image of person or book cover 1768182654309025391.jpg
y separately published work icon A Prince of Swindlers single work   novel   mystery  
Alternative title: The Viceroy's Protege
Issue Details: First known date: 1897... 1897 A Prince of Swindlers
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'One of literature's first, greatest, and most dastardly gentleman rogues rise again

'The British Viceroy first meets Simon Carne while traveling in the Indian countryside. Charmed, he invites the reclusive hunchbacked scholar to London for a season of high society, little suspecting that his guest is actually an adventurer and master of disguise. Carne – aided by his loyal butler, Belton – embarks on a crime spree, stealing from London's richest citizens and then making fools of them by posing as a detective investigating the thefts.'

Source: Publisher's blurb (Penguin Classics).

Adaptations

form y separately published work icon The Duchess of Wiltshire's Diamonds Anthony Steven , ( dir. Kim Mills ) United Kingdom (UK) : Thames Television ITV , 1971 9356431 1971 single work film/TV crime

An adaptation of the first chapter of Guy Boothby's A Prince of Swindlers, in which Simon Carne first robs the aristocracy (in this case, the Duchess of Wiltshire) and then impersonates a detective investigating the crime.

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

Alternative title: En Arkeskalm
Language: Swedish
    • Stockholm,
      c
      Sweden,
      c
      Scandinavia, Western Europe, Europe,
      :
      Geber ,
      1897 .
      Extent: 220p.
Alternative title: Forbryder-fortællinger i Svindlernes fyrste
Language: Norwegian
    • Aarhus,
      c
      Denmark,
      c
      Scandinavia, Western Europe, Europe,
      :
      Jydsk ,
      1898-1899 .
      Note/s:
      • The National Union Catalogue of Norway has given this imprint the date range 1898-1899.

Works about this Work

Guy Boothby and the “Yellow Peril” : Representations of Chinese Immigrants in British Imperial Spaces in the Late-Nineteenth Century Ailise Bulfin , 2015 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australasian Journal of Victorian Studies , vol. 20 no. 1 2015; (p. 5-23)

'By the end of the nineteenth century the pernicious racial term “yellow peril” had entered the common parlance of Victorians across the British Empire. Ironically, this insidious imperial myth that China would overrun the West owed its genesis to the impact of European, and particularly British imperial activity, on China in the late-nineteenth century, rather than to any expansionary Chinese aims or activity. The western impact was bi-faceted, involving both the physical incursion of westerners into China, and the related movement of Chinese people overseas to work in western nations and colonies. Under the international coerced labour phenomenon known as the “coolie trade,” Chinese people were brought across the British Empire as far as the settler colonies of Australia and South Africa, and even to the plantations of the British West Indies. Despite the relative powerlessness of their position as indentured or indebted immigrants, they were inevitably perceived as hostile aliens who threatened "white" society. This essay examines the impact of Australian anti-Chinese sentiment on representations of Chinese people in the works of Guy Boothby, an Adelaide-born author who emigrated to London in 1893. It explores Boothby’s representations of Chinese people in the imperial spaces of Britain’s Australian and Southeast Asian colonies, and also in the informal imperial spaces of contact in “foreign” China, in the cities and coastal locations where the British Empire was making its presence and influence felt, in works including Boothby’s travelogue, On the Wallaby (1894), the Dr Nikola series of novels (1895-1901), “The Story of Lee Ping” (1895), The Beautiful White Devil (1896) and My Strangest Case (1901). It argues that these superficially disinterested but consistently derogatory representations of the far-flung Chinese contributed to the deplorable international myth of the yellow peril, but also could not help revealing the important and largely overlooked presence of the Chinese in the spaces of the British Empire, demonstrating the impact of the coolie trade on imperial society and signalling the multifaceted nature of the British Empire’s involvement with China.' (Publication summary)

Guy Boothby and the “Yellow Peril” : Representations of Chinese Immigrants in British Imperial Spaces in the Late-Nineteenth Century Ailise Bulfin , 2015 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australasian Journal of Victorian Studies , vol. 20 no. 1 2015; (p. 5-23)

'By the end of the nineteenth century the pernicious racial term “yellow peril” had entered the common parlance of Victorians across the British Empire. Ironically, this insidious imperial myth that China would overrun the West owed its genesis to the impact of European, and particularly British imperial activity, on China in the late-nineteenth century, rather than to any expansionary Chinese aims or activity. The western impact was bi-faceted, involving both the physical incursion of westerners into China, and the related movement of Chinese people overseas to work in western nations and colonies. Under the international coerced labour phenomenon known as the “coolie trade,” Chinese people were brought across the British Empire as far as the settler colonies of Australia and South Africa, and even to the plantations of the British West Indies. Despite the relative powerlessness of their position as indentured or indebted immigrants, they were inevitably perceived as hostile aliens who threatened "white" society. This essay examines the impact of Australian anti-Chinese sentiment on representations of Chinese people in the works of Guy Boothby, an Adelaide-born author who emigrated to London in 1893. It explores Boothby’s representations of Chinese people in the imperial spaces of Britain’s Australian and Southeast Asian colonies, and also in the informal imperial spaces of contact in “foreign” China, in the cities and coastal locations where the British Empire was making its presence and influence felt, in works including Boothby’s travelogue, On the Wallaby (1894), the Dr Nikola series of novels (1895-1901), “The Story of Lee Ping” (1895), The Beautiful White Devil (1896) and My Strangest Case (1901). It argues that these superficially disinterested but consistently derogatory representations of the far-flung Chinese contributed to the deplorable international myth of the yellow peril, but also could not help revealing the important and largely overlooked presence of the Chinese in the spaces of the British Empire, demonstrating the impact of the coolie trade on imperial society and signalling the multifaceted nature of the British Empire’s involvement with China.' (Publication summary)

Last amended 30 Jun 2017 12:53:58
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