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THE_ZEPPELINS_PASSENGER

                                             January 15, 2009
                                             April    2, 2009


"The Zeppelin's Passenger" (1918)
by E. Phillips Openheim                [ref]

Openheim apparently has a rep
for being one of the people
who developed the spy novel                           [ref]
form.
                                                      "An Amiable Charlatan"
Reading this novel, I was mildly                      is difficult to put
surprised to see it shows everything                  a date to: wikipedia has
from the women's point of view --                     1915, one source has it
                                                      from Saturday Evening
   SPOILERS                                           Post stories circa
                                                      1913-1914.
And then it dawned on me that what
he was really doing is "The Scarlet              Upon reading Oppenheim's
Pimpernel":                                      "An Amiable Charlatan"
                                                 (1915) I see that it's
   Dischord between husband and                  a small variation
   wife, because he dare not tell                on "Raffles".
   her about his Secret Mission--
   and so he must play the cowardly                 The Raffles-figure
   fool, and forfeit her respect.                   has a beautiful,
                                                    equally dishonest
     But the German spy (the                        daughter, who provides
     passenger of the title) is                     the viewpoint character
     plunged into an adventure                      a motivation for getting
     behind enemy lines, much                       involved.
     like the Pimpernel.
                                                    MUTATION
     There are aspects of that
     original assigned to                                Hornung's Raffles
     different figures...                                (from the 1890s),
                                                         is of course a
                                                         variant of Holmes.

                                                         RULE_OF_REVERSALS





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