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Anthony Adverse (novel)

1933 novel by Hervey Allen From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Anthony Adverse (novel)
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Anthony Adverse is a 1933 novel by American author Hervey Allen. It was published by Farrar & Rinehart.[2]

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The novel contains three volumes: The Roots of the Tree, The Other Bronze Boy and The Lonely Twin, and each volume contains three "books", making for nine books in total.[3]

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Plot

The story follows the eponymous protagonist, Anthony Adverse, through several adventures around the world. This includes slave trading in Africa, his business dealings as a plantation owner in New Orleans, and his incarceration and eventual death in Mexico.[1]

Reception

Fanny Butcher of the Chicago Daily Tribune and Peter Monro Jack of The New York Times both gave the novel glowing reviews. Butcher wrote: "It is a thriller de luxe, but it is more than a melodrama of the most intricate happenings. It is the fantastic tale of a fantastic period, and it is the highest expression of the art of the picaresque which our generation has offered."[2] Similarly, Jack wrote: "Anthony Adverse is essentially a story and a very great story, but it gathers up so much wit and wisdom by the way that Mr. Allen is revealed on every page as that rare thing nowadays, a creative humanist [...] We should not be surprised and we could not be anything but pleased if his Anthony Adverse became the best-loved book of our time."[4]

The novel was the Publishers Weekly best-selling novel in the United States for two consecutive years: 1933 and 1934.[5]

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Film adaptation

In 1936, the book received a loose movie adaptation, drawing from the first eight books.[citation needed]

See also

References

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