Harold Macgrath

The Puppet crown Annotated Harold Macgrath

The story is reminiscent of Stevenson's "Prince Otto" in a certain airy persiflage and genial cynicism and in the comic opera quality of the little Continental kingdom that is the scene of its remarkable plot; it strongly suggests Anthony Hope's "The Prisoner of Zenda" in the kidnaping of certain important characters and in the portraiture of the youthful hero who is an American. But these resemblances do not detract from its originality; for original it is in plot, in characters, and in style. Something there is of the same power of revealing the loneliness the heartache and the unsatisfied longings of royalty that throbs in Daudet's "Kings in Exile." The whole plot turns on the misery of a King who has sold his birthright for a crown that is only a symbol of his own impotency. He is a puppet in the hands of a confederation of great powers who permit him to rule because he is an idealist and a dreamer, and, they know, will finally allow the kingdom to fall into their hands as a protectorate.