Stanley J. Weyman - Shrewsbury (1897)

 Stanley J. Weyman - Shrewsbury (1897)

Shrewsbury is another superb book by Weyman, though unlike the majority of his books this is not exactly a tale of swashbuckling romance. No, the main character who makes up our tale is hardly swashbuckling, albeit there is romance but romance of the desperate kind.

Instead, in Shrewsbury, we follow the tale of a man who has the most unfortunate luck. At times the book is almost torturous to read, not that the tale isn't wholly addictive but it's hard to read about this cowardly man who again and again is dealt a bad hand.

Eventually, our character, who is a nice fellow but a coward nonetheless comes out on top with the help of the aptly named Shrewsbury. Its a nail biting 400 pages, but again one that is wholly edible thanks to the wonderful words of Stanley J. Weyman.

Anthony Trollope - The Last Chronicle Of Barset (1867)

 Anthony Trollope - The Last Chronicle Of Barset

"The Last Chronice of Barset" was, oddly enough, my introduction to Anthony Trollope and I can say for sure that my time was not wasted. The story follows a one Mr. Crawley, who is put in quite a precarious position, and whose position affects many others in Barset. Though Mr. Crawley is an obstinate man (as some of the chapter titles even suggest) you can't help but want to side with him throughout the short 800 pages that make up this book. 

The story is compelling, the writing is interesting, the characters are descriptive... this is definitely one of the best novels I have ever read. I did not feel out of place starting with the last book in the series. The story in this book alone was so compelling that I didn't feel like I had missed out by not reading the previous book and though a couple characters I wanted to know more about you come to know the characters included within quite well.

Finally, as I mentioned, I am a lover of Proust and I find this book to be very Proustian in it's description of society and community interactions. Trollope doesn't dare go as deep or is not, I dare say, quite as egocentric as Proust is but he offers a lovely little portrait of a community in 19th century England whose descriptions, I think, will be loved by Proustians, as I am one myself. 

Stanley J. Weyman - The King's Stratagem (1891)

Stanley J. Weyman - The King's Stratagem

My experience with Stanley Weyman's short story collections have so far been mixed (I think I have read 2 of 4 to date). Though, The King's Stratagem was far better overall than For The Cause even if it puttered in places.

The collection of short stories found within The King's Stratagem were released as Weyman's second book in 1891 and in the title story we get a short version of the type of tales that would make Weyman famous: 17th century France, Kings, Queens, Huguenots, Revolution, Romance, Adventure, etc.

The tales that come after The King's Stratagem are quite a bit different in fact, and follow a number of characters through, what appears to be, 19th century England. The better of these are In Cupid's Toils where we follow the tale of a young girl and a stranger from the girls perspective and then fast forward to years later from the strangers perspective and The Drift Of Fate by the far the most perplexing and suspenseful tale that acts as an Old English mystery of sorts.

The other stories include the cute Body Birds of Court, the unremarkable Fatal Letter and the utter bore of A Blore Manor Episode - which I like to call 'A Bore Manor Episode' - which is saying something as a I am a rabid Weyman fan and reader.

- 'Bab' from In Cupid's Toils

Marcel Proust - Within A Budding Grove (1919)

Within A Budding Grove (1919)

Within A Budding Grove - By far my favorite book in the In Search Of Lost Time series by Marcel Proust - is the second in the series. The magic of Proust is the way in which he is able to weave his narrative of romance, philosophy and the stories of his wealth of characters into a mosaic of tantalizing and beautiful prose.

Proust, or "the narrator" is such an egotist, though he does admit it, I am awed at how I can love his writing and continuously eat up page after page considering how self-absorbed he is. I guess this is one of the wonder's of the book, how well you come to love listening to this self-obsessed narrator daydream about and review his life experiences. 

Throughout the book Proust concludes his prosaic pieces with a sort of philosophical determination that adds depth to the narrations. I must add, it is quite necessary to read Swann's Way prior to Within A Budding Grove. Without having read Swann's Way first, the beautiful scenes of Balbec and Odette won't make much sense, yet Within A Budding Grove is both a peak and the much superior book to Swann's Way.

Stanley J. Weyman - The Man In Black (1894)

The Man In Black (1894)

Thus far I have read about 8-10 Stanley Weyman books and oddly enough I have to say that this is probably his best along with Gentleman Of France. I say oddly, because this book is quite odd for a Stanley J. Weyman book in that the tale is not one of swashbuckling romance as so many of his greats are; though there are parallels in his writings (for instance, A Little Wizard). 

Like his later book A Little Wizard this book follows the tale of a young boy (12) who has an unlucky streak of fortune, but as with all Weyman book's it turns out alright in the end for him. I rank this up there as one of his best books because there is not one lull throughout the entire book... During my brief week of reading it, I was dying to turn to the next page and highly disappointed when I was too tired or had something else to do. The story is engaging, terrifying and suspenseful and as I said, though it us unusual for a Weyman book, it is also one of his best.

Stanley J. Weyman - The House Of The Wolf (1890)

The House Of The Wolf (1890)

Stanley Weyman is probably my favorite writer (if this site isn't proof enough) and so I review this book with the deepest of love for its writer... There seems to be a lot of copies of this book about because, from what I have gathered, it put him in the public eye in the 1890's, and not without warrant - It's a pleasant little book though not one I would suggest for a first time reader of Weyman. For that I would suggest Under The Red Robe his most succinct novel, though this one is still good even if it seems to putter in a few places.

The story was apparently originally serialized in the late 1880's in one of the many magazines in England and then later compiled and released in 1890 as Weyman's first book. The book follows the fraught adventures of 3 young boys in 17th century France.

One thing that is kind of odd is that the 3 lead male characters have female names and what makes it even more odd is that it has no apparent purpose. It's not like throughout the book characters are poking fun at it, though our lead character does take notice that him and his brothers all have female names. The only way I can rationalize it is that Weyman did it in an effort so that readers would not forget him, which works and anyways I forgot about halfway through and just took the names as the lead characters names anyways.

Otherwise, the novel has all of the main traits of any classic Weyman novel, lovely description of olden times, adventure, swashbuckling action and some minor romance. Enjoy!

Stanley J. Weyman - From The Memoirs Of A Minister Of France (1893)

From The Memoirs Of A Minister Of France (1893)

From The Memoirs Of A Minister Of France is another tantalizing Stanley J. Weyman book that is best read by those who are already familiar with Weyman and some of his characters. The book plays as a prequel, of sorts, to the Gentlemen Of France, My Lady Rotha and The King's Stratagem - only inasmuch as it contains characters that we are familiar - Henry IV, M. de Rosny, Huguenots etc - and not that it picks up on any story lines.

The book follows M. de Rosny as he lays down his 'memoirs' though we don't get to read all of the memoirs, only the ones included in this book - as it says in the title 'From the Memoirs' - M. de Rosny references other parts of the memoirs, often throughout the book, that do not exist for us, though he references them as if we have read them, which I find both hilarious and representative of Weyman's detailed presentation.

Weyman does us the favor of picking out M. de Rosny's most entertaining adventures, which are a collection of suspenseful, funny and inspiring little tales of the time of Henry IV in 16th and 17th century France.