The Cream of the Jest

The book begins with a chapter in which Richard Harrowby, a Virginian cosmetics manufacturer, promises to explain the sudden appearance of "genius" in his late neighbor, Felix Kennaston. His story will be based on his notes from a conversation with Kennaston.

There follow the last six chapters of Kennaston's first draft. A clerk named Horvendile is in love with the heroine, Ettare, but sees her as the ideal woman who is in all desired women, not someone he can love with the disappointments of living with a flesh-and-blood person. He brings about the climactic confrontation between hero and villain. After the hero wins, Horvendile reveals to him and Ettare that they are characters in a book and that he is the Author's stand-in. He must return to his own, prosaic country. As safe-conduct back to Storisende, Ettare gives him half of a talisman she wears, the Sigil of Scoteia.

Dettagli