Articles liés à Simon the Jester
Présentation de l'éditeur
With a strong sense of humor and the will to endure, man can survive the jokes played on him by the hands of fate. This brilliant work portrays a protagonist who faces the cruelty of fate and still carries on with his life. His vigor and courage increases after every downfall and he ultimately has the last laugh.
“It has all the charm and surprise of his famous ‘Simple Septimus.’ It is a novel full of wit and action and life. The characters are all out-of-the-ordinary and splendidly depicted; and the end is an artistic triumph – a fitting climax for a story that’s full of charm and surprise.” -American Magazine
“If you wish to be lifted out of the petty cares of today, read one of Locke’s novels. His characters are worth knowing.” -Baltimore Sun
“Easy and charming.” -The New York Times
“Truly delightful...its chief charm is found, not in its invention, but in its quiet humor and deft allusiveness. A worthy successor for ‘Septimus’ and ‘The Beloved Vagabond,’ and in ‘The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne.’” -The Dial, Volume 49, July 1, 1910
“Simon de Gex, M. P., a gay philosopher after Mr. Locke’s heart, is suddenly given by his doctor six months to live. He faces death undiscouraged, and when we leave him sound in body and happy in marriage, he has acquired wider and saner views of life....His story reveals effectively the edge of humanity of the author. All the characters are living, from the cannily magnetic woman who succeeds in securing her lover just as her better self has made her success dust and ashes, to the half-crazy little dwarf who murders her first husband in a mad frenzy of revenge.” -Book Review Digest, Volume 6, 1910
“You will not put down the book until you have read the last page. The story is not the main part of Mr. Locke’s book. It is the style, the quality of the writing, the atmosphere of the novel, the easy pervasive charm...which makes us feel once more the stirring pulses and eager blood of deathless romance.” -W. L. Courtney, The Daily Telegraph
“We thoroughly recommend ‘Simon the Jester,’ and can promise an enjoyable tie in the company of the miscellaneous assortment of people from all ranks and classes who dance through its pages to Mr. Locke’s many tunes.” -Morning Post
“It is much the best of his sentimental stories, without forgetting for an instant the illiterate Carlotta and the gushing Paragot; the writing of it has a style, a grace.” -Standard
(cover image courtesy of jayanta behera)
Biographie de l'auteur
William John Locke (March 20, 1863 - May 15, 1930) was a novelist, short story writer, and playwright born in Demerara, in what is now Guyana. Educated in Trinidad and at Cambridge, he entered on a career as a teacher in 1890, but disliked it; in 1897 he became secretary of the Royal Institute of British Architects, a post he held for a decade. In 1894 he published his first novel, At the Gate of Samaria, but he did not achieve real success for another decade, with The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne (1905) and The Beloved Vagabond (1906). Chambers Biographical Dictionary wrote of his "long series of novels and plays which with their charmingly written sentimental themes had such a success during his life in both Britain and America... His plays, some of which were dramatized versions of his novels, were all produced with success on the London Stage" (p. 836).
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