A best-selling author of popular fiction, Cecil William Mercer, who wrote using the assumed name of Dornford Yates, produced thirty-four volumes in all. His tales of Berry and the Pleydell family are amusing pieces evoking traditional values of the English scene, while the gentleman heroes of his romances who traveled through Europe thwarting villains appeal to the devotees of adventures in the vein of John Buchan, Sapper (Herman Cyril McNeile), and, later, Leslie Charteris.

A stylish writer who took his craft seriously, Mercer lived by his pen after abandoning a legal career, aiming his work at an audience that wanted lighter entertainment and engrossing escapist fantasy. As such, his works are largely formulaic and self-imitating. Most of his books, if not dated in their details, have an old-fashioned flavor that, despite charm and appeal, has placed a certain distance between them and the contemporary reader.

Cecil William Mercer...