Vesuvius Club [Hardcover]

Mark Gatiss (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 2004

Edwardian London. It is a world that seems familiar to us: Hansom cabs rattling through fog-choked streets, gin-swilling aesthetes rubbing shoulders with movers and shakers of British Imperial grandeur. And beneath the confident facade, naturally, an underworld of sinister Tongs, crazed anarchists, murder, and seething vice. So much for the familiar picture of comforting Victoriana. But this is the world of Lucifer Box and nothing is quite as it first appears. Lucifer Box is the most fashionable portrait painter of his day: trading bon mots with the best of them and ruthlessly exploiting his talent and dandified beauty to enter every level of this intriguing society. From his elegant townhouse at Number 9 Downing Street (well, someone has to live there...) to his vast studio in Chelsea, from the snow-choked streets of Tsarist St petersburg to the sun-bleached hotels of Mentone, life is one long, dazzling party. Of course, leading a double life is terribly fashionable and Lucifer Box is not to be outdone. For what Box's fashionable circle would never believe is that their witty, cheerfully bisexual friend is also a secret agent...

Editorial Reviews

Review

'The most delicious, depraved, inventive, macabre and hilarious literary debut I can think of. In the appallingly appealing Lucifer Box, Mark Gatiss has created an anti-hero for the ages. Watching the number of chapters, then pages, dwindle was heart-rending...no one has ever combined the seedy, the stylish, the rumbustious, the raffish, the egregious, the outrageous, the high and the low with such wit and grace. More, I want more!'

Stephen Fry

'Self-deprecatingly subtitled "a bit of fluff"...Gatiss's prose is upholstered in a rather superior grade of fluff: redolent of soft leather chairs in fine gentlemen's establishments, and the cracking of whips in the basements beneath them. Set amid the decadent fleshpots of the Edwardian demi-monde, the novel introduces the raffish toast of London society, Lucifer box, leading portraitist of the age and undercover agent on behalf of His Majesty's government. A dandy and a bounder, Box works his way dandyishly through a sequence of adventures which leads him to penetrate a secret Neapolitan crime ring, plus the willing rings of several secretive Neapolitans.... perniciously addictive piece of escapism'

GUARDIAN

'A breathless caper set in Edwardian London. Although it's humbly subtitled 'A Bit of Fluff' it far more resembles the kind of monster fur ball you'd find lurking beneath the bed in a seaside hotel...A stylishly published volume...but beneath all the fuzz lies a genuine darkness'

THE OBSERVER

'With its quaint dust jacket and Beardsley-inspired illustrations, the book feels like a visitor from a more elegant era . . . Giddily inventive and packed with delirious incident, it suggests a post-modern project comparable to Michel Faber's pseudo-Dickensian 'The Crimson Petal and the White'. It is easy to imagine Oscar Wilde, on a chaise longue, smoking an absurdly expensive cigarette, reading THE VESUVIUS CLUB and laughing out loud at its playful decadence and wit. There can surely be no higher praise'

TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT.

'Gatiss mixes in THE LEAGUE OF GENTLEMEN's penchant for horror with large doses of arch wit and louche laying about. It's Oscar Wilde crossed with H.P. Lovecraft....this could be the bit of fluff you've been looking for'

THE TELEGRAPH

'If you're going to have humorous pastiche, give me this any day, with its evocations of Edwardian melodrama and derring-do'

THE TIMES

'It's Gatiss's impeccable lightness of touch and huge delight in wordplay that makes this a joy. Studded with epigrams, asides, such wonderful names as Strangeways Pugg and Everard Supple, this is a wickedly written romp to put a smile on the face of anyone amused by the strange alchemy of the words "a peculiar horror of artichokes"'

SFX MAGAZINE --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Mark Gatiss is the author of several succesful Dr Who novels. He is perhaps best known as one of the creators, writers and stars of the hit BBC television programme, The League of Gentlemen.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; 1St Edition edition (November 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743257057
• ISBN-13: 978-0739463468
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #608,751 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "I never kill without the greatest pains to ensure that what I am doing is right", November 30, 2005

By 

M. J Leonard "MikeonAlpha" (Silver Lake, Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Vesuvius Club: A Bit of Fluff (Lucifer Box Novels) (Paperback)

The inimitable and dapper Lucifer Fox, doyenne of Edwardian London society. He's handsome, debonair, and admittedly bisexual, and also lives at Number Nine Downing Street, "because someone has to." Lucifer is an artist by day, and a cold, calculating killer, by night, a ruthless assassin for the British government. So it comes as no surprise, that in the opening chapter The Vesuvius Club, we see him casually disposing of an enemy of the State.

When Professors Verdigris and Sash, two prominent scientists are discovered murdered, Mr. Joshua Reynolds, a dwarf in the employ of The Royal Academy of Arts, entrusts Lucifer with the task of finding the perpetrator. The scientists chosen field was something rather bewildering, to do with the molten core of the earth. They ended up forming some sort of research team and traveling to Italy. His search for their killers isn't as easy as Lucifer first thought, and as the trail thickens, our intrepid hero finds himself in danger of his life.

Author, Mark Gatiss peppers his narrative with eccentric Edwardian characters, "whey faced poets, frayed-cuffed artists; all the splendid flotsam of bohemian London life." Lucifer is equally at home in both London's Imperial grandeur as he is in the underworld of crazed vice that seethes beneath. He's a man who is geographically at the very beating heart of the Empire, yet as much as an outcast as the greatest of his calling has been.

Lucifer's search for the missing scientists eventually takes him to Naples, where he meets Charlie Jackpot, a young hunk, who also becomes his lover and servant. Charlie introduces him to the Vesuvius Club, a den of iniquity that in reality is a front for a sinister and catastrophic plan to destroy the world.

Gatiss has become popular writing the popular Dr. Who novels, and their trademark structure is evident here. Each chapter carefully plotted with a huge revelation and climax at the end of each. Layer by layer, character by character, mystery by mystery, the insidious and theatrical plot is revealed, more clues unveiled, all leading to the same, and irrevocable conclusion that the scientists have most likely met an untimely end, and that only Lucifer can possibly save the world.

Gatiss deliciously portrays a society roiling with pimps, tarts, and harlots, and where Edwardian sexual ambiguity reigns supreme. There's evenings of flagrant debauch, especially at the Vesuvius Club, where the primary protagonists are deceitful and amoral, taking pleasure at the prospect of doing harm to other, especially to Charlie and Lucifer. Other cast members prove surprisingly resourceful, although frequently compromised.

Gatiss also has an impressive command of idiom, capturing the sycophantic nature of the era in all its self-congratulatory grandeur. Full of dotty and eccentric characters with names like Everard Supple, Miss Fullalove, Jocelyn Poop, and Bella Pock, the author has created a world of thrilling ancient antiquity and combined this with all the excitement of a turn-of the century Dickensian thriller. Mike Leonard November 05.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wilde's dandy reloaded, October 7, 2005

By 

Critique that "Riss" (Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Vesuvius Club: A Bit of Fluff (Lucifer Box Novels) (Paperback)

I rarely give out five stars but this stylish, aloofly decadent novella is worth it. A tongue in cheek look borrowed from Wilde and partly from Flemming's delightful Bond. Lucifer Box is the perfect Victorian gentlemen, with their respect for values and morals-only upheld in the most hypocritical sense, devastatingly beautiful and leading the most successful dual personality since The importance of being Earnest. A bit of fluff certainly, blending all genres into one from horror-gothic, romance, drama and tragedy. With an exaggerated air for the melodramatic, Gatiss leads us on the most addictive journey around England and the 'continent'. One can almost smell the orchids and feel the sweltering heat of Italy and see the finely cut suits of Mr. Box as he fights 'the forces of evil' impecabbly cut and dressed with a dashing mysterious femme fatale hanging off his arm. Mr. Box explores all that is truely 'Victorian' (in the most underworld, revealing meaning) in a laugh out loud, yet charismatically seductive way. Read it. Well done Gatiss, a true tour de force.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best I've Read in Ages!, October 18, 2005

By 

Lenore "Biffsbabe" (Exit 63 on the GSP) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Vesuvius Club: A Bit of Fluff (Lucifer Box Novels) (Paperback)

Since the plot has been sufficiently covered, I'll just say that I picked this book up on a whim and I'm so utterly glad I did. I believe one of the reviews said it best in that one *despairs* when they see the pages disappearing behind them. Fantastically likeable protaginist, deliciously melodramtic plot, and a extrodinarily satisfying sending up of the Bond Girl. I've finished it but I can't bring myself to put it back on the shelf, so it's also proving itself to be quite re-readable. Honestly one of the most enjoyable books I've read in ages.