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Steven
Ward
mystery
writer
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A
Foreign Experience
Synopsis
A Foreign Experience
is a comic novel, being a spoof of the
"Victorian Mystery Novel" and one that
caricatures the language and social mores
of the period.
Charles Pendergrast is a conceited and
severely repressed Victorian Gentleman,
who lives a privileged life in London, and
who follows an undefined bureaucratic
occupation in the City. In response to a
letter from a friend - a man Pendergrast
has long admired as an heroic adventurer,
and antithesis of himself - he is drawn
into an adventure of his own. Pendergrast
is asked to deliver to his friend a case
of what appear to be scientific
instruments, one of which is missing. On
the first leg of his journey the case is
stolen, and this proves to be the first in
a series of mystifying events which prove
ever more perplexing. His journey takes
him to Crete, where he is exposed to more
bizarre incidents and encounters with a
range of eccentric characters, all of
which leaves him completely bewildered. He
also meets, and falls in love with, a
young blind woman.
Along the way, he forms a relationship
with the mendacious Warburton - a
latter-day Epimenides - himself an enigma
and an unwitting party to the mystery in
which Pendergrast has become embroiled.
Together they are abducted, imprisoned,
and returned eventually to England where
Pendergrast at last learns the astonishing
truth behind his adventure.
Pendergrast emerges a changed man, but
there is still one final shock awaiting
him.
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