ALADDIN OF LONDON

or LODESTAR

Max Pemberton

Empire Book Co (NY) 1907

Illustrated by FRANK PARKER

Condition:  no jacket,  hardcover book rather faded with some shelfwear; binding is not bad, although somewhat cracked at the front flyleaves.  Don’t see any markings except on front flyleaf (names, date 1932).  Call it GOOD, considering its age.  (Pages are somewhat browned.)

About the author:

Sir Max Pemberton (1863-1950) was a popular British novelist, working mainly in the adventure and mystery genres. He was educated at St Albans School, Merchant Taylors’ School, and Caius College, Cambridge. The Iron Pirate was a bestseller of the early 1890s, and he became a prolific professional writer. He was editor of the boys’ magazine Chums and, from 1896 to 1906, of Cassell’s Magazine. He founded the London School of Journalism in 1920. (less)

Commentaries or reviews on line:

Social station is everything and nothing in this romantic mystery involving the son of a British parson and a Polish maid in the Whitechapel district of London. When a mysterious millionaire with political motives becomes involved, their love affair threatens to take a dark turn.

Alban Kennedy, the impoverished son of a British parson, is compelled to take up his abode in the Whitechapel district of London, and becomes the suitor of a little Polish maid who is infinitely above her mean environment. The circumstances which lead to his adoption by a millionaire, the net of intrigue woven about him, and the efforts to bring about the death of his little sweetheart for political purposes, using him as the innocent tool, make an engrossing plot.” –Albany Times-Union.

Alban Kennedy is a poor London factory worker courting the daughter of an exiled Polish revolutionary when a mysterious benefactor adopts him as a son and throws him amongst the idle rich. Alban soon discovers his patron’s secret past, however, and ends up acting as a double agent in Russian-occupied Poland’s political underground.