fadedpage.com

FP now includes 8253 eBooks in its collection.

  main page


The Drum

Cover Image

Book Details

Title:The Drum
Author:
Mason, A. E. W. (Alfred Edward Woodley)   
(2 of 8 for author by title)
Fire Over England
Dilemmas
Published:   1937
Publisher:Hodder and Stoughton
Tags:adventure, fiction, India, film/TV adaptation
Description:

Set in the India of the British Raj, the evil and untrustworthy Prince Guhl plans to wipe out the British troops as they enjoy the hospitality of Guhl's spacious palace. It's up to the loyal young Prince Azim to warn the troops of Guhl's treachery by tapping out a message on his drum. [Suggest a different description.]

Downloads:435
Pages:55 Info

Author Bio for Mason, A. E. W. (Alfred Edward Woodley)

Author Image

In 1910, Mason undertook to create a fictional detective as different as possible from Sherlock Holmes, who had recently been resuscitated after his supposed death by Arthur Conan Doyle in 1903. Inspector Gabriel Hanaud was stout, not gaunt like Holmes; a professional policeman, not a gentleman amateur; from the French surete, not Victorian England; and relying on psychological insights rather than physical evidence. His "Watson" is a retired London banker named Mr. Julius Ricardo.

Hanaud's appearance in the 1910 novel, At The Villa Rose marks "the first major fiction detective of the Twentieth Century," according to a historian of the genre. Set in the south of France, its plot also ridicules spiritualism and mediums, well-known enthusiasms of A. Conan Doyle.

Four more Hanaud novels and several short stories followed, the last, The House in Lordship Lane, in 1946 and the only one set in England.

The first Hanaud book was a best-seller, as were several of his 20 novels, and as such often adapted into films, often more than once. A 1920 version of At the Villa Rose was a great success in British movie theaters that year, even as a play version of the novel simultaneously began a long run at the Strand. A successful silent version of The Four Feathers followed the next year.

The first sound version was shot both in English and in French at Twickenham Studios in 1930, making it the first British bi-lingual production, released in America under the name The Mystery of the Villa Rose. This marked the film debut of Austin Trevor, an actor from Northern Ireland, in the role of Mr. Ricardo. Trevor would go on to be the first actor to create Hercule Poirot on the screen. Veteran British director Walter Summers directed At the Villa Rose, aka House of Mystery in 1940.

Mason's many subsequent novel adaptations appear to have been staples of the "quota quickies" churned out in the 1920s and 30s in Twickenham and other studios under the British requirements to shore up its local film industry against the enticements of Hollywood productions.--Wikipedia.

Available Formats

UTF-8 text   20171129.txt
HTML20171129.html
Epub20171129.epubIf you cannot open a .mobi file on your mobile device, please use .epub with an appropriate eReader.
Mobi/Kindle20171129.mobiInfoNot all Kindles or Kindle apps open all .mobi files.
PDF (tablet)20171129-a5.pdf
HTML Zip20171129-h.zip

Kindle Direct (New, Experimental)

Send this book direct to your kindle via email. We need your Send-to-Kindle Email address, which can be found by looking in your Kindle device’s Settings page. All kindle email addresses will end in @kindle.com. Note you must add our email server’s address, [email protected], to your Amazon account’s Approved E-mail list. This list may be found on your Amazon account: Your AccountManage Your Content and DevicesPreferencesPersonal Document SettingsApproved Personal Document E-mail ListAdd a new approved e-mail address.

Send to Kindle Email Address:

This book is in the public domain in Canada, and is made available to you DRM-free. You may do whatever you like with this book, but mostly we hope you will read it.

Here at FadedPage and our companion site Distributed Proofreaders Canada, we pride ourselves on producing the best ebooks you can find. Please tell us about any errors you have found in this book, or in the information on this page about this book.