Best 1923 Adventures (9)
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March 19, 2018
One in a series of 10 posts identifying Josh Glenn’s favorite 1923 adventure novels. Happy 95th anniversary!
Joseph Conrad’s historical/military adventure The Rover.
Peyrol, an amoral pirate turned sailor in Napoleon’s navy, retires to a coastal farm in southern France with his ill-gotten gains; for fun, he repairs and rigs an old boat. The farm’s owner, the beautiful Arlette, has been half-crazed ever since the Revolution, when her parents were murdered and she herself participated in atrocities; Arlette’s husband — if they were ever married — is a bloodthirsty revolutionary, Scevola. This weird but quiet household is disturbed when an enigmatic French lieutenant, Réal, shows up. Arlette falls in love Réal; Scevola wants to murder him. Réal, meanwhile, wants Peyrol to participate in a half-baked plan to allow fake documents to be captured by the British corvette patrolling the coast — thus sending Lord Nelson off on a false trail. Peyrol could do something heroic for France, and kind for Arlette… but why should he?
Fun facts: Conrad’s final novel. Like the character Nostromo in the novel of that title, Peyrol is based on a Corsican ex-pirate whom Conrad had known as a teenage sailor in the 1870s. Yes, there was a movie adaptation with Anthony Quinn.
JOSH GLENN’S *BEST ADVENTURES* LISTS: BEST 250 ADVENTURES OF THE 20TH CENTURY | 100 BEST OUGHTS ADVENTURES | 100 BEST RADIUM AGE (PROTO-)SCI-FI ADVENTURES | 100 BEST TEENS ADVENTURES | 100 BEST TWENTIES ADVENTURES | 100 BEST THIRTIES ADVENTURES | 75 BEST GOLDEN AGE SCI-FI ADVENTURES | 100 BEST FORTIES ADVENTURES | 100 BEST FIFTIES ADVENTURES | 100 BEST SIXTIES ADVENTURES | 75 BEST NEW WAVE SCI FI ADVENTURES | 100 BEST SEVENTIES ADVENTURES | 100 BEST EIGHTIES ADVENTURES | 75 BEST DIAMOND AGE SCI-FI ADVENTURES | 100 BEST NINETIES ADVENTURES (in progress) | 1994 | 1995 | 1996 | 1997 | 1998 | 1999 | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | NOTES ON 21st-CENTURY ADVENTURES.