Anthony Adverse

by Hervey Allen

Book Overview

William Hervey Allen Jr. (December 8, 1889 - December 28, 1949) was an American educator, poet, and author. He graduated from Shady Side Academy in 1909. He was a midshipman with the United States... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: B00005VESZ
• ISBN13: 9781121820081
• Release Date: January 1933
• Publisher: Farrar and Rinehart, Inc.
• Length: 1224 Pages
• Weight: 2.58 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.2" x 3.7" x 5.5"

Customer Reviews

Well-written, often deep, encyclopaedic adventure

I was surprised that I had never heard of Hervey Allen before. An historical novel based around 1800, the book starts off in an old-fashioned, almost clichetic episode of intrigue. It develops into a fascinating character-glass of Anthony and those he meets. The point-of-view on topics from slavery to colonialism, cronyism to Bonaparte, the meaning-of-life to our perception of the purer souls amongst us, are all eye-opening, believable and told with a truly refreshing candour. Some passages, indeed, must have been very controversial at its 1933 publication date, when, according to the fly-cover, it sold over 1m copies! It is a huge book, not just by its length, but by its surreptitious dipping into a marvelously connected string of souls, purposes, lives and interactions in such a readable, even gripping, story.