The Savage Gentleman (Avon pocket-size books) [Paperback]

Philip Wylie (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: 1952

Betrayed by his wife, Stephen Stone spirits his son, Henry, away to a remote tropical island and trains him to be an ideal physical specimen and a perfect gentleman. After years of isolation, Henry Stone is now a young man, standing a full six feet two inches tall and weighing 190 pounds. His hair is bronze, his eyes turquoise, his skin mahogany—a magnificent man. When Henry finally returns to civilization, he finds that his father’s business has grown into a news empire. Though he is the owner of this huge conglomerate, a great conversationalist and excellent company, well versed in etiquette, and extraordinarily nice, Henry has never seen a woman. Indeed his father has taught him never to trust a female and that love itself is a myth. When Henry collides with the contemporary world and the modern woman, the collision is necessarily fascinating and complicated for both Henry and the society he is discovering.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“[This book] captures one’s interest and steadily tightens its grip.”—New York Times

(New York Times )

“Excitement in plenty.”—Boston Transcript

(Boston Transcript ) --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

About the Author

Philip Wylie (1902–71) was a prolific writer of fiction and nonfiction, and his earliest books exercised great influence in twentieth-century science fiction pulp magazines and comic books, including The Savage Gentleman, which inspired Doc Savage. His books Gladiator, When Worlds Collide, and Disappearance are all available in Bison Books editions. A Hugo Award–winner, Richard A. Lupoff is an author of mystery, fantasy, science fiction, cultural history, and criticism books, including Master of Adventure: The Worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs, available in a Bison Books edition.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 155 pages
• Publisher: Avon; 1st Ed edition (1952)
• ASIN: B0007HK8ZI
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,661,640 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Sinclair Lewis Meets Doc Savage, July 11, 2011

By 

Paul Cook (Tempe, Arizona USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Savage Gentleman (Bison Frontiers of Imagination) (Paperback)

This is a fairly easy read and a rather mild satire (mild for Wylie who will tend in later years to be more assertive with his anger). Our hero is raised on an island and taught both letters and survival arts by several elders who are trying to protect him from the modern world (read: women). The book's misogyny is quite mild (his dad had a bad relationship and so attempts to keep his soon away from women--good luck with that). And the boy becomes something of a physical superman, though neither the conceit of the "wild man" in civilization nor the conceit of the John Stuart Mill-type superman raised by a genius father are utilized to any satisfying extent. Only a year or so later will Lester Dent/Kennith Robeson start writing the Doc Savage story where the father raises the brainy child to fight crime and better civilization. In truth, Wylie really doesn't know how to write about women well and the trope of the evil woman in The Savage Gentleman isn't exploited at all. It's just a fun story to read with a great fight scene in the end and that ending will remind the reader really of the movie Citizen Kane had it had a happy ending. Kudos to Bison Books for another successful release.