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The Way of an Eagle

Ethel M[ay] Dell

This is the 34th impression and 'Fine edition' of a novel published in January 1912 in T. Fisher Unwin's 'First Novel Library'. It was written by Ethel M. Dell (1881-1939) and was set in India, a country that she hadn't visited. The novel had been rejected by eight publishers before it was accepted by T. Fisher Unwin, and it proved to be enormously popular. It is a melodrama, as you may gather from Blampied's illustrations. The book is full of words such as tremble and throb. But it was popular enough for George Orwell to mention in Keep the Aspidistra Flying, even if he was disparaging about it. This is what the Hampshire Evening Telegraph had to say about this new edition on 24th November 1916:

A novel of which 34 impressions or editions as they were formerly called, have had to be published by Mr. T. Fisher Unwin in five years can need no recommendation. The Way of an Eagle is a story whose dramatic intensity holds the reader in a thrill of excitement from start to finish, while the character delineation of the two principal characters is one of the finest things in modern fiction. The book has now been presented in a form worthy of the story and the author. Mr. Unwin has just prepared a fine art edition, artistically bound and embellished with twelve excellent illustrations in colour by Edmund Blampied. In its new form the book would make a most acceptable Christmas present, for it is good in every respect.

At one point this novel represented a half of the publisher's turnover and it made Dell a wealthy woman. She married an Army Officer in 1922 to become Ethel Mary Savage, bought a large house near Guildford, and became reclusive (see The Oxford Companion to Edwardian Fiction, 2002). She died of cancer aged 58.

Blampied also designed a second dust jacket for a Cheap edition, the 44th impression and later, first issued in 1920. It is shown below.

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Dust jacket (click to enlarge)

Lid of presentation box (click to enlarge)

Cover of T. Fisher Unwin edition (click to enlarge)

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Cover of Copp Clark Company, Toronto, edition (click to enlarge)

Notes: This book is identical to the British edition except that the name of the publisher is different at the bottom of the cover (see above) and on the title page, and no printing history is given or date of publication.

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Illustrations in The Way of an Eagle

  

  

  

  

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Dust jacket (click to enlarge)

Notes: The printing history indicates that the second Cheap edition was first issued in 1920. As a new edition is often issued in a new jacket and Blampied was back in London in 1920 so available to accept commissions, this jacket design was probably first used in 1920.

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