Anthony Lyveden

Anthony Lyveden is a 1921 adventure novel by the English author Dornford Yates (Cecil William Mercer). It was first published in monthly instalments in The Windsor Magazine. The book was Mercer's first attempt at a full-length novel, and was succeeded by Valerie French which continued the story of the main characters.

Plot
Anthony Lyveden DSO, a destitute ex-officer, is forced to take a job as a footman at the Gramarye estate. The estate's owner, Colonel Winchester, becomes mad and leaves Lyveden in charge under a power of attorney. The situation drives Lyveden himself to madness.

Background
The author was not a happy man at the time, his father having committed suicide early in 1921, and Mercer's biographer AJ Smithers reports a suggestion that at this date he was not far from suffering a nervous breakdown. He defied The Windsor Magazine's tradition that every episode should end with a lovers' meeting, though he was pressed hard by the magazine's editor.

Illustrations
The illustrations from the Windsor stories by Norah Schlegel (1879-1963) were not included in the book version.

Critical reception
Smithers considered Anthony Lyveden to be a book of varying quality, and too episodic to be truly called a novel. He criticised the characterisations, suggesting that a reader might with some justice think the hero a pompous prig, one of the young women a humourless, suspicious creature, and the other a trollop manquée.