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."
gollark: inb4 "but capitalism kills literally everyone who dies in worse-off countries"
gollark: > that one pattern of red and green that is an actual cognitohazardWait, what?
gollark: What even are half of these? These seem, er, worrying.
gollark: It would be environmentally friendly, since you wouldn't need electricity or gas or something to cook.
gollark: Just replace the fire-y bit or electric heating bit with some plutonium.

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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