Customer Reviews

Doctor Syn, A Smuggler Tale of the Romney Marsh

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I first read Thorndyke's Doctor Syn books decades ago when I was a boy, thoroughly enjoying them. Russell Thorndyke's story is as fresh on second reading now as it was then. Unfortuately, the slovenly copy editing exhibited by this Wildside Mystery Classics edition detracts from the excellence of the story. Page 51 is a blank hole in a text shot through with typographic mistakes and other omissions. In short, the Wildside Mystery Classics edition is a disgrace. The copy editor should be keelhauled.

I give 1-star for the edition and 4 stars for the story.

Wildside Press has just released a second edition of Doctor Syn, correcting typos in their first edition. That's the one to get -- highly recommended for fans of early action-adventure tales.

For many childern of the 60's (myself included), the Sunday evening TV episodes of "The World of Disney" exposed adolescents (as well as many "adult adolescents") to a diverse catalouge of entertaining adventure tales. In 1965, a three-part episode entitled "Dr. Syn, the Scarecrow of Romney Marsh" first aired and enthralled all who watched it. The "robin hood" atmosphere that this work evoked drove many to want more of the "Scarecrow" to the extent that some of these "children" never got over that desire (me included again, of course). This interest was again recently peaked for me when I watched it on VHS with my own children and subsequently was driven to (happily) discover that the "Dr. Syn" story indeed had a long history.

Russell Thorndyke (an English actor/playwrite of the early 20th century) was the impetus for the story, I discovered, and wrote a number of short novels that ultimately spawned the Disney film. While researching these works, I discovered this fairly new release and decided to indulge. When I received it, I found that this particular volume "Dr Syn, a Smuggler Tale of Romney Marsh" is a re-release of the original 1915 story that started the legend, so, with memories of the film in mind, I dove into reading it. Sadly, this initial telling of the story doesn't nearly match the film or the legend that we're all familiar with and is thus a disappoinment.

The storyline, of course, is of Dr. Syn, the mild-mannered vicar of Dymchurch who's alter-ego is the Scarecrow...that mysterious, masked night-rider who heads a band of smugglers intent on making life in Romney Marsh palatable for the townsfolk during the late 1700's. Their swashbuckling adventures keep the village economically above water while at the same time tweeking the rouge English government of King George. Outlaws as they are, the characters are heroic (as all "rob from the rich and give to the poor" types are) and amazingly clever as attempt after attempt to capture them further embellishes their reputation.

This book by Thorndyke establishes the characters and setting, while filling in some blanks. We are told that Syn is in fact a Captain Clegg, the notorious pirate who was thought hanged years ago, but is now the kindly vicar. He now resides in Dymchuch and soon becomes stagnated by country life and disillusioned by the repeated efforts of the English government to stay economically viable (read, taxing them to death). Syn becomes the Scarecrow and recruits a gang of smugglers who work with other European countries to obtain illegal booty which ultimately keeps the Dymchurch province afloat. The problem with this book, however, is that very little is discussed about these "high adventure" activities and too many nonsensical storylines are established that detract from the essence of the main theme. One is left to assume a lot here and, I suspect, many will lose patience (admittedly, I did). This book isn't great writing nor great literature, so the draw of this work should have been the character of the Scarecrow. Unfortunately (and I assume that Thorndyke enhances the story in subsequent novels) we see very little of the Scarecrow and still less of the "midnight rides". I suppose that the main problem here is the fact that we've now seen the movie and are all too familiar with the characters. Therefore we've missed the buildup of the story from 1915 to now and our expectations get soundly thrashed when reading this work.

I do plan however to read at least some of the follow-up novels (Thorndyke kills Syn in this volume, so his subsequent works follow Syn as he lives preceding this story) and truly hope that the story's improve. With respect to this work, however, I'd only recommend it for the truly die-hearted.

Russell Thorndyke was an entertaining storyteller and this novel--the first of a number featuring pirate/preacher Dr. Syn--is a lot of fun to read.


But, gee whiz, this edition is missing the last few chapters!!!! At first, I thought maybe I'd just gotten a defective copy, but I've noticed other reviewers complaining about this and the page count matches up to what is advertised.

This edition just seems to leave you hanging without resolving any of the several ongoing plot threads. I have no idea what Wildside Press was thinking of when they published it. Someone either made a sloppy mistake or a really bizarre and annoying editing decision.

Fortunately, this book is old enough to be in the public domain so I was able to access an electronic copy via Google Books and finish reading the story.


4 stars for a fun adventure story written in a quick, witty prose. 1 star for leaving off the gosh-darn ending!!!

I am very glad of the purchase of this book. It is well written and I very much wanted to know the origin of one of my favorite Disney movies (taken from the series) of all time. I was surprised, however, that when I received this book it was much thinner than I had anticipated. I thought the price was high because I had hoped this book had more of the writings on this story than it did. Had I known...

My first read from Thorndyke and it was good time spent. If you saw the movie offering from Disney you feel right at home in the "marsh" reading this book. If you didn't then you will want to see the movie after reading the book. My only disppointment was the ending and maybe that was Thorndyke's intent because when you hit the last page there were a lot of unanswered questions and incomplete activities by the characters. Therefore based on my own conclusions I have ordered another book on Dr. Syn to see if there is a connection. I sure hope so because I want to find out how it ends, if ever. You'll enjoy this classic.

I was a fan of the Disney series as a child, and in preparation for a business trip to the southern coast of Britain, I read the Kindle edition of the book. (Which was complete, unlike, evidently, some of the paper versions reviewed here.) It is darker than the Disney version, and Syn is often quite violent here. That's fine, and I'm not surprised that Disney cleaned up the character a bit. But the prose is rather weak, and instead of exploring the smuggling, the author often went off on several unimportant tangents and curious subplots.
I made the mistake of reading reviews before I had finished the novel. No thanks to reviewer Thomas Moody for giving away the ending!

I was looking forward to reading again some of the Dr Syn stories from my misspent youth (too many hours in libraries and not enough time in the fresh air and sunshine), but this is not one of the ones I had read back in the 60's, so I was looking forward to learning something new about the characters. I did learn a lot of new background information. The daughter was a new character to me,as was Jerry Jerk (who gets quite a lot of print) and I enjoyed learning more about the exploits of Mr. Mipps, but on the whole, the book was a disappointment because it ended so abruptly. The daughter is off on a quest and we never learn the outcome. The mulatto is still on the loose and no one seems interested in finding him. We never learn why everyone hated the schoolmaster, and when Syn beats him up with a broken rum bottle in full view of the Captain and Jerry Jerk, he makes up a story that the mulatto did it and no one contradicts him. Finally, the last page says that Dr. Syn is leaving that evening for his "mission" and sometime in this last chapter, he is supposed to be killed, but the story ends very abruptly before the departure ever takes place. It is possible that my copy of the book is defective in that it is missing several pages of the last chapter, because other reviewers have noted misprints and other problems, but missing several pages is quite a big problem to go unnoticed by the printer's quality control people. Can anyone tell me if their copy ends with more information. Mine ends in the middle of page 161 and then there are three blank pages after that.

Doctor Syn -- quite a name for the unassuming, fatherly, and mild-mannered vicar in the quiet English village of Dymchurch. But of course there's more than meets the eye to the vicar, and the name "Syn" gives the readers a clue that maybe the vicar has had something of a checkered past ...
Russell Thorndyke's book is filled with an amusing cast of characters, especially Mipps, the irrepressible sexton; Jerry Jerk, the clever young man with a taste for the macabre; and of course, Dr Syn himself, the man who always keeps an ace up his sleeve, and knows where the hidden exits are. It was a pleasure to read about a man still crafty enough in his waning years to match wits with the authorities sent to stamp out smuggling, and I recommend this book for anyone who enjoyed Stevenson's "Treasure Island" or DuMaurier's "Jamaica Inn."