Black Feather
Benge Atlee
New York: Scribners, 1939
345 pages
The weapons Britain is supplying to its Arab allies are somehow ending up in the hands of Eastern European fascists and the Foreign Office is not amused. One man, Gerald Burke, is called upon to put a stop to it. An Oxford-educated archeologist-turned-adventurer, Burke seems a good choice; he knows the region, has a good number of contacts, and hails from rural Nova Scotia (Chignecto, it is implied). What's more, Burke comes with Abdula el Zoghri, a manservant who has a talent for getting out of tight spots.
After accepting the assignment, our hero returns to his Bloomsbury Square flat to find a warning in the form of a black feather, quill-upwards, protruding from the brass plaque bearing his name. The fact that they're onto him doesn't deter Burke from his mission. Burke makes for Marseilles, and is booking passage to Salonika when a pretty Russian girl literally falls into his arms. He knows she's a spy, Zoghri knows she's a spy, and yet they're happy to play along.So begins my review of Black Feather, the lone novel by war hero and sometime pulp writer Harold Benge Atlee (1890-1978). You can read the entire piece here – gratis – at the Canadian Notes & Queries site.
Object: A solid, somewhat bulky book in bright yellow boards. My copy was a gift from James Calhoun, with whom I wrote the introduction to the latest edition of Peregrine Acland's Great War novel All Else is Folly. This year, James contributed the introduction to the reissue of second novel of the conflict, God's Sparrows by Philip Child.
Access: Five Canadian university libraries have copies, but not Dalhousie, at which he studied and later served as Professor and Chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology. Our public libraries – Library and Archives Canada included – fail entirely
The Scribners edition is the only edition. It enjoyed a single printing. Only three copies are listed for sale online – US$30 to US$50 – none of which feature the dust jacket.
