The Fate of a Crown

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The Fate of a Crown
TheFateOfACrown.jpg
First edition
Author L. Frank Baum
(as "Schuyler Staunton")
Illustrator Glen C. Sheffer
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Genre Adventure fiction
Publisher Reilly & Britton
Publication date
1905
Media typePrint (hardcover)
Pages306 pp.

The Fate of a Crown is a 1905 adventure novel written by L. Frank Baum, the author best known for his Oz books. It was published under the pen name "Schuyler Staunton", one of Baum's several pseudonyms. [1] (Baum arrived at the name by adding one letter to the name of his late maternal uncle Schuyler Stanton. [2] )

Adventure fiction genre of fiction in which an adventure forms the main storyline

Adventure fiction is fiction that usually presents danger, or gives the reader a sense of excitement.

L. Frank Baum Childrens writer

Lyman Frank Baum was an American author chiefly famous for his children's books, particularly The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and its sequels. He wrote 14 novels in the Oz series, plus 41 other novels, 83 short stories, over 200 poems, and at least 42 scripts. He made numerous attempts to bring his works to the stage and the nascent medium of film; the 1939 adaptation of the first Oz book would become a landmark of 20th-century cinema. His works anticipated such century-later commonplaces as television, augmented reality, laptop computers, wireless telephones, women in high-risk and action-heavy occupations, and the ubiquity of advertising on clothing.

Contents

Audience

In the years just before and after 1900, Baum had established himself as a successful author of children's books. He then set out to expand his audience in three potentially lucrative areas: adult fiction and juvenile fiction for girls and for boys. The Fate of a Crown was his first endeavor for the adult audience. In 1906 he published Annabel and Aunt Jane's Nieces , juvenile novels for girls, and Sam Steele's Adventures on Land and Sea , a book for boys. (Each of these books was issued under a different pseudonym.)

Childrens literature stories, books, and poems that are enjoyed by and targeted primarily towards children

Children's literature or juvenile literature includes stories, books, magazines, and poems that are enjoyed by children. Modern children's literature is classified in two different ways: genre or the intended age of the reader.

<i>Annabel</i> (Baum novel) 1906 juvenile novel written by L. Frank Baum

Annabel: A Novel for Young Folk is a 1906 juvenile novel written by L. Frank Baum, the author famous for his series of books on the Land of Oz. The book was issued under the pen name "Suzanne Metcalf," one of Baum's various pseudonyms. Annabel was one of Baum's first efforts to write a novel for adolescent girls – who soon became one of his most important audiences.

<i>Aunt Janes Nieces</i> book by L. Frank Baum

Aunt Jane's Nieces is the title of a juvenile novel published by Reilly & Britton in 1906, and written by L. Frank Baum under the pen name "Edith Van Dyne." Since the book was the first in a series of novels designed for adolescent girls, its title was applied to the entire series of ten books, published between 1906 and 1918.

In The Fate of a Crown, Baum wrote an adventure novel that combines elements of political intrigue, melodrama, and mystery story. He set the book in Brazil in 1889, during the revolution that brought the Empire of Brazil to its end. Baum chose the rather daring strategy of including major historical figures of the period, Manuel Deodoro da Fonseca, [3] Floriano Peixoto, [4] and even Emperor Pedro II, [5] as characters in his fiction. (This may have been an additional good reason for releasing the novel under a pen name.)

Proclamation of the Republic (Brazil) November 1889 historical event in Brazil

The Proclamation of the Republic was a military coup d'état that established the First Brazilian Republic on 15 November 1889. It overthrew the constitutional monarchy of the Empire of Brazil and ended the reign of Emperor Pedro II.

Empire of Brazil 19th-century empire in South America

The Empire of Brazil was a 19th-century state that broadly comprised the territories which form modern Brazil and Uruguay. Its government was a representative parliamentary constitutional monarchy under the rule of Emperors Dom Pedro I and his son Dom Pedro II. A colony of the Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil became the seat of the Portuguese colonial Empire in 1808, when the Portuguese Prince regent, later King Dom João VI, fled from Napoleon's invasion of Portugal and established himself and his government in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro. João VI later returned to Portugal, leaving his eldest son and heir, Pedro, to rule the Kingdom of Brazil as regent. On 7 September 1822, Pedro declared the independence of Brazil and, after waging a successful war against his father's kingdom, was acclaimed on 12 October as Pedro I, the first Emperor of Brazil. The new country was huge but sparsely populated and ethnically diverse.

Deodoro da Fonseca President of Brazil

Manuel Deodoro da Fonseca was a Brazilian politician and military officer who served as the first President of Brazil. He took office after heading a military coup that deposed Emperor Pedro II and proclaimed the Republic in 1889, disestablishing the Empire, and stepped down little more than two years later, in 1891, under great political pressure. He is therefore the first Brazilian President to have resigned from office.

Story

The novel's protagonist is a young American named Robert Harcliffe; a recent college graduate, he works for his family's mercantile business in New Orleans, run by his Uncle Nelson. Nelson Harcliffe receives a letter from an old client in Brazil, Dom Miguel de Pintra, a wealthy man who has retired from business to devote himself to politics – specifically to the republican cause that struggles to replace the Brazilian Empire. Dom Miguel has written to request a secretary; Robert, eager for adventure, agrees to take the job.

New Orleans Largest city in Louisiana

New Orleans is a consolidated city-parish located along the Mississippi River in the southeastern region of the U.S. state of Louisiana. With an estimated population of 391,006 in 2018, it is the most populous city in Louisiana. A major port, New Orleans is considered an economic and commercial hub for the broader Gulf Coast region of the United States.

Robert's attitude is devil-may-care at first, yet he quickly learns that he has entered into a dangerous enterprise. He cleverly evades a murderous spy on the voyage down to Rio de Janeiro; but as soon as he reaches the city he is arrested by the police. In the carriage taking him to the police station, the lieutenant in charge is murdered by his own sergeant, who is a republican sympathizer. The sergeant and other sympathizers guide Harcliffe to the city of Cuyaba in Matto Grosso state, and to Dom Miguel's plantation.

Rio de Janeiro Second-most populous municipality in Brazil

Rio de Janeiro, or simply Rio, is anchor to the Rio de Janeiro metropolitan area and the second-most populous municipality in Brazil and the sixth-most populous in the Americas. Rio de Janeiro is the capital of the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil's third-most populous state. Part of the city has been designated as a World Heritage Site, named "Rio de Janeiro: Carioca Landscapes between the Mountain and the Sea", by UNESCO on 1 July 2012 as a Cultural Landscape.

There, Harcliffe quickly becomes a devoted admirer of de Pintra and a republican sympathizer himself. (Baum presents this as an American's natural preference, over the archaic, authoritarian, European imperial system.) Just as quickly, Robert learns that the circle around the republican leader is fraught with uncertainty. The man's daughter Izabel is cold and suspect, while his ward Lesba is an ardent republican, and a beauty with whom Harcliffe soon falls in love. Lesba's brother appears to be a republican too – yet he serves as the Emperor's minister of police. Harcliffe wrestles with question of who can be trusted, and who is playing a "double game".

The mystery aspects of the story center on the massive steel vault, impregnated with nitro glycerin, that is hidden in a sub-basement of de Pintra's mansion. It holds the treasury and the incriminating records of the republican movement; it opens with an exotic key, a specially-cut emerald in Dom Miguel's ring. The ring is stolen, which leads Harcliffe on a challenging and puzzling chase.

As the revolution starts, Dom Miguel, Harcliffe, and other supporters are captured and face a firing squad, only to be rescued (some of them at least) at the last minute, by Lesba and a troop of rebels. When the rebellion succeeds, Harcliffe marries Lesba and becomes the director of commerce in the new regime. The couple raise their children in a cosmopolitan style, wintering in New Orleans and spending the rest of the year in Brazil.

Baum's first adult novel was successful enough to justify a follow-up effort: a second Schuyler Staunton book, Daughters of Destiny , was issued in 1906. A third adult novel, The Last Egyptian , followed.

The Fate of a Crown was reprinted in a paperback edition in 2008. [6]

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"The Runaway Shadows, or A Trick of Jack Frost" is a twentieth-century fairy tale, a fantasy short story written by L. Frank Baum, famous as the creator of the Land of Oz. The story is one of a small cluster of Baum narratives that involve his fantasy land the Forest of Burzee and its exotic denizens. Arguably, Burzee constitutes Baum's second most important fantasy realm after Oz itself, being employed in his novels The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus (1902) and Queen Zixi of Ix (1905) and several of his short stories, and is referenced in The Road to Oz (1909).

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References

  1. ↑ "Schulyer Staunton", The Fate of a Crown, Chicago, Reilly & Britton, 1905.
  2. ↑ Katharine M. Rogers, L. Frank Baum, Creator of Oz: A Biography, New York, St. Martin's Press, 2002; p. 135.
  3. ↑ The Fate of a Crown, pp. 97–105, 134–140.
  4. ↑ The Fate of a Crown, pp. 135–140, 183–186, 189–193.
  5. ↑ The Fate of a Crown, pp. 160–188.
  6. ↑ L. Frank Baum, The Fate of a Crown, Whitefish, MT, Kessinger Publishing Co., 2008.
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