A PRINCE OF THE CAPTIVITY

1933. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1933. Original green cloth lettered in gilt, with dust jacket.

First Edition. In this novel the hero, Adam Melfort, is convicted of forgery, is drummed out of his regiment, and is sentenced to two years in prison -- for a crime his wife actually had committed. Upon release he embarks upon a series of adventurous causes in an effort to regain his reputation -- taking him into the secret service in the Great War, to the Greenland ice-cap, to the industrial Midlands and ultimately to Germany, where after the Great War he foils the attempts by a German faction to bring down the country's leader. (This was published, of course, just before one Adolf Hitler became that country's leader.) Though based on a curious premise, the tale is full of typically thrilling Buchan adventure -- climaxing in a man-hunt in the Italian Alps in which Melfort brings down his enemies with a rockslide. This copy is in the primary binding (there are several secondary bindings, including this green cloth lettered in black). The volume is in fine condition; the pictorial dust jacket is very good-plus (slightly soiled, with reinforcement at the ends of the folds on the back-side). Blanchard A99.