[Pulpmeister]

I am a bit surprised to see no Dornford Yates books here yet. Yates "William Mercer, (1885-1960) wrote two different streams of books, overlapping, which were huge best sellers between the Wars.

The first were amusing short stories of an independently wealthy family headed by Bertram "Berry" Pleydell, who lived in a happy world of eternal English sunshine and an unlimited supply of Rolls-Royces.

The second stream was the action thriller or "shockers". These usually took place either in the Pyrenees or southern Austria, and involved master criminals, sinister castles, treasure, and a beautiful woman in distress. Some of these thrillers had Jonah Mansel, one of the cast of the "Berry" stories, as protagonist. Others were independent.

This, "The Brother of Daphne", is the first collection of the short stories about "Berry & Co", of White Ladies, in the County of Hampshire, and was first published in 1914. The stories first appeared in "Windsor" magazine. It was also Yates' first published book.

A Gutenberg edition exists; this one has some scanning errors corrected, a TOC, and a new cover.