The House Of The Wolf (1890)
Stanley Weyman is probably my favorite writer (if this site isn't proof enough) and so I review this book with the deepest of love for its writer... There seems to be a lot of copies of this book about because, from what I have gathered, it put him in the public eye in the 1890's, and not without warrant - It's a pleasant little book though not one I would suggest for a first time reader of Weyman. For that I would suggest Under The Red Robe his most succinct novel, though this one is still good even if it seems to putter in a few places.
The story was apparently originally serialized in the late 1880's in one of the many magazines in England and then later compiled and released in 1890 as Weyman's first book. The book follows the fraught adventures of 3 young boys in 17th century France.
One thing that is kind of odd is that the 3 lead male characters have female names and what makes it even more odd is that it has no apparent purpose. It's not like throughout the book characters are poking fun at it, though our lead character does take notice that him and his brothers all have female names. The only way I can rationalize it is that Weyman did it in an effort so that readers would not forget him, which works and anyways I forgot about halfway through and just took the names as the lead characters names anyways.
Otherwise, the novel has all of the main traits of any classic Weyman novel, lovely description of olden times, adventure, swashbuckling action and some minor romance. Enjoy!
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