About this title: A whimsical story cycle originally published in 1905. Each tale concerns a man who has developed a completely new and different way to make a living, such as the head of the Adventure and Romance Agency, who provides adventure and romance to everyday people; and a Professional Detainer, who is hired to make people late.
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Description: Good. Light shelf wear and minimal interior marks. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Description: Good. 1419157000 Former library item may have library binding and show stamps, stickers or other marks. Items not meeting quality expectations may be returned. Due to the large scale of our operation, we do not have access to the specific contents/condition of our items. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Dover Publications
Date Published: 1988-01-01
ISBN-13:9780486255347ISBN:0486255344
Description: Like New. May be shiny, in some instances dust jackets are not included, no missing pages, no damage to binding, may have a remainder mark. read more
Edition: First Paperback Edition, 1st printing
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Carroll & Graf Publishers, Inc, New York
Date Published: 1987
ISBN-13:9780881843200ISBN:0881843202
Description: Not Issued jacket. 1987 FIRST Carrolll & Graf paperback edition in VERY GOOD condition; no dust jacket as issued. Tight binding; slightly cocked; spine crease; light edge wear; clean, bright pages; small black stamp on copyright page; no other marks. 270 p. (2838) (scanned image is of actual book) read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Dover Publications
Date Published: 1988
ISBN-13:9780486255347ISBN:0486255344
Description: New. Brand New! Buy with confidence-your satisfaction is guaranteed at B-Logistics! Due to the large scale of our operation, we do not have access to the specific contents/condition of our items. Please note that Expedited shipping is not available at this time. read more
"I throughly enjoied the dry humor, irony and twists. It was surprizing and a little predictable but still very good. The imagination the G.K. Chesterton has amazes me. I would recommend this book to everyone."
""It is true that all sensible women think all studious men mad. It is true, for the matter of that, all women of any kind think all men of any kind mad. But they don't put it in telegrams, any more than they wire to you that grass is green or God all-merciful. These things are truisms, and often private ones at that."
"Chesterton's book is a series of mystery stories involving a narrator and his friend, the eccentric ex-judge Basil Grant. Each story is about someone who belongs to the Club of Queer Trades--someone who makes his living in an unique way.
I haven't read any Chesterton before, but was delighted by the breadth and depth of the mysteries. They had a variety of means and ends, and often didn't involve murder or other sordid crimes. At the same time, the detective Basil Grant becomes a sort of anti-Sherlock, relying more on what he knows about people through his long study of them, rather than through detailed facts and clues. There's an interesting passage about the unreliability of facts:
"Facts," murmured Basil, like one mentioning some strange, far-off animals, "how facts obscure the truth. I may be silly-in fact, I'm off my head-but I never could believe in that man-what's his name, in those capital stories?-Sherlock Holmes. Every detail points to something, certainly; but generally to the wrong thing. Facts point in all directions, it seems to me, like the thousands of twigs on a tree. It's only the life of the tree that has unity and goes up-only the green blood that springs, like a fountain, at the stars." ("Death to Major Brown")
This anti-rational approach depends on the spiritual approach to the universe. Basil functions like the physiologies (common books from the early 1800s that described residents of the city using broad caricatures), abstracting ideas about the character of people he meets not from any specific facts but rather from the general impression of them as people.
This book also features a club that seems to be the inspiration for the movie The Game -- the Adventure and Romance Agency:
"Major," said he, "did you ever, as you walked along the empty street upon some idle afternoon, feel the utter hunger for something to happen-something, in the splendid words of Walt Whitman: 'Something pernicious and dread; something far removed from a puny and pious life; something unproved; something in a trance; something loosed from its anchorage, and driving free.' Did you ever feel that?"
"Certainly not," said the Major shortly.
"Then I must explain with more elaboration," said Mr Northover, with a sigh. "The Adventure and Romance Agency has been started to meet a great modern desire. On every side, in conversation and in literature, we hear of the desire for a larger theatre of events for something to waylay us and lead us splendidly astray. Now the man who feels this desire for a varied life pays a yearly or a quarterly sum to the Adventure and Romance Agency; in return, the Adventure and Romance Agency undertakes to surround him with startling and weird events. As a man is leaving his front door, an excited sweep approaches him and assures him of a plot against his life; he gets into a cab, and is driven to an opium den; he receives a mysterious telegram or a dramatic visit, and is immediately in a vortex of incidents. A very picturesque and moving story is first written by one of the staff of distinguished novelists who are at present hard at work in the adjoining room...."
"How on earth does the thing work?" asked Rupert Grant, with bright and fascinated eyes.
"We believe that we are doing a noble work," said Northover warmly. "It has continually struck us that there is no element in modern life that is more lamentable than the fact that the modern man has to seek all artistic existence in a sedentary state. If he wishes to float into fairyland, he reads a book; if he wishes to dash into the thick of battle, he reads a book; if he wishes to soar into heaven, he reads a book; if he wishes to slide down the banisters, he reads a book. We give him these visions, but we give him exercise at the same time, the necessity of leaping from wall to wall, of fighting strange gentlemen, of running down long streets from pursuers-all healthy and pleasant exercises. We give him a glimpse of that great morning world of Robin Hood or the Knights Errant, when one great game was played under the splendid sky. We give him back his childhood, that godlike time when we can act stories, be our own heroes, and at the same instant dance and dream." ("Death to Major Brown")
One might also suggest that the appeal of ARGs depends on this same dissatisfaction with pre-packaged media entertainment. What doesn't figure here, though, is the rise of mix culture. The ability to remix and create your own media undoes some of the malaise of the modern man."
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