The Definite Object  ‡

UK Publisher: Sampson Low, Marston and Co. Ltd. (London). First published 1917

eBook at Project Gutenberg

eBook at unz.org

Review from Newport Vintage Books

A Romance of New York.

"Not a swashbuckler but quite a vigorous tale of New York's "Hell's Kitchen," drawing on Jeffery's personal experiences while in America. A rich young man poses as impoverished, leading to a happy romance. It was twice filmed, in 1920 directed by Edgar J. Camiller, & remade in 1924 as Manhattan directed by R. H. Burnside." Jessica Amanda Salmonson

"The story of a rich, young New Yorker whose great wealth had taken from him all incentive to action. For want of a definite object in life he is toying with the thought of suicide, when he surprises a youthful burglar in the act of entering his room. Then, posing as a poor man -- "My Geoffrey" -- he takes up lodgings with the house-breaker in the old " Hell's Kitchen" of the New York slums. Thugs, gangsters, pugilists of unsavory reputation, take the place of the vicious characters of old-time Kentish lanes where there is battle, sudden deadly encounters, revenge and heartbreak, and love fair and foul before "the definite object" is attained." Newport Vintage Books