It is not well known that, in addition to the 29 Bony novels, Arthur Upfield wrote six novels without Bony. I republished one - Gripped by Drought - earlier this year. A Royal Abduction is another. It was also first published by Hutchinson & Co Ltd, UK in 1932. Copies of that edition are extremely rare and inaccessible to the average reader being mainly in university libraries and private collections.
The story takes place in 1928. During a state visit to Australia, Her Royal Highness Princess Natalie, heiress to the throne of Rolandia in Europe, is abducted from the transcontinental train at Cook on the Nullarbor Plain by a gang lead by two American gangsters, Earle Lawrence and Van Horton. They hide her in caves near Eucla on the Great Australian Bight until the search is called off and ransom is arranged. Then two adventurers from Adelaide, Raymond Lund and William Snell, stumble across the abductors’ path and are forced join them in the caves.
I republished A Royal Abduction on 24 May this year. The cost of this new edition is US$44.95.
Copies are available online from my Arthur Upfield Bookshop.
It was republished without licence by Dennis McMillan Publications, USA in 1984. Only 400 copies were published, and they are hard to find and expensive. As I write this an AddAll book search found three copies, one for US$209 and the other two for US$400 each.
The story takes place in 1928. During a state visit to Australia, Her Royal Highness Princess Natalie, heiress to the throne of Rolandia in Europe, is abducted from the transcontinental train at Cook on the Nullarbor Plain by a gang lead by two American gangsters, Earle Lawrence and Van Horton. They hide her in caves near Eucla on the Great Australian Bight until the search is called off and ransom is arranged. Then two adventurers from Adelaide, Raymond Lund and William Snell, stumble across the abductors’ path and are forced join them in the caves.
I republished A Royal Abduction on 24 May this year. The cost of this new edition is US$44.95.
Copies are available online from my Arthur Upfield Bookshop.
No comments:
Post a Comment