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Penguin Books
August 2017
On Sale: August 1, 2017
Featuring: Lionel Savage; Vivien Lancaster
304 pages
ISBN: 0399562656
EAN: 9780399562655
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Literature and Fiction
A funny, fantastically entertaining debut novel, in the spirit of Wodehouse and Monty Python, about a famous poet who mistakenly sells his wife to the devilโthen recruits a band of adventurers to rescue her. When Lionel Savage, a popular poet in Victorian London, learns from his butler that theyโre broke, he marries the beautiful Vivien Lancaster for her money, only to find that his muse has abandoned him. Distraught and contemplating suicide, Savage accidentally summons the Devilโthe polite โGentlemanโ of the titleโwho appears at one of the society parties Savage hates. The two hit it off, but when the partyโs over and Vivien has disappeared, the poet concludes in horror that he must have inadvertently sold his wife to the dark lord. Newly in love with Vivien, Savage plans a rescue mission to Hell that includes Simmons, the butler; Tompkins, the bookseller; Ashley Lancaster, swashbuckling Buddhist; and Savageโs spirited kid sister, Lizzie, freshly booted from boarding school for a โdalliance.โ Throughout, his cousinโs quibbling footnotes to the text push the story into comedy nirvana. Fresh, action-packed and very, very funny, The Gentleman is a giddy farce that recalls the masterful confections of P.G. Wodehouse and Hergรฉโs beautifully detailed Tintin adventures.
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