The Last Bookaneer

March 23, 2015
In the days before e-books, self-publishing, and fan fiction, publishing was an even riskier undertaking—or so Pearl (The Dante Club) makes an entertaining case for in his latest, ingenious literary caper. The author imagines the life of 19th-century manuscript thieves called bookaneers, who unscrupulously published others’ novels on their own, thereby depriving authors of their financial due. It is Pearl’s contention that a historical 1890s international copyright agreement would soon put an end to this illegal practice, and he imaginatively conjures up two such bookaneers, Pen Davenport and his assistant, Edgar Fergins, who embark on one last mission, traveling to Samoa to steal a dying Robert Louis Stevenson’s final manuscript, The Shovels of Newton French. Arriving at the author’s mountain compound, Davenport, in the guise of a travel writer, finds competition from a rival bookaneer named Belial, who is passing for a missionary. And so the race is on to take Stevenson’s purloined manuscript and return with it to New York before the new law goes into effect. But standing in the way of literary glory are cannibals, incarceration, German colonials, and a betrayal from beyond the grave. Pearl gives the bookaneers a lively fictitious history, including a flashback to the theft of Shelley’s Frankenstein, and populates it with a colorful cast of roguish characters, including Davenport’s former partner in crime, the lovely and enigmatic Kitten. In the end, this book is a loving testament to the enduring power of paper books.

Starred review from March 15, 2015
An entertaining adventure tale steeped in literary history tells of rival book pirates seeking their biggest prize, the last novel of Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-94). Pearl (The Technologists, 2012, etc.) extrapolates from a scrap of history about the illicit 19th-century trade in books before the international copyright law of 1891 to imagine a busy demimonde of bookaneers (he says in an afterword he found the term used as early as 1837) working in New York and London. He brings in the characters Whiskey Bill and Kitten from his 2009 novel, The Last Dickens, both central to subplots in the present novel. The main plot has the two leading bookaneers, Davenport and Belial, vying for the Stevenson prize by voyaging to Samoa, where the author of Treasure Island has established himself as a sort of philosopher-king. Davenport has a sidekick named Fergins, a former bookseller, who plays Watson to his companion's Holmes. As usual with Pearl, sleuthing helps drive the story, especially when Davenport uses his keen eye and deductive skills to investigate Kitten's death after her great coup, finding a Mary Shelley manuscript. Mostly the story dawdles on Samoa, waiting for the great author to finish his masterpiece and for a chance to outwit the devilish Belial. Pearl has fun with cannibals, a native beauty, an amorous dwarf, myriad literary references and allusions, and not one but two neat twists as the tale winds down. He also plays with narrative voices, delivering most of the story through Fergins' memories of it but as told to Clover, a black railway porter befriended by the bookseller and a key figure in the final twist. The narrative device adds another layer of 19th-century literary atmosphere. Pearl is a smooth writer whose adoption of the ambling pace, digressions, and melodrama of an earlier literary era may not suit today's instant gratifiers, but he offers many of the charms and unrushed distractions of a favorite old bookstore.

April 15, 2015
Writing mischievously clever novels about famous writers is Pearl's forte. His first bookaneers or literary pirates appeared in The Last Dickens (2009), and they now command this entire tale of obsession and nefariousness. This passionately researched and ebulliently imagined yarn is narrated by Fergins, an unassuming English book dealer who ends up in cahoots with the bookaneer Penrose Davenport, culminating in a mad voyage to Samoa, where the ailing Robert Louis Stevenson is reportedly finishing a new novel. Intent on stealing the manuscript, the duo manages to ingratiate themselves with Stevenson and his outspoken wife, Fanny, only to discover that Davenport's archrival, Belial, is also on the scene. As the bookaneers scheme, tall, gaunt, zealous Stevenson, coughing and smoking, serves as a veritable king to the Samoans in his employ and becomes embroiled in opposition to the German occupation. As the action erupts into the sort of significant cliffhanger exploits Stevenson specialized in, Pearl's vividly descriptive and energetically plotted novel churns and charms with intriguing literary history, acid social critique, witty dialogue, and delectably surprising and diabolical reversals and betrayals.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)

April 1, 2015

"Fifteen men on the dead man's chest. Yo-ho-ho and a trunk full of manuscripts!" At the tail end of the 19th century copyright law has yet to be established and publishers are making a killing by printing unauthorized editions. In this world of literary piracy the men and women employed to do the dirty work of procuring the unpublished texts are called bookaneers. When a young bookseller named Fergins is swept off to the South Pacific island of Samoa by his mentor Pen Davenport, he becomes involved in one of the last great adventures of bookaneering, involving dodging missionaries, cannibals, German settlers, and a dastardly competitor for a treasure of unknown value--the latest and, possibly, last novel of Robert Louis Stevenson. VERDICT This swashbuckling tale of greed and great literature will remind you why Pearl (The Dante Club; The Poe Shadow) is the reigning king of popular literary historical thrillers. His latest is guaranteed to delight lovers of history and mystery and will likely find an enthusiastic crossover audience among those who enjoy the works of Carlos Ruiz Zafon (The Watcher in the Shadows), Erik Larson (In the Garden of Beasts), and Katherine Howe (The House of Velvet and Glass). [See Prepub Alert, 11/10/14.]--Liv Hanson, Chicago

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 1, 2014

In the late 1800s, copyright laws were so lax that books could be published without the author's consent, as literary pirates called bookaneers haunted harbors, hangouts, and printers' shops in hopes of stealing a manuscript that would net them (and some lucky publisher) a fortune. With an international treaty looming to end this practice, two survivors of the trade compete for one last catch--a novel by Robert Louis Stevenson. More literate thrills after The Technologists.

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from April 1, 2015

"Fifteen men on the dead man's chest. Yo-ho-ho and a trunk full of manuscripts!" At the tail end of the 19th century copyright law has yet to be established and publishers are making a killing by printing unauthorized editions. In this world of literary piracy the men and women employed to do the dirty work of procuring the unpublished texts are called bookaneers. When a young bookseller named Fergins is swept off to the South Pacific island of Samoa by his mentor Pen Davenport, he becomes involved in one of the last great adventures of bookaneering, involving dodging missionaries, cannibals, German settlers, and a dastardly competitor for a treasure of unknown value--the latest and, possibly, last novel of Robert Louis Stevenson. VERDICT This swashbuckling tale of greed and great literature will remind you why Pearl (The Dante Club; The Poe Shadow) is the reigning king of popular literary historical thrillers. His latest is guaranteed to delight lovers of history and mystery and will likely find an enthusiastic crossover audience among those who enjoy the works of Carlos Ruiz Zafon (The Watcher in the Shadows), Erik Larson (In the Garden of Beasts), and Katherine Howe (The House of Velvet and Glass). [See Prepub Alert, 11/10/14.]--Liv Hanson, Chicago

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.