A Pageant of Victory

UK Publisher: Sampson Low, Marston and Co. Ltd. (London). First published 1936

"Unusual setting for Farnol, including scenes of the first European encounters with Native Americans in the 1770s. It's a multi-generational epic of the Falconbridge family, fighting for American ideals during the Revolution, the 1860s, & the early 20th Century. Though reprinted often enough to not be entirely difficult to find, fine first editions in dustwrapper are startlingly difficult." Jessica Amanda Salmonson

The story opens in Virginia in 1774, at the moment when resentment at King George's treatment of the American Colonies and anger at Gaye's misguided high-handedness in Massachusetts, and particularly Boston, is blazing up to rebellion. George Charteris, Lord Wraybourne (sic), a perfervidly loyal Tory peer settled in Virginia, vehemently denounces the agitation as treason, and is infuriated when his nephew, Anthony Falconbridge, expresses sympathy with it and declares his belief in the future of America as an independent sovereign power.

Thus, a family feud is originated which provides the main thread upon which all the subsequent episodes constituting the novel are strung.

The story is first rate. Large in conception, well constructed, dramatic, emotional, and relieved by a fair amount of humour, it has all the attributes that should give it great and deserved popularity.