3 Review(s)

1882. With frontispiece. F. Marion Crawford was one of the more famous authors in the English-speaking world at the time of his death in 1909. He wrote over forty novels, most of which were in the style of disposable romances popular at the time. He also wrote stories of the horror and occult, which are generally the ones for which he is remembered today. Mr. Isaacs, Crawford's first book, was so influential it inspired many late-Victorian Theosophist fantasies. Mr. Isaacs is unusual in that its descriptions of contemporary India are exceedingly accurate to the moment, capturing minutiae of passing fashions. The story begins: In spite of Jean-Jacques and his school, men are not everywhere born free, any more than they are everywhere in chains, unless these be of their own individual making. Especially in countries where excessive liberty or excessive tyranny favors the growth of that class most usually designated as adventurers, it is true that man, by his own dominant will, or by a still more potent servility, may rise to any grade of elevation; as by the absence of these qualities he may fall to any depth in the social scale. See other titles by this author available from Kessinger Publishing.