The Gates Of Doom E. J. Jenkinson

126p. Copyright n.d. 1930. Inscribed front free end paper, "Sincerely yours, E.J. Jenkinson". Book description: Blue gray publisher's pebble grain cloth hardcover, gilt title stamped on front board/spine cover, front cover detailed with blind stamped double framed border. Dimensions: 7.5" x 5" x .75". Approx. weight: 8 ounces. Condition notes: Very good; 1" lightly faded upper front board, rubbed/gentle-moderately bumped/rubbed spine crown/heel and gently bumped corner tips, moderately darkened end papers, clean tight light age-toned text pages. A nice copy. "Short vanity-published novel with Anglo-Indian setting and a melange of thriller motifs: a secret society in India with an ancient magical liturgy that gives the story its title, murders, kidnappings, chases and escapes, a leprous villian, an intrepid English hero improbably named Sultan Boss, hypnotism-at-a-distance by a horrible old priest trying to lure Boss into the Gates in order to achieve a vampiric transfer of life force, clairvoyant dreaming by Boss's sweetheart (a winsome vicar's daughter), and sound police work that eventually scuttles the dastardly plot. Add in preposterous coincidences, pulpy dialogue (bullets as "leaden messengers of death") and weird non-sequiturs, and the result reads like either an accidental parody of a Victorian sensation novel or else a deliberate but very sly one. Oddly amusing in small doses." -Robert Eldridge. Not in Bleiler (1948; 1978), Reginald (1979; 1992) or Day (1963). Not in Locke, Spectrum of Fantasy, I-III. Not in Carter or Cox. Hubin (1994), p. 442. A Scarce book with just two institutional holdings reported by OCLC (the British Library and the University of Texas).