| Anthony Adverse | |
| Author: | Hervey Allen |
| Language: | English |
| Genre: | Historical fiction |
| Publisher: | Farrar & Rinehart |
| Published: | 1933 |
| Pages: | 1272 |
Anthony Adverse is a 1933 novel by American author Hervey Allen. It was published by Farrar & Rinehart.[1]
The novel contains three volumes: The Roots of the Tree, The Other Bronze Boy and The Lonely Twin, and each volume contains three "books", making for nine books in total.[2]
The story follows the eponymous protagonist, Anthony Adverse, through several adventures around the world. This includes slave trading in Africa, his business dealings as a plantation owner in New Orleans, and his incarceration and eventual death in Mexico.[3]
Fanny Butcher of the Chicago Daily Tribune and Peter Monro Jack of The New York Times both gave the novel glowing reviews. Butcher wrote: "It is a thriller de luxe, but it is more than a melodrama of the most intricate happenings. It is the fantastic tale of a fantastic period, and it is the highest expression of the art of the picaresque which our generation has offered."[1] Similarly, Jack wrote: "Anthony Adverse is essentially a story and a very great story, but it gathers up so much wit and wisdom by the way that Mr. Allen is revealed on every page as that rare thing nowadays, a creative humanist [...] We should not be surprised and we could not be anything but pleased if his Anthony Adverse became the best-loved book of our time."[4]
The novel was the Publishers Weekly best-selling novel in the United States for two consecutive years: 1933 and 1934.[5]
See main article: Anthony Adverse. In 1936, the book received a loose movie adaptation, drawing from the first eight books.