Anthony Lyveden


Anthony Lyveden is a 1921 adventure novel by the English author Dornford Yates.
It was first published in monthly instalments in The Windsor Magazine.
It was Mercer's first attempt at a full-length novel, and was succeeded by Valerie French which continued the story of the main characters.

Plot

Anthony Lyveden DSO, a destitute ex-officer, is forced to take a job as a footman at the Gramarye estate. The estate's owner, Colonel Winchester, becomes mad and leaves Lyveden in charge under a power of attorney. The situation drives Lyveden himself to madness.

Background

The author was not a happy man at the time, his father having committed suicide early in 1921, and Mercer's biographer AJ Smithers reports a suggestion that at this date he was not far from suffering a nervous breakdown. He defied The Windsor Magazine's tradition that every episode should end with a lovers' meeting, though he was pressed hard by the magazine's editor.

Chapters

Illustrations

The illustrations from the Windsor stories by Norah Schlegel were not included in the book version.

Critical reception

Smithers considered Anthony Lyveden to be a book of varying quality, and too episodic to be truly called a novel. He criticised the characterisations, suggesting that a reader might with some justice think the hero a pompous prig, one of the young women a humourless, suspicious creature, and the other a trollop manquée.
The original dustjacket included the following quote from the Glasgow Citizen -