A Japanese Nightingale on Stage and Screen

A follow-up to last week's post on A Japanese Nightingale. 

On 19 November 1903, A Japanese Nightingale, dramatist William Young's stage adaptation of the Otono Watanna novel of the same name opened at Broadway's Daly's Theatre. Critics were indifferent. A Japanese Nightingale managed only forty-six performances before closing on 30 December.

The New York Times, 20 November 1903

Of those I've read, the New York Times review is both the most unreliable and the most informative. The unreliable being limited to this paragraph:

To those who read the story there was something appealing in the simple, childish sweetness of the little maid Yuki, who, betrothed to a powerful man of her own people, weds instead the youthful and impetuous wooer from over the seas. In the dramatic version something of this same quality is reserved to the character of Yuki, and her love affair, Yuki's subsequent suffering, and her determination to leave the world and become a priestess in the temple that the man she loved may be spared suffering and persecution from her enemies and his, is likely to make an appeal to unsophisticated and sympathetic playgoers.

By "story," the unnamed reviewer refers to the novel on which the play is based. In that story, Yuki is betrothed to no one, never mind "a powerful man of her own people."

Illinois native Margaret Illington (née Young), who portrayed Yuki. 

The anonymous pen continues:

William Young, who made the adaptation for stage purposes, has used a familiar bag of tricks. The expedients utilized for stage climaxes are of the most ordinary and commonplace kind. One has at least the right to expect some ingenuity in matters of this sort, and here the dramatizer has failed signally.

   For example. The ultimate conflict in this play is due to the fact that Jack Bigelow, a young American, has married Yuki, the Japanese Nightingale. A record of the marriage has been filed with the United States Consul at Tokio. Bigelow's enemies kill the Consul and steal the book containing the record of the marriage. At the very time that Bigelow hears of the murder of the Consul he gives Yuki their marriage license, telling her never to part with it. Immediately thereafter she places it in a little box, the arch conspirator enters, she shows it to him, and he purloins it. When, a little later, Yuki's brother appears on the scene and refuses to believe that Bigelow has married the girl regularly, the box is opened for the proof that is to convince him. Lo! the paper is gone. Tableau and mutterings of vengeance.

   And so it goes throughout. Mr. Harker of California, who, with the assistance of Mr. Bobby Newcome, Ensign, U.S.A., eventually sets everything right, shows his daughter a revolver. She takes it from him and puts it in the drawer of a table. Later Mr. Harker tells the villain that he is going to detain him for a little confidential chat, and the pair sit down on opposite sides of the table. The Jap draws a knife and Harker whips out the gun and covers him. Another tableau that flashes in the pan.

Assuming the Times review is accurate, Young introduced several elements to A Japanese Nightingale, including:

• a record of marriage;
• a United States Consul;
• a murder;
• a marriage license;
• a theft;
• a man named Harker;
• a United States ensign named Newcome;
• a daughter of a United States ensign named Newcome;
• a knife;
• a gun.

Given early Hollywood's eagerness to adapt popular novels, it's surprising that A Japanese Nightingale did not appear on screens until 1918, seventeen years after publication.

"Written by William Long from the book by Onoto Watanna" – so sayss the poster – it was the work Ouida Bergère and Jules Furthman. The latter is known for Shanghai Express (1932), Blonde Venus (1932), Mutiny on the Bounty (1935), Only Angels Have Wings (1939), To Have and Have Not (1944), The Big Sleep (1946), Nightmare Alley (1947), and Rio Bravo (1959), while the former is remembered for, well, her forty-one year marriage to Basil Rathbone.

Reviews suggest that Bergère and Furthman relied on Long's play, then added something in introducing a new character, Baron Nekko, as Yuki's fiancé. 

The Winnipeg Tribune, 28 December 1918

This time out Yuki, not yet twenty in the novel, was portrayed by 47-year-old Fannie Ward of St Louis, Missouri, an actress renowned for her youthful appearance and ability to portray women decades her junior. Brooklyn boy W.E. Lawrence, age 22, played Jack Bigelow, Yuki's husband.

Happily, A Japanese Nightingale is one of the small percentage of silents that has survived. Unhappily, it has never been made available in Beta, VHS or DVD, nor is it streaming. And so, I rely again on reviews to provide a synopsis. The best I've found was published in the 30 August 1918 edition of Variety:

Yuki is a little Japanese girl of good family whom a heartless stepmother wishes to marry to a vicious old man of wealth and position. So Yuki runs away and becomes a Geisha girl and here meets a young American who falls in love with her. When an agent of the would-be bridegroom seeks to spirit Yuki away the American whose name is John Bigelow, takes things into his own hands and marries her. Thenthere are plots and counterplots. The consul, who has charge of the marriage records, is murdered and the records disappear, worthless papers being substituted. And at this time Yuki’s brother, who turns out to have been a friend of Bigelow’s at an American university, returns home and is made to believe that his erstwhile friend has wronged the girl. To save her husband from her brother’s vengeance Yuki flies to a temple, where she prepares to marry the old man of her mother’s choice. But the wedding records turn in the nick of time, and the brother is reconciled to the marriage.

The critic goes on to add: "Miss Ward, while she does not make up to look like a Japanese girl, is of a beauty sufficiently delicate and flowerlike to fit appropriately into the miniature gardens and cherry groves through which she wanders."

The December 1918 edition of Picture-Play Magazine, from which  the last two images are drawn, features an eight-page short story by American Fannie Kilbourne (1890-1961) that is "written from the Pathé picture play based on the story by Onoto Watanna." Available here courtesy of the Internet Archive and the Library of Congress, it may just provide the most accurate description of what we've been missing.

As always, I recommend the novel.

A Bonus:

The New York Times, 23 November 1903.

The New York Times, 15 November 1909.

Related posts:

A 'Japanese' Nightingale; Winnifred Eaton at 150

By Any Other Name: Otono Watanna's Hyacinth

Beauty Ignored and Neglected
Glassco's $9500 Library and the Montreal Eatons

Alberta Gothic

A 'Japanese' Nightingale: Winnifred Eaton at 150

A Japanese Nightingale

Onoto Watanna [Winnifred Eaton]

New York: Harper, 1901

226 pages

Onoto Watanna was her own creation. She was not a Japanese princess; she was not Japanese at all. Onoto Watanna was Winnifred Eaton, a Montrealer born to a former Chinese circus performer and an Englishman who struggled to support his family through painting and people smuggling.

Winnifred made a better life for herself. She sold her first short story as a teenager. Dozens more followed, as did thirteen novels. There were stage and film adaptations. Winnifred spent six years working as a scriptwriter in Hollywood.

A Japanese Nightingale was Winnifred Eaton's second novel and first big commercial success. She claimed it had sold 200,000 copies.

I don't doubt it.

The novel landed at the height of the Japanese Craze; the very same craze that encouraged Winnifred Eaton to cast herself variously as "Kitishima Taka Hasche," "Kitishina Taka Hasche," or "Tacki Hashi,"a young woman from Yokohama writing under the nom de plume "Onoto Watanna."

It's all a bit confusing. 

A Japanese Nightingale itself is not at all confusing. A simple tale, at its centre is Jack Bigelow, son of American wealth, newly graduated from an unnamed university, who is whiling away his time on the outskirts of Tokyo. What drew him to the far east isn't clear, though it likely has something to do with his English-Japanese college chum Taro Burton. Looks like they were going to have a time together in Tokyo, but then Taro begged off. That Jack went off without him seems odd.

Never mind, the important thing is that Taro had warned him not to take a Japanese wife:

Taro Burton was almost a monomaniac on this subject, and denounced both the foreigners who took to themselves and deserted Japanese wives, and the native Japanese, who made such a practice possible. He himself was a half-caste, being the product of a marriage between an Englishman and a Japanese woman. In this case, however, the husband had proved faithful to his wife and children up to death...

From his earliest days in Tokyo, Jack had been visited by Ido, a nakōdo (read: matchmaker), who'd brought prospective wives for consideration. The wealthy American had found the efforts entertaining. One afternoon, Ido offers a young woman whom Jack had recently seen perform on a pleasure island in Tokyo Bay. 

Jack toys with Yuki cruelly before sending her away, just as he had Ido's other proposed brides. However, the heart will out. The American is haunted by the encounter. He starts on a quest to find the woman he'd rejected. Once found, he marries her.

Because the plot is so simple – twist included – it would spoil things to describe much more. It is important to the plot that, like Eaton herself, Yuki is "half-caste" – much is made of her blue eyes – and so is looked down upon by her fellow Japanese. More impactful to the plot is the clash of cultures, particularly as it concerns Oriental and Occidental understandings of marriage (here I employ the terms of the time). Reading in 2025, one hundred and fourteen years after publication I found interest in the married couple's reluctance to be open and share with one another.

In this one way, A Japanese Nightingale is a contemporary novel.

I finished A Japanese Nightingale last night. Today marks the sesquicentennial Winnifred Eaton's birth, which most likely took place in the family's rented row house on rue d'Iberville.

Once a bestseller, she has become Montreal's most neglected novelist.

Lillie Winnifred Eaton (née Winifred Lily Eaton)
21 August 1875 - 8 April 1954
RIP

Trivia: Adapted by Broadway and Hollywood, both subjects of the next post.

Object: A beautiful hardcover, issued without dust jacket with illustrations credited to Genjiro Yeto. The books features three colour plates and subtle illustrations on each of its pages. It is one of the most beautiful volumes in my collection.

Access: Easily found, the least expensive copy listed online is Constable's UK first. Price: £8.00. The Harper first edition can be had for under twenty-five dollars. 

The edition I read can be enjoyed online through this link to the Internet Archive.

The novel has been translated into Swedish (En japansk näktergal, 1904). German (Japanische Nachtigall, 1920), and Polish (Słowiczek japoński, 1922).

Related posts:

By Any Other Name: Onoto Watanna's Hyacinth

Beauty Ignored and Neglected
Glassco's $9500 Library and the Montreal Eatons

Alberta Gothic

A Pulp Writer's Challenge to Canadians

Original Detective Stories
Volume 1, Number 1
April 1948

Can a magazine written entirely by one person be considered a book? Of course not, but it does come close. Original Detective Stories was published Voyageur Press, which was owned and operated by author Horace Brown. As far as I've been able to determine, he was the only staff member and only writer. The debut issue features two works of fiction – both by Brown, of course – the first being 'Murder à la Carte.' A "BOOK LENGTH NOVEL – NEVER BEFORE PUBLISHED," I first wrote about 'Murder à la Carte' fourteen years ago, wondering whether it may have found a second life as the 1950 News Stand Library novel The Penthouse Killings.

After finally managing to find a copy of the magazine, I can now report that 'Murder à la Carte' and The Penthouse Killings are in fact one and the same.

It wasn't so wild a guess; the covers suggested as much.

I have no idea who provided the cover illustration for The Penthouse Killings, though the style reminds me of several other News Stand Library titles. The Original Detective Stories cover is credited to Jackson Heise, a man who began his career as a child. The 1931 census finds him living at 281 Milverton Boulevard in Toronto with his mother and father. Seventeen at the time, Heise had already left school and seems to have been making decent money through his art, earning $520 in the previous twelve months:*

Original Detective Stories features four more illustrations, masthead included.

The contents page is interesting in that it ignores 'On the Blotter,' the very first piece in this very first issue. A four-paragraph, half-page editorial credited to "The Sergeant," whom I have every reason to believe is Brown himself, it begins:

The bane of a policeman's unhappy lot is the one world "Unsolved."

   The aftermath of War, the spiritual and moral letdown that follows brutal conflict has unleashed murder throughout Canada. Many of these cases are sex crimes of the most atrocious sort. 

In fact, the homicide rate decreased in the years immediately following the Second World War.

'On the Blotter' calls for more police funding and "a tightening of the Law in the matter of of detaining known perverts until cure."

Lest you think you have Brown pegged, as a Toronto alderman he became a staunch defender of hippies and a promoter of tenants rights. We have Brown to thank for helping raise money for the Henry Moore sculpture in Nathan Philips Square after the city council had voted it down.

Horace Brown also founded of the Canadian March of Dimes (now March of Dimes Canada). He himself was stricken with polio at the age of eight months and walked with the aid of crutches. The disease influences 'The Scarf' the second of the magazine's two stories, written under the nom de plume "Leslie Allen."** 

The issue has no ads. Its back cover is taken up with a challenge and appeal: 

Canadian readers and advertisers did not respond. Were the magazines themselves to blame or the distributors and retailers? Frankly, I think the fault lies with Brown himself. The venture was unstable from the start. Original Detective Stories' second issue was the last. It appeared in July 1948, three months after the first. 

Brown's magazine empire had one other title in its fold. Like Original Detective Stories, All Star Western Stories debuted in April 1948, published a second issue in July 1948, and then disappeared.
   

Brown believed that Canadians would rally to the support of Canadian publications and publishing.

He wasn't wrong.

We saw this through much of the second half of the last century and into the early years of this one. I worked for a library wholesaler and major chain for the last fifteen of those years and remember well the number of Canadian titles on the weekly Globe & Mail bestseller lists. 

The newspaper's most recent hardcover fiction list features not one Canadian title. The non-fiction hardcover list has just one, Omar El Akkad's One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This. Not one title is published by a Canadian publisher.

A question for Canadians: We're boycotting American produce, booze, and travel, so why are we not boycotting American cultural product? 

* Sadly, Jackson's father, a piano salesman, was not working. All evidence suggests that the boy was the family's sole breadwinner. According to the Bank of Canada Inflation Calculator, $520 in 1931 is roughly the equivalent of $10,425 today, which may explain why the Heise family was sharing the small duplex with young marrieds Timothy and Elma Breuls and the bride's mother. 

** Brown had previously used "Leslie Allen" for his 1946 golfing mystery Murder in the Rough.  

Related posts:

Horace Brown: From Penthouse to Pavement

Horace Brown: Fritzi in Flight or a Coincidence
No Whack on the Side of the Head

Quebec City Noir
Whispering City: Horace Brown's Second Encore

Sunshine Scandals of a Little Town

A View of the Town
Jan Hilliard [Hilda Kay Grant]
Toronto: Nelson, Foster & Scott, 1954
269 pages

There is no town of Inverness on Nova Scotia's mainland. That I wasn't sure says as much of my shaky knowledge of the Maritimes as it does the author's talent. Her Inverness seems real. At first, I thought it might have been inspired by an actual town – as Southport in Hilliard's Miranda (1960) is modeled on Yarmouth – but I've since come to realize that it is based on no one town, rather seventy or eighty of them.

The history of Inverness is important to the plot. It was on 15 May 1781 that Captain Joshua Ward of Virginia landed on Nova Scotia's western shore, taking possession of five hundred acres of virgin soil he'd been awarded for his loyalty to the Crown. Two months later, the immigrant ship Holly arrived from Scotland bearing the Mackays, Fifes, Camerons, Loves, Leckeys, and Macdonalds. The leader of the expedition, Fergus Mackay, who'd spent much of the voyage below deck "guarding" the scotch, emerged in time to yell "I name thee Inverness!"

A View of the Town is not a historical novel, it takes place in 1930 as the sesquicentenary of Inverness approaches. Simon Ward is troubled. Pioneer Day, which celebrates the arrive of great-great-grandfather Joshua, has long been in the shadow of the Holly Day celebration of the Highlanders' arrival. This is easily understandable, after all, the Scottish ship brought the Mackays, Fifes, Camerons, Loves, Leckeys, and Macdonalds, whereas Joshua Ward brought only his family, crew, and a dozen slaves:

"The Wards, who had a weakness for begetting females, were outnumbered in no time."

Simon himself has two offspring, both female. Primrose, named for her late mother, is the eldest. An unmarried innocent of twenty-six, she

spends her days indoors caring for her skin and reading Ruth Fielding novels. Helen, Prim's younger sister, is the more grounded of the two, though recent history suggests otherwise. Wed at nineteen to Denis Cameron, son of the wealthy foundry-owning Camerons, she was abandoned a year later. Her estranged husband is thought to be in California trying to paint. 

Simon is trying to write. He has spent the past two decades working on a history of Inverness in a small octagonal room perched atop the otherwise three-storey Ward family home. The only intrusion he allows comes in late afternoon when the women of the house bring tea. Prim and Helen take their turns, as do Simon's sister-in-law Marlow, and housekeeper Katharine Macdonald (known to all as Katie Wee Duncan):

Nobody had ever caught him actually seated at his desk writing. He might be found taking a nap or reading a book, looking at something in the town, or simply waiting.

Simon means to set things right. Great-great-grandfather Joshua is the true founder of Inverness. It was the Ward family that built the foundation of this proud Nova Scotia town. Neighbour Mary Mackay, president of the Inverness Argus Society, wouldn't dare challenge Simon on this view – she's far too savvy. The play between the two in the months leading to the Pioneer and Holly Day sesquicentennial celebrations is something to see, but there's so much more.

There's Helen's failed marriage, of course. But what of spinster aunt Marlow, who lives in the Ward home next door to the fiancé who threw her over? That old beau went on to father Ian Cameron, Helen's missing husband. Unmarried Katie Wee Duncan, the Ward's housekeeper and cook, is the mother of Rose, who is Mary Mackay's unacknowledged granddaughter. Newly arrived lawyer Percy Mattheson divides his attention between Mary's daughter Florence and Prim Ward until the former runs off with her sister's husband. 

Capping it all off is a climactic scene clearly inspired by "The Sinking of the Mariposa Belle" (aka "The Marine Excursions of the Knights of Pythias"). Harmless fun, A View of the Town is the most gentle of Hilliard's five novels in that no one dies and there are several happy endings. The black humour, very much present in the others, is here pale grey. This 23 October 1954 Globe & Mail ad is the very example of truth in advertizing:

Trivia I: Inverness, Nova Scotia is located on the western shore of Cape Breton. The Inverness of A View of the Town is described as being on the mainland, some one hundred miles north of Halifax. 

Trivia II: Prim's Ruth Fielding novels are just the beginning! Early in the novel, much to her horror, Marlow discovers a copy of Lady Chatterley's Lover hidden under the mattress of Helen's bed. Confronting her niece, Marlow threatens to burn it, but puts the marches away when Helen tells her that it belongs to Mary Mackay's daughter Florence.

About the author:

Sadly, the author would never write or illustrate a travel book.

Object and Access: A green/grey hardcover, split-run with American publishing house Abelard-Schulman (for whom the author worked as a fiction editor). The jacket illustration is credited to George Thompson about whom I know nothing. I bought my copy in early 2024 from a southern Ontario bookseller. Price: $15. I purchased a signed Abelard-Schulman edition early this year. Price: US$30. It is guaranteed to place on my 2025 list of best book buys.

You too can own a signed copy! As of this writing a Calgary bookseller is offering not one but two at $40 apiece!

Get 'em while you can!

Related posts:

A Crooked Cousin in a Country Cottage

A Nova Scotian Writes Ontario Gothic

Growing Up With Mother
As He Lay Dying

'How we joyously welcome this travail-less birth'

Verse for the day, written for the country's very first day, by champion of Confederation Peter Steven Hamilton under his poetry nom de plume Pierce Steven Hamilton. This version closes the second sedition of his collection The Feast of St. Anne and Other Poems (Montreal: Lovell, 1890).

CANADA

Sound the note of rejoicing from trumpet and horn;

For this day to the family of nations is born

Our Canada!

Let the thunders awaken to tell the old earth

How we joyously welcome this travail-less birth

Of Canada.

Let the bonfires blaze from the hill’s highest crag,

And unfurl to the breeze the yet spotless young flag

Of Canada;

While the people, exulting with shout and with cheer,

Proclaim to the listening nations how dear

Is Canada!

Blessed child of a glorious parentage,

Born into the world in its brightest age,

No deluge of blood does thy young life immerse;

Nor stamped on thy brow is a mother’s curse:

All untrammeled thy limbs by the cankering chains,

The harrowing toils and the numbing pains, 

Which systems at war, in the gloom of the past,

Have over thy suffering sisterhood cast:

Thou art free as the wind o’er thy prairies that blows,

And strong in the vigor that hourly grows;

No burden impedes thy triumphant career;—

All, all of thy Mother’s that thou mayest share,

Is the glory that brightens her history’s page.

Say: what wilt thou do with this heritage,

Oh, Canada?

Reposing there on thy Northern throne,

   With thy free-born air, so proud and grand,
Thy bosom begirt with a golden zone,

   And an ocean kissing thy either hand:

Is thy crown not already irradiated

By the beams from the sun of futurity shed!

May never that lofty and stainless brow

With the blush of shame in confusion bow,

Nor the voice of the future recall with scorn

The promise of this thy natal morn,

Fair Canada!

Wilt thou blazon forth on the scroll of time

A proud record of thoughts and of deeds sublime?

Be warned by—-but not to imitate—

The errors and crimes of a world effete

Shall the rule universal that governs thy land

Be, not the contrivance by impotence planned,—

A chaos of fiction, of error, deceit,

Where Anarchy’s smile is Society’s cheat;—

But the law, e’er evolving to infinite years,

And which lives in the music of numberless spheres,

Developing ever what best is in man,

And ignoring the creed of Humanity’s ban;

Whilst. ever in Civilization’s advance,

In the vanguard shall quicken thy brightening glance,

Till the sorrowing nations their tumult shall cease

To partake of thy glories of dignified peace,

Brave Canada?

Or foredoomed is that beauteous form to be

Of most loathsome of human things the prey,

Who, sneering at patriotism’s filial ties

And all things regarding with bestial eyes,

Would abase thee to grade of the prostitute,

And thy name, and thy fame, and thy honor pollute?

Shall the reckless empiric and impudent fool

Presume o’er thy splendid Dominion to rule,

And punily wise whilst viciously daft,

Go aping old wiles of exploded state-craft,

In an endless procession, forever the same,

With “reform” but the change of a factionist name?

Shall a verminly host of corruptionists crawl

O’er the face of thy loveliness, fouling it all,

Till their carcases, gorged with the tide of thy life,

Make the stench of pollution where sweetness was rife;

Whilst their poison, cast back in thy nurturing pores,

Marks their trail centipedal with festering sores,

The spume of a leprosy raging beneath,

And making thy life one long, lingering death?

Shall the knave sanctimonious and smooth hypocrite,

All the while, on thy breast, like an incubus sit,

To mock thee with tales of the Heavenly Will,

And tell thee thy woes are inevitable;

Till the wise of thy children—most loved of thy heart,—

Away from the sight of thy wretchedness start,

In despair at thy ruin, and blushing with shame

At the blight ignominious that clings to thy name,

Poor Canada?

Let our songs of rejoicing be toned with the prayer,

That thy future may brighten a record more fair;—

For that prayer will re-act on the uttering Will,—

To uplift, to expand, and intensify still.

May thy sons, with due mete of their dignity rise,

To wrestle, like men, with their destinies;

Put away childish things; self-reliant and bold,

Drawing lessons of truth from the lore of the old,

Yet seeking forever intensified light,

Rear thy empire proudly in wisdom and right;

And ever their glories ancestral advance,

With more than the splendors of England and France;

Till thy banner of peace and of progress unfurled,

Shall blaze in the van of a happier world;

Whilst thy generate millions, through ages unborn,

Shall honor with pride thy Nativity Morn,

Dear Canada!

   July 1st, 1967

 
Happy Canada Day!

Related posts:

'We first saw light in Canada...'

'God Guide Thee Canada'

Laura Salverson's 'For Canada' for Canada Day

'Canada to England, July 1st 1917' by Horace Bray

'O Canada! beloved native land...'
'O Canada! our native land thou art!'
Patriotic Verse from the Garden of a Girl's Dreams
A 123-Year-Old Poem for Canada Day

Two Hurrahs for the New Dominion

Charles G.D. Roberts' Dominion Day Collect
Marjorie Pickthall's Canadian Hymn

Verse From the First of Dominion Poetesses
Fair Canada: 'Here many nations dwell...'

The Man with the Midas Touch

Sword of Desire

Robert W. Tracy [Alvin Schwartz]
New York: Arco, 1952

176 pages

As far as I can tell, "Fort Crime!" is the first Alvin Schwartz story I ever read. It concerns a criminal organization that uses heavy artillery in committing crimes. Superman, Batman, and Robin figure.

"Fort Crime!" first appeared in published in World's Finest Comics #71 (September-October, 1954). I read the story when it was reprinted twenty years later in World's Finest Comics #224 (August 1974).

Alvin Schwartz had long since walked away from comics by the time I caught up with him, but in 1954, when "Fort Crime!" first appeared he was still very active in writing for the comics. He was just as active in 1952, the year Sword of Desire saw print, churning out stories for Batman, Superboy, Superman, and the Superman daily comic strip.

Sword of Desire is not for children. It opens on the meeting of a senate committee looking into a "white slave" syndicate. The most recent witness, a woman who wore a clinging black silk dress and "gracile lizard skin pumps" – much is made of this – has been found naked and dead in a vacant lot. Senator Kingarden, who heads the committee, has had enough:

"Let's stop acting like a collection of sanctimonious old women poking Puritanically around the outer edges of wickedness. Let's be realistic and recognize that you don't investigate a crime by turning up your noses at the smell. If it's our business to legislate, then we can't afford to be so refined that we regard our noses as mere facial ornamentation. We've got, if I may say so, a genuine stink on our hands and the sooner we use the natural organs that God gave us for dealing with it, the sooner we'll get results."

Tough talk, though it is clear that Kingarden has no intention of bringing fellow senators' noses or other organs an inch closer than need be. Instead, he proposes that psychoanalyst Dr Genorius Veresi be brought in to help with the investigation by going undercover as a john. There is some pushback from committee members, though not nearly so much as one might expect.

"One of those rare geniuses of healing that has come out of the new schools of psychology which regard sex as the basis of all man's inner desires," Veresi is a controversial figure who employs unorthodox methods. Schwartz hints that the doctor restricts his practice to married women who have little or no sexual desire. The doctor's treatment, which comes from years of intense study, involves a fleeting touch that unleashes sexual desire.

It's not what you think, nor is it wear you think. In the first case, Veresi grazes the underside of a patient's wrist.  

Consider it a superpower. The doctor uses it to induce women in the syndicate to reveal all.

There were many points at which I nearly gave up on this novel. The whole thing seemed so silly and, to be completely honest, the sex scenes were mild in the extreme. Still, I'm glad I made the effort.

It was, I think, in "Contact Two," the sixth chapter of sixteen, that something twigged. I recalled something about Wilhelm Reich, "orgone energy," and "orgone theory," which were all the rage in the post-war years. I'm fairly certain I skimmed over something about it all in university. I next came upon a 2005 online response to a query in which Schwartz describes Sword of Desire as a "take-off on Reichian Orgone psychology." That he seemingly felt the need to explain suggests limited appeal for today's reader, Reichians excluded. 

I will say that after "Contact Two" things really begin to pick up, even for those who know little of Reichian theory. It's here that Sword of Desire becomes a true detective story.

As might be expected, a woman proves to be both Veresi's Kryptonite and his Lois Lane.

Sword of Desire was read for the 1952 Club, co-hosted by Kaggsy and Simon. Other books from 1952 I've read and reviewed here over the years include:

Dark Passions Subdue - Douglas Sanderson

Destination: Universe! - A.E. van Vogt

Die With Me Lady [Weep No More, Lady] - Ronald Cocking

Flee the Night in Anger - Dan Keller [Louis Kaufman]

Hot Star - Robert W. Tracy [Alvin Schwartz]

The Lively Corpse [Rose's Last Summer] - Margaret Millar

Murder Over Dorval - David Montrose [Charles Ross Graham]

Pierre le magnifique - Roger Lemelin

Vanish in an Instant - Margaret Millar

Of these, the one I most recommend is Vanish in an Instant, which is one of my very favourite Margaret Millar novels. She wrote so many!

I would be remiss in not also praising Murder Over Dorval by the mysterious David Montrose (Charles Ross Graham), which I helped return to print as part of the Véhicule Press Ricochet Books series. Coincidentally, I'm now involved in reissuing another of the titles listed above.

More to come! 

Object: A red hardcover wrapped in a jacket with uncredited illustration. The novel itself is followed by  several pages of Arco promo material, six of which flog "ARCO SOPHISTICATES." The first title listed is Touchable, Schwartz's 1951 Arco collaboration with Lee Scott. It's the first Alvin Schwartz novel I ever read.

Access: Published once, then never again, McMaster and the University of Toronto have it in their holdings.

I purchased my copy two years ago as part of a lot of twelve Arco books. There were only two I wanted, the other being Alvin Schwartz's Man Maid (New York: Arco, 1952), but the price was right at an even US$100. At the time, two copies of Sword of Desire were listed online, the cheaper being US$100!

Never mind! As I write this, just one copy of Sword of Desire is listed for sale online. The price is a mere seven quid! Get it while you can!

Related posts:

Sexy Stuff from Bizarro Superman's Creator
Dick Tricks Chicks Into Hot Pix!

An Alvin Schwarz Cover Cavalcade

The Case of the Queer Antiques Dealer

The Mystery of Cabin Island
Franklin W. Dixon [Leslie McFarlane]
New York: Grosset & Dunlop [c. 1960]
214 pages

If you ever happen to visit Bayport, home of internationally famous detective Fenton Hardy and his sons Frank and Joe, I recommend you stay away from the water. The Missing Chums, which I read last year, begins with the near collision of a motorboat with two sailboats. The early pages of The Mystery of Cabin Island features the near collision of two ice boats. In both cases, tragedy is averted only due to Frank's quick thinking and piloting skills.

Iceboats date back to 18th-century Holland, but I had no idea that they were so common in 1920s America. Frank and Joe built one themselves. Their chum Biff receives an ice boat from his dad as a Christmas present. Bad Tad Carson and Ike Nash, who are most certainly not chums, have the biggest one by far.

London: Harold Hill & Son, 1953

Is this an American thing? I ask because I don't believe I've ever met anyone who owns an ice boat.

The eighth book in the series, The Mystery of Cabin Island is my third Hardy Boys read. As I'm discovering, backstories often reference the boys' previous adventures. In this case, that previous adventure is book number six, The Shore Road Mystery (1928), which saw the brothers working to expose a gang of car thieves.

One of the cars retrieved was a Pierce-Arrow, belonging to a "queer" antiques dealer named Elroy Jefferson. He was away in Europe at the time and so never had a chance to thank Frank and Joe. Now that Jefferson has returned to Bayport, he rewards them with two crisp hundred dollar bills (roughly $3700 today):

The boys protested, but Elroy Jefferson insisted, and finally they were forced to accept the reward.
   “Now,” said Mr. Jefferson, “if there is anything else I can do for you at any time, don’t hesitate to ask me."

But Frank does hesitate... then asks permission to camp on nearby Cabin Island, which happens to be owned by the antiques dealer. In fact, it was Jefferson who constructed the cabin after which the island is named. Just the previous day, Frank, Joe, Biff, and their chum Chet had landed on Cabin Island in their ice boats, only to be ordered off by a mysterious man named Hanleigh. As it turns out, he's been pressuring Jefferson to sell him the island, but the "queer old chap" won't budge:

I won’t sell him the island at any price, and I told him so. You see, when my wife and son were alive they loved to go there in winter and summer, so Cabin Island has certain associations for me that cannot be estimated in terms of money. They are dead now, and I cannot bear to part with the place.

Jefferson is happy to grant the Hardy boys and their chums Biff and Chet permission to camp on the island, though I must say this doesn't involve camping as I understand it. No tents are involved, rather the four boys settle into the cabin, complete with large living area, kitchen, and bedrooms. Upon arrival, they spy Hanleigh inspecting the cabin's imposing chimney and jotting down figures on the back of an envelope.

What exactly is Hanleigh up to?

The Hardy boys are nowhere near so curious as this reader. After ordering Hanleigh off Cabin Island, the four boys while away the hours skating, skiing, and ice boating. I began to wonder whether Frank and Joe's disinterest in Hanleigh's jottings might best be explained by issues with short-term memory.

Hear me out.

Frank, Joe, Biff, and Chet, spend the following day exploring Barmet Bay on ice boat. Upon returning to the cabin they find that their "grub" has been stolen. The following morning, the Hardy boys set off for in their iceboat for supplies at a general store run by chatty old-timer Amos Grice. Upon learning that the boys are staying on Cabin Island, the storekeep relates a fascinating story about an extremely valuable stamp collection that had been stolen from Elroy Jefferson by his man servant John Sparewell some fifteen or so years earlier.

Back on Cabin Island, Joe comes across a notebook belonging to John Sparewell:

"Sparewell," mused Frank. "Where have I heard that name before?"

It takes a while before Frank and Joe remember the name from the story they'd heard just hours earlier.

There's little in the way of sleuthing here. The mystery of The Mystery of Cabin Island is revealed when the chimney comes down in a winter storm, exposing the missing collection.

The boys are again rewarded, this time to the tune of $200 apiece. Jefferson gives lesser players Biff and Chet $100 each.

My attention had long since been absorbed by Elroy Jefferson as a character, largely because of the repeated use of "queer" in describing the antiques dealer. Now, I do realize that The Mystery of Cabin Island was written at a time when "queer" was commonly used – but not always used – as a synonym for strange or unusual. Still, reading it here did raise a nod, wink, and smile. I could not help but think that Leslie McFarlane was having a bit of fun within the constraints imposed by Hardy Boys creator Edward Stratemeyer and the Stratemeyer Syndicate.

Leaving aside stereotypes associated with Jefferson's occupation, and that he spends most of the year  in Europe rather than provincial Bayport, I might've thought I was reaching had it not been for Grice's reaction upon learning that the antiques dealer had allowed the boys to camp on his island:

“Yes, that’s just like Mr. Jefferson. Got a heart of gold, specially where boys is concerned. But queer — mighty queer in some ways,” said Amos Grice, again wagging his head. "Do you know" — and he leaned forward very confidentially — "I really think he married Mary Bender because of her postage stamp collection.”
   This amazing announcement left the Hardy boys rather at a loss for words. “He married his wife because of her postage stamp collection!” exclaimed Joe.
   “That’s what I said. You’ve heard of the Bender stamp collection, haven’t you?” he demanded.
   The boys shook their heads.

   “Well, I ain’t a stamp collector and I’ve heard of it. The Bender collection is supposed to be one of the greatest collections of postage stamps in the world. Why, I’ve heard tell that it’s worth thousands and thousands of dollars.”
   “And Mrs. Jefferson owned it?”
   “Yep. Her name was Mary Bender then, and she inherited it from her father. I got parts of the story from people who knew Mr. Jefferson well. It seems he has always been a collector of antiques and old coins and stamps and things, but one thing he had set his heart on was the Bender stamp collection. But he couldn’t buy it. Either Mr. Bender wouldn’t sell or Elroy Jefferson couldn’t raise the money — but somehow he could never buy them."

"Queerest story I ever did hear," says Amos Grice in concluding his account of the theft, adding:

"Mary Bender died just a short time after. And ever since the stamps were lost, Elroy Jefferson ain’t been the same. [...] It seemed to break Elroy Jefferson all up, because that collection was the pride of his heart, and when it disappeared so strangely, he just didn’t seem to take any more interest in anything."

I may be reading too much into this. 

Now, if McFarlane had written "so queerly" instead of "so strangely" I might be more certain.

Caution: Of the four ice boats that feature in the novel, two are destroyed in accidents. Fortunately, no lives were lost.

London: Armada, 1982

That said, it does seem a dangerous mode of transportation.

Object: This one was purchased eight years ago for one dollar. It once belonged to a girl named Pamela who lived on Blasdell Avenue in Ottawa. That she wrote her name and address in the book using a fountain pen gives some indication as to its age. A further clue is found in the book's list of previous Hardy Boys Mysteries, the most recent being The Mystery of the Chinese Junk (1960).

Sadly, my copy lacks the dust jacket. It would've featured this illustration:

The cabin is roughly a sixth the size that described in the text. The chimney is far too short and should be wide enough to easily accommodate a sixteen-year-old boy. The depiction in the original 1929 edition is more accurate, though the cabin is far too close to the water:

Access: The Mystery of Cabin Island was first published in 1929 by Grosset & Dunlop. As I write, two first editions with dust jackets are listed for sale online. The cheaper is going for US$700.

The novel was rewritten in 1966 by Anne Shultes, Andrew E. Svenson, and Harriet Stratemeyer Adams. This is the version in print today.

I'm not familiar with the revision, though as I understand it involves a missing grandchild, medals, and a smattering of racism. How much of Leslie McFarlane's original remains I cannot say, but I'm guessing it isn't much. 

As far as I can tell, there had been three translations – French (Le mystère de l'Île de la Cabane), Swedish (Mysteriet i jakstugan), and Norwegian (Hardy-guttene og den stjålne frimerkesamlingen) – though I expect all are of the revision.

Related posts:

Here's to Missing Chums

Gone Fishin' (without Frank and Joe Hardy)