Sir Hugh Seymour Walpole, CBE (1884 – 1941) was an English novelist. He was the son of an Anglican clergyman, intended for a career in the church but drawn instead to writing. Among those who encouraged him were the authors Henry James and Arnold Bennett. His skill at scene-setting, vivid plots, and high profile as a lecturer brought him a large readership in the United Kingdom and North America. He was a best-selling author in the 1920s and 1930s, but has been largely neglected since his death.
Walpole's books cover a wide range. His fiction includes short stories, coming of age novels, (Mr Perrin and Mr Traill, 1911, and the Jeremy trilogy) that delve into the psychology of boyhood; gothic horror novels (Portrait of a Man with Red Hair, 1925, and The Killer and The Slain, 1942); a period family saga (the Herries chronicle) and even detective fiction (Behind the Screen). He wrote literary biographies (Conrad, 1916; James Branch Cabell, 1920; and Trollope, 1928); plays; and screenplays including David Copperfield, 1935.
This novel is a study of human conflict within a conventional family of the 1930's, tested by the invasion of ideas in the person of the family's black sheep, Captain Nicholas. A sequel to 'The Green Mirror', the character of Captain Nicholas is the most original of all Walpole's creation.
From Kirkus Review, "Now and again Walpole introduces into his gallery a figure apart from the familiar cavalcade of characters which cross and recross each other's paths. He did it in The Man With the Red Hair -- and, years ago, in The Gods and Mr. Perrin. And he does it again in Captain Nicholas, story of a vagabond black sheep who turns up after ten years' silence, and disrupts a placid, well-ordered London household, tearing apart their ideals of honesty and goodness and simplicity and affection. An emotional and intellectual sadist, he works by devious ways, to an end the reader -- but not the characters -- is enabled to foresee from the start. Not such pleasant reading as most of his books -- nor so gruesome as The Man With the Red Hair, but a brilliant bit of characterization, and an insidious bit of social commentary."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Walpole
Inscribed to Lawrence Dudley?
This is one of two hundred and seventy-five large paper copies printed in September 1934. Signed by the author
