CASTLE, AGNES (SWEETMAN) (MRS EGERTON CASTLE), and CASTLE, EGERTON. John Seneschal’s Margaret. *$2 (2½c) Appleton
20–17318
John Tempest and John Seneschal, comrades and strangely alike, suffer untold agonies imprisoned together in Turkey. Seneschal finally breaks under the strain and is buried in the wilderness by Tempest. So much the prologue tells. The story proper begins with a hospital in London. Tempest is a patient here and as a result of a head wound is suffering from loss of memory. He is identified by the Seneschal family as their son and heir and taken to their home. He is horribly aware that this is all wrong but cannot recall his own identity and his fixed belief that John Seneschal is dead is considered one of the delusions of his mental condition. The one other certainty that he clings to is the face and name of Margaret—and Margaret was Seneschal’s childhood sweetheart. In all the confusion of his clouded mind she seems the one thing that is true and real. After rest and care and love have been given him, his mind suddenly clears and he knows that he is John Tempest usurping the place of John Seneschal. Complete recollection brings problems whose solution taxes all the love and honor of John Tempest’s manhood, but from which he emerges true blue.
“We may be glad of this—that the book with which Egerton Castle has bidden us farewell is not only artistically worthy of one who loved and respected his art, but contains a depth and richness of feeling far beyond that of any of the blithe tales preceding it, while in all the long line of his heroines there is not one finer or more lovable than she who was ‘John Seneschal’s Margaret.’” L. M. Field
+ N Y Times p22 N 14 ’20 1000w
“Entertaining and vigorous narrative.”
+ Springf’d Republican p5a Ja 30 ’21 450w
“The story is indeed one of the best productions of Mr and Mrs Egerton Castle.”
+ The Times [London] Lit Sup p741 N 11 ’20 150w