ONE OF 12 COPIES, UNRECORDED ISSUE
Soldiers of Fortune.
London: William Heinemann, 1897.
Price: $2,500.00
About the item
First English edition, limited to twelve copies, of which this is No. 4. With 6 illustrations by Charles Dana Gibson. 288 pp. Printed by Billings and Sons, Guilford. 1 vols. 8vo. ONE OF 12 COPIES, UNRECORDED ISSUE. Publisher's pictorial buckram. Very Good. BAL 4525 note (this issue not mentioned); Quinby 14 (not mentioning this issue).
Item #322452
Inscribed on the half-title "To Anthony Hope Hawkins / from the Duchess of Olancho", and signed below "Richard Harding Davis."
The fictional Latin American republic of this novel is Olancho, and the presentation suggests the influence of Hawkins upon Davis.
The Prisoner of Zenda (1894) by Anthony Hope Hawkins is the defining (and best) example of the Ruritanian novel of intrigue in small fictional European principalities, involving double-crossing, power grabs, and forbidden romance at royal courts. Richard Harding Davis took up the form with his "Graustark" series; Edgar Rice Burroughs and John Buchan also wrote in this tradition.
Soldiers of Fortune was the most successful of the novels of Richard Harding Davis. In 1899, 114,000 copies were in print; in 1902, 135,000. It was also made into a successful play.
