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Glossary and Character Taxonomy Breakdown by Country of Origin Bibliography Table of Contents The Best of the Encyclopedia
Stuart, Percy. Percy Stuart appeared in the German dime novels Lord Percy vom Excentric Club #1-44 (1912-1913), Percy Stuart vom Excentric Club #45-134 (1913-1916), and Der Neue Excentric Club #1-534 (1920-1927); the series was also reprinted across Western and Eastern Europe and Scandinavia from 1913 to 1927.
Percy Stuart is a rich young English Lord who is renowned for his skill at all sports and for the many records he holds in those sports. He begins as an independent adventurer, but when he hears about the New Eccentric Club in London he tries to join them, only to be told that he has to solve 197 mysteries and unsolved crimes to qualify for membership. In his original series he does not succeed at this, although he receives help from the New Eccentric Club in solving the mysteries.
When World War One broke out Stuart was rewritten and became an American millionaire. When Der Neue Excentric Club began publication, Stuart (once again English) began solving crimes again, but he was only able to partially solve the 197th case, and so, shamed, vows to solve another 197. In issue #394, Percy finally joins the New Eccentric Club and is offered the Presidency of the Club if he would solve another 197 cases. The series was cancelled by the publisher with issue #534, so Stuart never solves his third set of 197 cases, but in the final issue Percy saves the daughter of the Club's President and gains her hand in marriage, thus making himself the President's successor.
Percy is a capable crime-solver and adventurer, is very athletic, and is willing to kill criminals when he feels they deserve it. Percy is not beloved by all the members of the Club, however; one powerful member, the evil Baron Mac Hollister, thinks badly of Percy and does his best to foil Percy’s efforts and engineer his death. Stuart fights murderers in Whitechapel, smugglers in the Pyrenees, he explores the body of the Sphinx, and he meets Thomas Edison. Stuart fights a Yellow Peril in Chinatown, he becomes the "Tango King," he pursues his doppelganger, he finds "the Gift of the Borgias," finds the "cannabis eagle feathers," fights pirates along the Mississippi River, encounters the Cowboy King, meets the New Robinson, steals Napoleon's sword, and fights various Indigenous peoples in America's western states.
Stuart appears in stories with titles like “The White Elephant,” “Caught by Eskimos,” and “In the Womb of the Sphinx.”
* I'm including the Percy Stuart in the Best of the Encyclopedia list because of their imaginative content. Percy Stuart is completely forgotten about now, but he was massively popular in his heyday, spawning not just the New Eccentric Club stories but also the Lord Sister stories. The Percy Stuart stories are generally good stories as far as heftroman stories went, exciting, filled with adventure, and featuring attempts at characterization. The Percy Stuart heftromane had their own internal continuity (unlike most heftromane) and made an effort to reward faithful readers of the stories with callbacks to the past. Most of all, the stories are imaginative, with a colorful and often vivid variety of opponents for Stuart to fight, capture, or destroy. Plus I give it points for the "cannabis eagle feathers." In general, the Percy Stuart heftromane were some of the best heftroman stories of the 1910s and 1920s.
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