{"product_id":"when-valmond-came-to-pontiac-the-story-of-a-lost-napoleon-complete-gb-6205","title":"When Valmond Came to Pontiac: The Story of a Lost Napoleon. Complete","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eWhen Valmond Came to Pontiac: The Story of a Lost Napoleon. Complete\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\r\n      In one sense this book stands by itself. It is like nothing else I have\r\n      written, and if one should seek to give it the name of a class, it might\r\n      be called an historical fantasy.\r\n    \n\r\n      It followed The Trail of the Sword and preceded The Seats of the Mighty,\r\n      and appeared in the summer of 1895. The critics gave it a reception which\r\n      was extremely gratifying, because, as it seemed to me, they realised what\r\n      I was trying to do; and that is a great deal. One great journal said it\r\n      read as though it had been written at a sitting; another called it a tour\r\n      de force, and the grave Athenaeum lauded it in a key which was likely to\r\n      make me nervous, since it seemed to set a standard which I should find it\r\n      hard to preserve in the future. But in truth the newspaper was right which\r\n      said that the book read as though it was written at a sitting, and that it\r\n      was a tour de force. The facts are that the book was written, printed,\r\n      revised, and ready for press in five weeks.\r\n    \n\r\n      The manuscript of the book was complete within four weeks. It possessed\r\n      me. I wrote night and day. There were times when I went to bed and, unable\r\n      to sleep, I would get up at two oclock or three oclock in the morning\r\n      and write till breakfast time. A couple of hours walk after breakfast,\r\n      and I would write again until nearly two oclock. Then luncheon;\r\n      afterwards a couple of hours in the open air, and I would again write till\r\n      eight oclock in the evening. The world was shut out. I moved in a dream.\r\n      The book was begun at Hot Springs, in Virginia, in the annex to the old\r\n      Hot Springs Hotel. I could not write in the hotel itself, so I went to the\r\n      annex, and in the big buildingin the early spring-timeI\r\n      worked night and day. There was no one else in the place except the old\r\n      negro caretaker and his wife. Four-fifths of the book was written in three\r\n      weeks there. Then I went to New York, and at the Lotus Club, where I had a\r\n      room, I finished itbut not quite. There were a few pages of the\r\n      book to do when I went for my walk in Fifth Avenue one afternoon. I could\r\n      not shake the thing off, the last pages demanded to be written. The sermon\r\n      which the old Cure was preaching on Valmonds death was running in my\r\n      head. I could not continue my walk. Then and there I stepped into the\r\n      Windsor Hotel, which I was passing, and asked if there was a stenographer\r\n      at liberty. There was. In the stenographers office of the Windsor Hotel,\r\n      with the life of a caravanserai buzzing around me, I dictated the last few\r\n      pages of When Valmond Came to Pontiac. It was practically my only\r\n      experience of dictation of fiction. I had never been able to do it, and\r\n      have not been able to do it since, and I am glad that it is so, for I\r\n      should have a fear of being led into mere rhetoric. It did not, however,\r\n      seem to matter with this book. It wrote itself anywhere. The proofs of the\r\n      first quarter of the book were in my hands before I had finished writing\r\n      the last quarter.\r\n    \n\u003cb\u003e ......Buy Now (To Read More)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eProduct details\u003ch3\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eEbook Number\u003c\/b\u003e: 6205 \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor\u003c\/b\u003e: Parker, Gilbert \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eRelease Date\u003c\/b\u003e: Nov 16, 2004 \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat\u003c\/b\u003e: eBook \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage\u003c\/b\u003e: English \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"booksdeli.com","offers":[{"title":"Parker, Gilbert,1862-1932 \/ eBook \/ English","offer_id":43215321497757,"sku":"gb-6205-ebook","price":9.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0619\/5648\/9373\/products\/6205.jpg?v=1671282731","url":"https:\/\/booksdeli.com\/products\/when-valmond-came-to-pontiac-the-story-of-a-lost-napoleon-complete-gb-6205","provider":"booksdeli.com","version":"1.0","type":"link"}