MASQUERADES
Reading edition
THE LATEST LIBRARY NOVELS
Seven Shillings & Sixpence Net Each
A WISE FOOL Edward Charles Reed
This is the Prize-Winning Novel in the John Long (2nd) £500 Prize Competition for the Best First Novel. John Long’s previous £500 Prize Competition for the Best First Novel was won by Emmeline Morrison with her Novel, “Good Grain,” probably one of the most popular novels published in recent years.
THE WOMAN TEMPTED
The Countess of Cathcart
THE FACE IN THE NIGHT
Edgar Wallace
THE MARQUISE RING
E. W. Savi
MASQUERADES
Shane Leslie
THE CHALLENGE
Nat Gould
DESIRE OF THE DESERT
Arthur Applin
BURNT BRIDGES
Temple Lane
THE HIDDEN HOUR
J. B. Harris-Burland
THE ROSE OF ALGIERS
Cecil H. Bullivant
THE VENUS GIRL
Leslie Beresford (“Pan”)
TIGER RIVER
Arthur O. Friel
THE LAIRD
Winifred Duke
THE DAY OF RECKONING
E. Almaz Stout
THE SEA DEMONS
H. M. Egbert
THE BREAD OF DEPENDENCE
Edmund B. d’Auvergne
THE DANCING GIRL
Gaston Leroux
THE ARREST
Frederick Brock
THE INVISIBLE NET
J. J. Bell
STORM
Halliwell Sutcliffe
THE WORLD OUTSIDE
Harold MacGrath
THE CRÊPE DE CHINE WIFE
Amy J. Baker
THE MYSTERY OF WO-SING
A. G. Hales
THE COMPULSORY MILLIONAIRE
W. Harold Thomson
BARNEY
S. B. H. Hurst
THREE OF A KIND
Emmeline Morrison
JOAN PETERSON—SPORT
Margaret Armstrong
THE LEGACY FROM NOWHERE
Peter Gladwin
ROOM 13
Edgar Wallace
CHÉRI-BIBI, MYSTERY MAN
Gaston Leroux
THE END OF A CIGARETTE
Edward Gellibrand
MARGOT’S PROGRESS (3s. 6d. net)
Douglas Goldring
JOHN LONG, LTD., Publishers, LONDON And at all Libraries and Booksellers everywhere
MASQUERADES
STUDIES IN THE MORBID
BY
SHANE LESLIE
AUTHOR OF “THE OPPIDAN,” “DOOMSLAND,” ETC.
London
John Long, Limited 12, 13 & 14 Norris Street, Haymarket
[All rights reserved]
Made and Printed in Great Britain Copyright, 1924, by John Long, Limited All rights reserved
Readers are requested to note that all the characters in this book are purely fictitious, and the names are not intended to refer to any real persons
“Masks, masking and unmasking of masks; all is Masquerade.”—Apocrypha of Solomon.
“Seigneur, mon Dieu, vous le Créateur, vous le maître; vous qui avez fait la Loi et la Liberté; vous le Souverain qui laissez faire, vous le juge qui pardonnez; vous qui êtes plein de motifs et de causes et qui avez peut-être mis dans mon esprit le goût de l’horreur pour convertir mon cœur comme la guérison au bout d’une lame; Seigneur, ayez pitié, ayez pitié des fous et des folles! O Créateur! peut-il exister des monstres aux yeux de Celui-là seul qui sait pourquoi ils existent, comment ils se sont faits et comment ils auraient pu ne pas se faire?”—
From Baudelaire’s Family Prayers.
TO THE ENTERTAINING SOUL OF THAT SUPERFINE WRITER FREDERICK ROLFE BARON CORVO IN PURGATORY