pages is 242.

Books by George Manville Fenn are full of dreadful situations which the reader cannot see the way out of. This one is no exception, in fact we would easily say that it is one of his best.

Harry goes adventuring, and with him goes Tom, a young worker at Harry’s father’s soap-boiling factory. Tom is wonderful. He gets Harry out of numerous dire situations, and the book would not work without him. He is down-to-earth, and full of commonsense and energy.

Despite all sorts of adverse conditions and persons, they get the gold, and put everybody’s affairs to rights, killing the villain, of course, on the way. And marrying the heroine, even though she is his first cousin.

A good example of a late nineteenth century teenager’s book, and if you like that sort of thing you will enjoy it too, for it is what used to be called a crackingly good yarn.

The first edition of this book is dated 1884. The edition used is dated 1910. The publisher was Blackie and Son Ltd, London and Glasgow. The number of pages is 313.

This book of short stories is an excellent read in the usual Fenn style of suspense. “How does he get out of this one?” is always in the reader’s mind.

Most of the book is taken up with a story about the plight of the British members of a small garrison, during the Indian Mutiny.

The second story is about half as long, and is a well-written and extremely plausible story about a house owned by an old gentleman of ancient lineage, where there is a collection of gold plate which was said to be an “incubus”, that is, the subject of a curse. As indeed there turns out to be.

The third story is about a couple of smugglers who get trapped in a “gowt”, which is the exit to the sea of one of the great land-drains of Eastern England, constructed by that great Dutch engineer, Vandermuyden, in the seventeenth century.

And the last story is about a new and well-found ship, that nearly doesn’t weather a severe storm in the Atlantic. The captain has taken to the bottle, and command is taken by a junior officer: the ship survives.

The first edition of this book is dated 1879. The edition used is dated 1879. The publisher was W & R Chambers, Ltd, London and Edinburgh. The number of pages is 188.

Nic Revel is brought up on a small landed estate in Devon. The date is somewhere in the middle of the nineteenth century. There is a very good salmon pool on the estate, but it is often used by poachers, which greatly annoys the Revel family. Eventually they have a great fight there, in which they had arranged to be supported by men from a vessel of the Royal Navy.

Nic is wounded and is mistaken for a poacher by the naval party, who press-gang the poachers. When they reach America, Nic is still hardly conscious, and not capable of much work. All the less able poachers are then sold by the ship to an American slave dealer, who sells them to a settler who lives a long way up a river.

After a journey to the farm they find that they are given very hard work to do, and not fed very well. And of course Nic and one of the poachers, who has become a good friend of his, want to get back to Devon. After many trials and tribulations they eventually escape.

George Manville Fenn is a master of suspense, and this book is a very good example of his work.

The first edition of this book is dated 1898. The edition used is dated 1900. The publisher was W & R Chambers Ltd, London and Edinburgh. The number of pages is 306.

This is a very short book, and it does not contain any of the usual nail-biting Fenn-style situations. But it is very good at what it does, which is to tell a story about King Ethelwulf of Wessex and his four sons, each of whom in turn became King.

The story concentrates on the youngest of the sons, Alfred, who became known as Alfred the Great during his reign. The four boys have a tutor, Father Swythe, but only Alfred is interested in what the monk has to teach. At this point we get a very interesting lesson on how the great illustrated manuscripts were made, how the ink and the colours were made, and how the pens and brushes were made.

Father Swythe later became Bishop of Winchester, and was known as Swithun. He was canonised, and somehow there has grown a legend that if it rains on Saint Swithun’s day it will rain for forty days after that. He is portrayed as rather a portly monk in this story, but his effigy in Winchester Cathedral shows him as a very slight man. There is another story about him which makes him out to be rather a small man, who couldn’t reach the key-hole of the cathedral, which obligingly slid down for him. Anyway, the story is a good one, and you will enjoy it.

This website is called Athelstane, after Alfred’s grandson, so we were interested to transcribe this story.

The first edition of this book is dated 1901. The edition used is dated 1900. The publisher was Ernest Nister, London; E.P. Dutton & Co, New York. The number of pages is 44.

HMS Nautilus is on patrol off the west coast of Africa, intercepting the American slave ships that were trying at that time to purchase cargoes of slaves from the dealers, and then to take them across the Atlantic in loathsome conditions. Slavery had been abolished in British territories many years before, and the British were actively policing African waters in the hope of deterring the Americans and the Portuguese from retaining the slave trade.

Nautilus has two midshipmen aboard, and one of these, Mark Vandean, is the hero of the story. The book is in the usual Manville Fenn style, with a succession of dreadful situations in which the hero finds himself. “How ever does he extricate himself from this?” the reader is continually asking. Of course he does, but it is often by means of something quite unexpected.

A Black Bar is a device in heraldry, indicating that there is something shameful in the wearer’s ancestry.

The first edition of this book is dated 1893. The edition used is dated 1936. The publisher was Sampson Low, Marston and Co., Ltd., London. The number of pages is 312.

Philip is the son of an old mine-owner. His father and mother would have liked him to become something other than an overseer in their mine, but it is what Philip wants to be.

Some of the men are engaging in dangerous practices, and deeply resent it when Philip pulls them up over them. One of them swears that he will put his mark on Philip.

Under Philip’s guidance the mine begins to run well, but still some of the men are resentful of not being allowed to smoke even though there is gas in the mine.

At this point there are a couple of those G Manville Fenn situations, which find you wondering “how ever will Philip get out of this?”

And so the book ends, with Philip running a really successful mine, with a good accident record. How does he do it?

The first edition of this book is dated 1885. The edition used is dated 1883. The publisher was Blackie & Son, London, Glasgow and Dublin. The number of pages is 71.

The book is set in a small Cornish fishing village. There is a dangerous swimming feat which is used as a rite of passage among the boys and young men. One young man, the hero of this short book, has not yet dared to do this feat. Another young man, annoyed by the hero’s apparent lack of courage, does something very nasty and unkind which very nearly drowns our hero.

However, shortly afterwards, events so pan out that the tables are turned, and it is seen that our hero is not the coward, while his enemy is.

It’s about a two-hour read, but is well-written and in the vintage Manville Fenn style in which “how does he get out of this?” events follow closely on one another.

The first edition of this book is dated 1885. The edition used is dated 1900. The publisher was Blackie & Son Ltd, London, Glasgow and Dublin. The number of pages is 79.

This is a prettily produced little book. It’s not very long and doesn’t have anything like the usual Manville Fenn subtle plot.

The plot itself consists of an opening scene in which Doctor Martin, a most learned gentleman, is teaching Phil, the hero, his Latin. Phil is perhaps eight or none years of age, not older then that, Dr. Martin is French, while Phil is English.

It is a time in Canada in which war is about to break out between the English, who have colonised most of North America, and the French, who have occupied most of Canada. All of a sudden Phil’s father, an officer with the English forces, appears, and requests that Dr. Martin should abandon his house, and all his books and papers, and take the boy Phil to him in the English lines. I should say this is a pretty ridiculous idea, but the poor old Doctor did just as he was told, thereby suffering many days of privation, and insult from the farmers whose land they passed through. Eventually they arrive near the English lines, where they are arrested as possible spies.

After a few weeks Phil’s father appears, but at that point there is a battle, in which General Wolfe dies, being brought draughts of water in his dying hour by the young hero, Phil.

To be frank I am surprised that George Manville Fenn wrote this book, as it could only serve to water down his reputation. But it may have been an early work, or possibly one aimed at a different market than his usual teenager one. There are other similarly produced books by him, so it may have been a fancy idea by the publisher, to produce some sort of a pseudo- historical series.

The first edition of this book is dated 1900. The edition used is dated 1905. The publisher was Ernest Nister, London; E.P. Dutton & Co, New York. The number of pages is 36.

Nat’s mother and father have died, and he is being brought up by an aunt and uncle, the latter being his mother’s brother. His aunt does not care at all for boys, and in particular makes sniping remarks at Nat the whole time. But Nat’s uncle is very fond of him, and they are great friends.

But enter the aunt’s brother, a famous naturalist, back from some trip in South America. Nat, who has already shown great interest in collecting specimens from nature, is enthralled, helps him to stuff and catalogue his specimens, and eventually persuades him to take him (Nat) with him on his next trip.

This requires a little training in shooting and sailing. Then they are off, on a P&O liner sailing from Marseilles. On arriving in the Java Seas they disembark, purchase a little boat, and set off. Very soon they are joined by an enthusiastic native, and the trio spend some years collecting numerous splendid specimens, of birds, beetles, and anything else they can.

An unfriendly tribe of natives steal their boat, but does not find their hut and specimens. They set-to to build a boat of some sort, to get themselves away from such an unfriendly place. At the same time their native assistant disappears, presumably murdered by the unfriendly locals. What happens next I will not spoil the story by telling.

You’ll enjoy it.

The first edition of this book is dated 1883. The edition used is dated 1905. The publisher was Blackie and Son Ltd., London Glasgow and Bombay. The number of pages is 252.

A family from England arrive in Australia, where they acquire the carts and other material needed to set forth and find suitable land to squat on. The family consists of several adults, two young daughters of around twenty, and three boys of around sixteen, cousins. There is also an old English gardener who has agreed to come out with them.

On the way up-country they acquire somehow an aboriginal hanger-on, who, however, proves a tower of strength in all sorts of vicissitudes in which they find themselves. Because he’s black they call him Ashantee at first, shorten this to Shanter, and then refer to Tam o’ Shanter on certain occasions.

The adults keep saying they distrust Shanter, but time after time he proves them wrong, and gets them out of situations which appear hopeless, in the typical Manville Fenn style.

An interesting read, but you will have to get used to the speech forms used by Shanter, which are in a sort of pidgin cum aboriginal form. Nothing too difficult, though, as plenty of guidance is provided in the text.

The first edition of this book is dated 1892. The edition used is dated 1897. The publisher was W & R Chambers, Ltd, London and Edinburgh. The number of pages is 306.

Here we have another Manville Fenn book, full of realistic characters who get into positions of great suspense—the usual formula for this excellent author.

The time of the story is the early part of the nineteenth century, and the place is, for most of the book, a sheep and cattle station in New South Wales. The owner is a former Doctor who had practised in London, and who had driven himself to illness with his work: the only possibility for him was a new outdoor life. There are various people working on the farm, including three “tame” aborigines; old Samson, full of wisdom; Brookes, a younger farm-servant; and Mayne, known as Leather, who is a convict whose good behaviour so far has meant that he can be trusted to work on a farm. There are also Mrs Braydon, and Nic’s two sisters, Nic being the protagonist of the story.

Nic, who had been left behind aged ten in an English suburban boarding school, is collected from there when he was fifteen, and brought out to Australia on the Northumbrian, an East Indiaman. After an “uneventful” voyage, they arrive in Sydney. The main part of the book concerns the doings of Nic and the farm workers on The Bluff, along with some upsetting interventions from the man farming a nearby sheep and cattle station, The Wattles.

As always, a dramatic story, well worth reading or listening to.

The first edition of this book is dated 1894. The edition used is dated 1910. The publisher was S.W. Partridge & Co. Ltd, London. The number of pages is 408.

This is an absolutely delightful book, which has most of its early action in a market garden, and then more in another one. The author is a great naturalist, and he has much to teach us about the way in which work should be done to raise fruit and vegetables to be taken to London daily for the market. Somehow that sounds boring but there is so much action entwined with these facts that they are made far from boring.

The action takes place about 1835. The hero lives with his mother in a house overlooking the garden. When she dies he is taken in by Old Brownsmith to be taught the skills of a market gardener. Another boy, Shock, hangs about the garden, sleeping rough and living on a primitive diet of snails, hedgehogs and rabbits and whatever he can get. There is an uneasy relationship between the boys, with Shock constantly doing unkind and strange things, and our hero, Grant Dennison, longing to get to know him better.

I particularly loved the episode where an old worker, Ike, takes the even older horse, Basket, for his regular overnight trip to the London fruit and vegetable market, taking Grant with him.

There are plenty of the usual Manville Fenn episodes of terror and near-disaster, and indeed it is a lovely book. Do read it.

The first edition of this book is dated 1886. The edition used is dated 1892. The publisher was Blackie & Sons, Ltd, London. The number of pages is 375.

Here we have yet another suspense-filled adventure novel by Fenn. There seems to be no end to the situations into which the people in the book can get themselves, and from which there seem to be no escape.

A couple of wealthy Englishmen are determined to sail as far as they can up one of the great rivers of South America, perhaps the Orinoco or perhaps the Amazon. At the time this has never before been done. After finding a ship and skipper they are joined by Briscoe, a rather pushy young man, who has some good characteristics, but whom none of them really like, and who gets on board, with all his stores and a servant, by a series of subterfuges.

As they make their way up the river—they choose the Amazon—they are attacked by the local natives, armed with bows and arrows. Then a boat they send out to explore near a great cataract is sucked in by the towback of the falls. This is normally fatal, but the wind slightly changes, and they find an eddy which carries them clear.

Creating a trackway to enable them to haul a large ship’s boat past the falls, they leave their brig at anchor below the falls, and continue with the exploration. They find an extraordinary rock-hewn city in the cliffs bordering a canyon, abandoned perhaps for centuries, and now inhabited by serpents, bats and possibly with various deadfalls guarding the various chambers. Needless to say they find golden artefacts in profusion, but just as they find them they are attacked by a huge fleet of local savages in canoes, so they leave in a hurry.

Re-equipping the brig next year, they cannot find the way back to this El Dorado, and it is the same in future years.

A most enjoyable book.

The first edition of this book is dated 1900. The edition used is dated 1900. The publisher was Ernest Nister, London; E.P. Dutton & Co, New York. The number of pages is 408.

This is yet another tension-packed teenagers’ novel from the pen of G. Manville Fenn. The hero is a sixteen-year-old called Aleck, who is an orphan being brought up by his uncle, whose main interest in life is writing a book of history. They live by the sea, and Aleck’s great pleasure is to take his little sailing boat along the coast, often in the company of a pensioned-off man-o’-war’s man, called Tom Bodger. They get involved with a press-gang raid by one of HM sloops, which is accompanied by a revenue cutter. Some of the men of the neighbouring hamlets are taken by the press-gang, but a middy from the sloop is also taken by the local smugglers, and hidden in the very cave where they normally hide their spoils.

Unfortunately Aleck also stumbles on the track of the smugglers, and gets shut up in the same cave. Both entrances of the cave are blocked up. There is no possible escape.

The first edition of this book is dated 1902. The edition used is dated 1900. The publisher was Ernest Nister. The number of pages is 400.

I thought that it was unusual for Manville Fenn to set a novel in a boys’ boarding school, since I had become used to exotic settings in Malaysia, or South America, for his tension-filled novels. Here he certainly does not disappoint if it’s tension and suspense you are expecting of him. The last few chapters, in particular, are extremely nail-biting, but the book is quite hard to put down at any point.

It is Burr who is telling the story, and from his first day at the school he is friendly with Mercer, who is not good at his school work, but who knows a great deal about natural history, and imparts it to Burr, and of course to the readers as well. There is a gang of other boys who are inclined to bully, and at first they make life misery for Burr and Mercer—but this is soon got over.

Other important figures are Hopley, the gamekeeper; his daughter Polly; the school Cook; Lomax, the school drill-sergeant; Magglin, a ne’er-do-well and poacher; Dr. Browne, the headmaster, and Mrs. Browne; Rebble and Hasnip, ushers at the school; Burr’s mother, and his uncle, Colonel Seaborough; and the local big landowner, General Sir Hawkhurst Rye.

It was a very enjoyable book to transcribe, and I am sure you will enjoy it. N H.

The first edition of this book is dated 1891. The edition used is dated 1916. The publisher was Henry Frowde & Hodder and Stoughton. The number of pages is 386.

The first edition of this book is dated 1885. The edition used is dated 1927. The publisher was Blackie and Son Ltd, London, Glasgow and Bombay. The number of pages is 366.

This is good vintage Fenn, with dreadful situation following dreadful situation, and the heroes (mostly) managing to get out of it somehow. Right up to the last chapter the reader never knows how the problems that throw themselves upon a little group of naturalists and the sailors that brought them to the island on which all these frightening events occur, will be solved.

The first edition of this book is dated 1894. The edition used is dated 1900. The publisher was Sampson Low, Marston and Co. Ltd., London. The number of pages is 334.

This was the first Manville Fenn book I ever encountered, and I loved it at first sight. So much so that I had put nearly fifty of his books on the website within a couple of years, although, writing in 2005, two years ago I had never heard of Manville Fenn.

HMS Startler is on patrol up the Parang River in the Malay peninsula. On board are the midshipman, Bob Roberts, and the ensign, Tom Long. Their friendly bickering goes on throughout the book. Various tropical indispositions trouble them, and also of course the insect life in the air and saurian life in the river is of no help. It is hard to know which of the natives are on their side, and which not, and there is a great deal of two-facedness. We are introduced to various fruits. A soldier on their own side is prone to fall asleep when on sentry duty, and the little fort they build to give the womenfolk a little more room than aboard ship, is very nearly captured and destroyed.

There are various trips for fishing and shooting purposes, and we learn a great deal about the natural history of the area while these expeditions are in progress.

One of the reasons why some of the natives do not like the British Protectorate is that normally any traffic passing up and down the river does so only on payment of a toll to the local chieftains, who in turn are at loggerheads with each other in dispute of the right to exact tolls.

It’s a very exciting book, and you’ll probably learn a lot by reading it.

The first edition of this book is dated 1883. The edition used is dated 1917. The publisher was Oxford University Press. The number of pages is 371.