Peregrine's Progress  ‡

UK Publisher: Sampson Low, Marston and Co. Ltd. (London). First published 1922

eBook at Project Gutenberg

eBook at unz.org

Peregrine Vereker, in the eyes of his aunt Julia, who brought him up to the mature age of nineteen, was a polished young gentleman, an incipient artist and poet. In the opinion of his two uncles he was an ignorant mollycoddle, a ladylike nincompoop, unacquainted with manliness. Stung by their scorn, Peregrine "ran away" as many a lad before and since, to learn the world and prove his worth, and ran the gamut of happiness and misery, of fear and courage, of loneliness and love before he matched up to the requirements of his two uncles.

In this novel Mr. Farnol has returned to the period of his first love, the early nineteenth century, and Peregrine, in his "progress," meets with much the same gentry as peopled the England of "The Broad Highway." Indeed, several characters of that delightful romance have an active hand in Peregrine's education, particularly the Tinker, that master of wholesome philosophy. No present-day writer knows better than Mr. Farnol how to depict the lure of the outdoors, the charm of the English country and the life of this particular period.

Another dashing tale, full of action, crowded with tense moments, with gypsies, rogues, men of fashion, lovely ladies and ladies not so lovely, the life of the country, the life of fashion; all combined in this new creation of Mr. Farnol's brilliant and teeming imagination, which is worthy to take its stand in the company of this author's previous work.