THE END
About Will Levington Comfort
Author of "She Buildeth Her House" and "Routledge Rides Alone"
(Eight Editions)
Well-known as one of the most successful short-story contributors to American magazines, Will Levington Comfort awoke one morning a little over a year ago to find himself famous as a long-story writer. Seldom has the first novel of an author been accorded the very essence of praise from the conservative critics as was Mr. Comfort's "Routledge Rides Alone," acknowledged to be the best book of 1910.
While young in years, Mr. Comfort, who is thirty-three, is old in experience. In 1898 he enlisted in the Fifth United States Cavalry, and saw Cuban service in the Spanish-American War. The following year he rode as a war correspondent in the Philippines a rise which resulted from vivid letters written to newspapers from the battlefields and prisons.
Stricken with fever, wearied of service and thinking of Home, he was next ordered by cable up into China to watch the lid lifted from the Legations at Peking. Here he saw General Liscum killed on the Tientsin Wall and got his earliest glance of the Japanese in war. Another attack of fever completely prostrated him and he was sent home on the hospital ship "Relief."
In the interval between the Boxer Uprising and the Russo-Japanese War, Mr. Comfort began to dwell upon the great fundamental facts of world-politics. But the call of smoke and battle was too strong, and, securing a berth as war-correspondent for a leading midwestern newspaper, he returned to the far East and the scenes of the Russo-Japanese conflict in 1904. He was present at the battle of Liaoyang his description of which in "Routledge Rides Alone" fairly overwhelms the reader.
Few novels of recent years have aroused the same enthusiasm as was evoked by this story of "Routledge." Book reviewers both in this country and in Europe have suggested that the book should win for its author the Peace prize because it is one of the greatest and most effective arguments against warfare that has ever been presented.
By WILL LEVINGTON COMFORT
ROUTLEDGE RIDES ALONE
COLORED FRONTISPIECE BY MARTIN JUSTICE
Here is a tale indeed—big and forceful, palpitating with interest, and written with the sureness of touch and the breadth of a man who is master of his art. Mr. Comfort has drawn upon two practically new story-places in the world of fiction to furnish the scenes for his narrative—India and Manchuria at the time of the Russo-Japanese War. While the novel is distinguished by its clear and vigorous war scenes, the fine and sweet romance of the love of the hero, Routledge—a brave, strange, and talented American—for the "most beautiful woman in London" rivals these in interest.
The story opens in London, sweeps up and down Asia, and reaches its most rousing pitch on the ghastly field of Liaoyang, in Manchuria. The one-hundred-mile race from the field to a free cable outside the war zone, between Routledge and an English war correspondent, is as exciting and enthralling as anything that has appeared in fiction in recent years.
"A big, vital, forceful story that towers giant-high—a romance to lure the hours away in tense interest—a book with a message for all mankind."—Detroit Free Press.
"Three such magnificent figures as Routledge, Noreen, and Rawder never before have appeared together in fiction. Take it all in all, 'Routledge Rides Alone' is a great novel, full of sublime conception, one of the few novels that are as ladders from heaven to earth."—San Francisco Argonaut.
"The story unfolds a vast and vivid panorama of life. The first chapters remind one strongly of the descriptive Kipling we once knew. We commend the book for its untamed interest. We recommend it for its descriptive power."—Boston Evening Transcript.
"Here is one of the strongest novels of the year; a happy blending of romance and realism, vivid, imaginative, dramatic, and, above all, a well told story with a purpose. It is a red-blooded story of war and love, with a touch of the mysticism of India, some world politics, love of country, and hate of oppression—a tale of clean and expert workmanship, powerful and personal."—Pittsburg Dispatch.
"Three such magnificent figures (Routledge, Noreen, and Rawder) have seldom before appeared together in fiction. For knowledge, energy, artistic conception, and literary skill, it is easily the book of the day—A GREAT NOVEL, full of a sublime conception, one of the few novels that are as ladders from heaven to earth."—San Francisco Argonaut.
"EASILY THE BOOK OF THE DAY"—San Francisco Argonaut.