HRH The Rider – A Review

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A cracking yarn. Essay. 800 words, 4-minute read.

erblist.com

HRH The Rider – A Review

By Ray Tabler

Edgar Rice Burroughs was nothing if not entertaining, and frighteningly prolific. He published 91 novels and numerous short stories throughout his career, eventually running his own press, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. Burroughs was the 1st author in history to incorporate himself. Because, why share the profits if you don’t have to?

ERB wrote what would sell. And sell it did. The public was hungry for his type of adventure. The Rider is a prime example. ERB wrote this tale in 1915 and All-Story Weekly serialized it as “H.R.H. the Rider” starting December, 1918. HRH in the title refers to the title “his royal highness,” to reflect the sovereign-adjacent nature of the story. The Rider is a Ruritanian romance, signaling to the informed reader a plot similar to The Prisoner of Zenda. This genre typically sets tales in fictitious central and eastern-European kingdoms, circa the late 1800s, early 1900s. Much parodied, Ruritanian romances are still (usually) cracking reads. So forewarned, dive in and enjoy.

The plot of The Rider revolves around crown prince Boris, of the tiny kingdom of Karlova, and princess Mary, of the equally tiny and bordering land of Margoth. The two countries have been at odds for a long time, and the arranged marriage between the two heirs is intended to finally bring peace. Except that Boris doesn’t want to marry yet, certainly not to a shrew from Margoth. Likewise, Mary would rather die than be wed to a boorish Karlovan lout. They’ve never laid eyes on each other, but share an instinctive mutual loathing.

So, of course, Mary and Boris separately hatch plans to scuttle the marriage. Waylaid by a highwayman, the notorious Rider, Boris blackmails the ruffian into impersonating him on a visit to meet Mary. Meanwhile, Boris playacts at being a highwayman, for sport. Mary does her part to doom the nuptials by blacking out some teeth, and pretending to be mentally challenged. Compounding the confusion, a wealthy American heiress is being dragged through the locality, by her mother. The mother is on the prowl for a titled European aristocrat to marry her daughter off to. The Rider, who everyone thinks is Boris, becomes a target of opportunity. The American girl is being pursued by her boyfriend, who has chased his love all over Europe by now. Ther ensues a tangle of mistaken identities, abductions, pursuits, gunfights, true love, stalwart honor, and close calls before a happily ever after, for most.

Now, the set up and events in HRH The Rider are unlikely. One might even say contrived. But that is not the point. Romance and adventure are. And those commodities are provided in wholesale lots. HRH the rider is best approached as if it was a Gilbert & Sullivan production, or one of Shakespeare’s comedies. Mistaken identities, and contrived events litter those works, and no one gets bent out of shape about that.

Then there is the prose. ERB wrote in a different era. Authors writing in the early 1900s sound as if they swallowed a thesaurus, and spewed elaborate phrases all over the page. It’s a bit hard to get used to, for us a hundred years later, raised on Hemingway and post modernism. Here’s an example from chapter 3:

“…Scarce a quarter of a mile within the wood and a hundred yards back from the dirt road lies an old inn—a place of none too savory reputation, where questionable characters from the city of Sovgrad were reported to meet and concoct their deviltries against the majesty of the law…”

See what I mean?

But I’m not complaining about ERB’s style. He was a man of his time, and we should read his words as he wrote them. Jane Austen still has plenty of fans, and her style is different from Hemingway’s too. So, if you want Hemingway, read Hemingway. If you want Austen, read Austen. And if you want a cracking yarn, read Burroughs. Literature is an endless buffet table. Fill your plate, and go back for seconds.

Ironically, by the time ERB wrote HRH The Rider (1915), the setting, monarchical Europe, was being bombarded to oblivion by World War I. by the time HRH The Rider was published (1918), that Europe was all but gone. So long had monarchs and aristocracy reigned, that the idea of a government without them seemed ridiculous. Still, the divine right of kings was over, even if few yet realized it. Certainly, no one here in the States thought so, where we generally ignored the rest of the world. Still do, as much as we can get away with it.

Give HRH The Rider a try. It’s a short, fun read, with just a bit of purple prose to wade through. Written in 1915, the novel is well within the public domain. The full text is available at gutenburg.org, and erblist.com. I downloaded and read the Amazon edition, for $1.99, for the convenience of having it on my kindle.

END.

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