The Island of Fantasy

A Greek count with suspiciously perfect English lures a young Englishman, Maurice Roylands, to Melnos, a little-known island in the Aegean where an old idealist named Justinian has spent forty years building a pagan commonwealth on Homeric lines and rules it as a kind of king. Fergus Hume, famous for The Mystery of a Hansom Cab, turned here from the detective story to romance: love and conspiracy on the island, a fight for its survival, and an ending in smoke and fire that leaves only a cloud on the horizon. Fifty-seven storm and sea plates by painters including Aivazovsky and Turner give the Aegean voyage, the fight for Melnos, and the final smoke and fire their weather.