The Money Master. London: Hutchinson and Co, 1915.
First Edition. Gilbert F. Wright dustjacket art. Canads set novel of a French Canadian, "who lives on the land where his ancestors had settled before the British conquest of the Dominion. He is the Money Master, a man of means and affairs, a miller by occupation but interested in many speculations for increasing his fortune." Basis for the 1921 silent film A Wise Fool, directed by George Melford and starring James Kirkwood and Alice Hollister. A very scarce title to be found in the British edition. The author wrote of this title: "Jean Jacques Barbille, by nature a poet, a philosopher, a farmer and an adventurer, his life was a sacrifice to prepossession and race instinct; to temperament more powerful than logic or common sense, though he was almost professionally the exponent of both. There is no man so simply sincere, or so extraordinarily prejudiced as the French Canadian. He is at once modest and vain; he is even lyrical in his enthusiasms; he is a child in the intrigues and inventions of life; but he has imagination, he has a heart, he has a love of tradition, and is the slave of legend. Jean Jacques Barbille that he could travel through scenes, many of them depressing, for long years, and still, in the end, provoke no disparagement, by marrying the woman who had once out of the goodness of her heart offered him everything– herself, her home, her honour; and it was to Jean Jacques’s credit that he took neither until the death of his wife made him free; but the tremendous gift offered him produced a powerful impression upon his mind and heart." Very Good, top spine end modestly bumped, in Very Good dustjacket, two inch closed tear at upper front panel, some tape shadows at verso, modest soiling to panels.
Price: $350.00