1936 The Coming of the Monster : Owen Francis Dudley : Detective Novel in DJ

The Coming of the Monster

By Owen Francis Dudley

London; Longmans. Green & Co, 1936. FIrst Edition. (Not to be confused with the cheap edition published the same year). Hardback book in original dust jacket. 8vo. 275 pages.

CONDITION
A very good first edition. The original jacket is in good condition with even sun-fading to the spine as expected, a little scuff to the front inner flap, and a repair to the inside. Boards and spine very clean. Endpaper very good. Front endpaper has an embossed blind stamp (Convent of Mercy, Dighton Street, Bristol) . . this was an orphanage for young girls. All contents present and pages clean throughout. No writing or names to the book. Overall very good.

From the dustwrapper, "Father Anselm Thornton, the Masterful Monk, reappears, to enter the lives of Captain Louis Vivien, of the French Intelligence Service, and Verna Wray, the girl of the tale. The theme is the revolt against God and the moral law which the author claims is spreading openly or in subtle forms throughout the world.

An unusual love story is inter-woven, the setting of which lies mainly in England, with incidental work in Leningrad, Paris, Lourdes and Hollywood. The tale works up to a love climax, and to a startling ending, consequent upon the detective work of Captain Vivien and certain acts of the Masterful Monk."

Owen Francis Dudley (1882-1952) was an English Catholic priest who gained fame both as a world lecturer and as a novelist. Dudley became an Anglican minister in 1911 and was received into the Catholic Church in 1915. He was ordained a Catholic priest in 1917 and became a chaplain in the British Army. Dudley saw service on the French and Italian fronts during World War I and was wounded. After the war he was active in the Catholic Missionary Society (a society of Catholic priests) and was elected the Superior General of the Catholic Missionary Society of England in 1933. Dudley’s published novels include The Masterful Monk (1929), Pageant of Life (1932), The Coming of the Monster (1936), The Tremaynes and the Masterful Monk (1940), Michael (1948), and Last crescendo (1954), which was published posthumously. In addition to his novels, he penned some nonfiction works, including Will Men Be Like Gods?: Humanitarianism or Human Happiness? (1932), Human Happiness and H.G. Wells (1936), The Church Unconquerable (1936), You and Thousands Like You” (1949), and ‘What I Found’—An Ex-Anglican’s Conversion Story (1949). Dudley died in 1952.

(Loc : Platform, Red Shelves, Top right)