Physical description

Hard cover book. Helianthus
Author: Ouida/Marie Louise de la Ramée
Publisher: Macmillan and Co., Limited
Date: 1908
Further Information: Black Cloth hardcover with lettering and patterning to spine in gilt. The spine has a Library label with an inscription.

Publication type

fiction

Inscriptions & markings

The label on the spine with the typed text PAT 823 OUI
Paste down front end paper has a sticker from Warrnambool Mechanics Institute and Free Library covered by a sticker from Corangamite Regional Library Service. Front loose end paper has a stamp from Warrnambool Mechanics Institute
Front loose end paper has a stamp from Corangamite Regional Library Service
The Flyleaf has the name "Louise Ranie" written in blue ink.

Summary

This novel Helianthus is a political satire set in an invented Mediterranean kingdom of the same name, whose capital is Helios. King John of Gunderode rules as an autocrat behind constitutional forms, with a muzzled press and police spies everywhere. His second son, Prince Elim, Duke of Othyris, is a humane, philosophical man who hates soldiering. At a military review he halts his cavalry rather than trample peasants who have strayed onto the field, and the crowd adores him for it. The King and Elim's stiff elder brother, the Crown Prince, are furious. The visiting Emperor Julius of the neighbouring 'Guthones' is a pious, vain militarist who is eyeing the kingdom's sea. He gets Elim off the hook, partly to humiliate him. A review from the time calls it a novel with a purpose, whose author's zeal sometimes tips into vituperation, and which lacks the romantic charm of Under Two Flags. In the US it was published as A Prince of Europe (Helianthus).