IN “The Reign of Queen Isyl” the authors have hit upon a new scheme in fiction. The book is both a novel and a collection of short stories. The main story deals with a carnival of flowers in a California city. Just before the coronation the Queen of the Fiesta disappears, and her Maid of Honor is crowned in her stead—Queen Isyl. There are plots and counterplots—half-mockery, half-earnest—beneath which the reader is tantalized by glimpses of the genuine mystery surrounding the real queen’s disappearance.
Thus far the story differs from other novels only in the quaintly romantic atmosphere of modern chivalry. Its distinctive feature lies in the fact that in every chapter one of the characters relates an anecdote. Each anecdote is a short story of the liveliest and most amusing kind—complete in itself—yet each bears a vital relation to the main romance and its characters. The short stories are as unusual and striking as the novel of which they form a part.
$1.50
By Stanley J. Weyman
Author of “A Gentleman of France”
THE LONG NIGHT
GENEVA in the early days of the 17th century; a ruffling young theologue new to the city; a beautiful and innocent girl, suspected of witchcraft; a crafty scholar and metaphysician seeking to give over the city into the hands of the Savoyards; a stern and powerful syndic whom the scholar beguiles to betray his office by promises of an elixir which shall save him from his fatal illness; a brutal soldier of fortune; these are the elements of which Weyman has composed the most brilliant and thrilling of his romances. Claude Mercier, the student, seeing the plot in which the girl he loves is involved, yet helpless to divulge it, finds at last his opportunity when the treacherous men of Savoy are admitted within Geneva’s walls, and in a night of whirlwind fighting saves the city by his courage and address. For fire and spirit there are few chapters in modern literature such as those which picture the splendid defence of Geneva, by the staid, churchly, heroic burghers, fighting in their own blood under the divided leadership of the fat Syndic, Baudichon, and the bandy-legged sailor, Jehan Brosse, winning the battle against the armed and armored forces of the invaders.
Illustrated by Solomon J. Solomon.