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Post by dem bones on May 4, 2009 19:27:17 GMT
Gregory Pendennis - Piranhas in Petticoats (Elmslie & Co., 1913, 1934: Spear, 1975, 1980) THE MENACE WITHIN
"I mean, confound it all, you insolent baggage! Your country's about to wage war on the Hun!"
On the surface, Rosie Prenderghast-Smythe seemed no different to any other correct young English debutante. Beautiful. Wealthy. Devoted to Daddy and ‘Mumsy’. Fiercely proud of the Great British way of life.
Why then, had top brass seen fit to haul in the Duke de Risqué to explain his dearest grand-daughter’s recent muddle-headed outbursts at perceived “injustices”. Outbursts which may yet see her gaoled as a threat to national security?
The answer was more terrible than de Risqué dared fear. His dearest grand-daughter had fallen prey to an even deadlier enemy than the combined forces of Kaiser Bill, Satan, and the Trade Unions. The young fool had been duped into joining the Suffragette movement!
Heavily disguised, securing employment far below his station, de Risqué learns from his ‘fellow’ gossiping pantry maids that, brainwashed by her Soviet pay-mistresses, Rosie is recruiting an all-women’s football team to challenge his Majesty’s first XI for the Football Association Challenge Cup at the Crystal Palace!
Can the Duke knock some sense into Miss Prenderghast-Smythe’s dizzy little head before she brings Empire to its knees?*covers shown are the '34 Elmslie and the 80 Spear editions. If anyone has the originals, please scan 'em up!*
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Post by marksamuels on May 4, 2009 21:21:57 GMT
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Post by dem bones on May 4, 2009 21:42:28 GMT
It's not easy, Mark. I gather plans are afoot to reissue his notorious To Hell With The Devil, possibly as an OUP World Classic, although you didn't hear that from me. Gregory Pendennis - The Man Who Collected Probert (Spear, 2002) Blurb The Duke de Risqué and his colleagues have faced many dangers since fate first threw them together in the Black Hole of Calcutta.
- From Hitlers Goon Squad in Berlin during the rise of the Reich. ("Hitler Was A Nazi!")
- From machete-wielding Mau Mau in the jungles of Kenya ("They Ate Our Sisters")
- From Suffragettes, Godless Regicides and "Madame Guillotine" in 18th century Paris ("Piranhas In Petticoats", albeit the entire French episode takes place during a Moet Et Chandon induced dream sequence)
Now, at the dawn of a brave new millennium, an unexpected menace lures them from retirement for yet another final operation behind the Iron Curtain - a mission that will bring them face to face with Satan himself!.
The telegram from top brass leaves no room for misunderstanding. Playboy author Lord Probert and Lacey Stockingtops, the Duke's beautiful great-granddaughter, have gone missing from the Foreign Office - and with them a floppy disc containing the intimate details of high ranking British Secret Service Personnel. de Risqué knows better than most just how badly the Russians want to get their swarthy hands on that information. But can Lacey really have turned traitor? What is her connection with the untrustworthy, one-armed Champagne Socialist and powerful Black Magician Luke Tudor-Wainwright, the traitor widely believed to spearhead the TUC's White slavery racket?
"There's only one thing for it", the Duke addressed his incredulous friends with steel eyed determination. "Tonight, I shall tear down the Berlin wall with my own bare hands - with or without that blasted Socialist PM's permission!"With apologies to Franklyn Marsh and the human race in general
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Post by franklinmarsh on May 5, 2009 8:13:14 GMT
Blimey! Sterling research work, Dem. It's time Pendennis' oeuvre was reexamined. He might be condemned as a reactionary, Commie-bashing, racist, sexist bon viveur in these more 'enlightened' times, but without the old fraud..erm...whoops..I mean yarn-spinner's stunning popularity amongst the News Of The Screws brain-washed unwashed in the late 60s early 70s (and the Mallet Film of To Hell With The Devil), certain street urchins might not have clamoured for ever more boundary-pushing 'horror' tales, and ne'er-do-wells such as Richard Staines might not be luxuriating in the adoration of zillions.
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Post by Johnlprobert on May 5, 2009 10:42:46 GMT
Whoever Mr Pendennis may really be he's really cheered me up this morning. Although I wonder how he found out about Lacey....
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Post by pulphack on May 5, 2009 18:48:38 GMT
Come now, sir, we all know that he has access to your family secrets, as revealed in his historical thriller 'Proberts In Probate', wherein Gregory Sallacious sets out to settle the mysterious goings on at Probert Manse following the sudden death of the Thirteenth Earl, and the legal problems this presented young Johnny Probert as he struggled to assert his claim both in the estate of the Manse and of young Sylvia the serving wench...
Anyway, it's about time mr Pendennis was recognised for the groundbreaker that he was. That stunningly oblique prose style; the grandiloquent turn of phrase that cantered into breath-drawing action; and the astounding world view that made Dornford Yeats look like the limp-wristed Liberal that he truly was...
Huzzah for Mr P. Now pass the port...
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Post by dem bones on May 7, 2009 9:54:12 GMT
Whoever Mr Pendennis may really be he's really cheered me up this morning. Although I wonder how he found out about Lacey.... Oh, so you've not read her steamy revelations in The News Of The World then? I shouldn't if I were you .... On the subject of stocking tops (note how I worked that one in), I'd noticed Dennis Wheatley's healthy fascination with same while flicking through To The Devil - A Daughter in search of racy bits, but hadn't realised just how healthy until reading this footnote (!) to Glen St John Barclay's chapter on the joys of Wheatley in Anatomy of Horror (St Martin's Press, New York, 1979), Stocking tops were undoubtedly the most popular sexual fetish of the pre-pantyhose generation, and no writer not overtly dealing in pornography ever got more mileage out of stocking tops than Dennis Wheatley. The curious reader is referred in particular to Come Into My Parlour (stocking tops, murder, Nazis and sadism); Star of Ill-Omen (stocking tops, adultery, Communists and flying saucers); Curtain of Fear (stocking tops, Communists and flagellation); and especially To The Devil - A Daughter (stocking tops, Communists and the production of homunculi). And to think i was never going to bother with his non-Black Magic novels .... Oh yeah, and the fellow in the Man Who Collected Probert cover photo is André 'the Prince of Terror' de Lorde, author of more than a hundred plays performed by the Paris Grand Guignol between 1901 and 1926. He seemed like the right man for the job.
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Post by Johnlprobert on May 7, 2009 16:58:58 GMT
I haven't read To the Devil a Daughter since I was 13 but I most certainly DO remember its fairly lascivious placement of stocking tops
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