With a generous 6"x9" page size, this Summit Classic Press edition is printed on heavyweight bright white paper with a fully laminated cover featuring an original full color design. An original detailed author biography, page headers and modern design and page layout exemplify the attention to detail given this premium quality volume, which contains the complete, unabridged text of Mason's classic novel.

The Four Feathers...

With trouble percolating in the Sudan young Harry Feversham, contemplating a lengthy deployment and separation from his fiancee, resigns his commission in the Regiment with the intention of settling down and starting life with his new wife.

His comrades-in-arms view his decision in a different light, and three fellow officers, his close friends, express their reaction by delivering white feathers - an accusation of cowardice - to Harry. When his fiancee learns what has happened, she breaks the engagement...and delivers a fourth white feather.

With his life in ruins and the cloud of cowardice hanging over his name, Harry undertakes an incredible odyssey to prove his courage and redeem himself by returning the four feathers and gaining an admission from those who delivered them that he is not, after all a coward.

A.E.W. Mason

Alfred Edward Woodley Mason was born in London on May 7, 1865 and educated at Trinity College, Oxford, where he was a leading member of the Dramatic Society and contemplated a theatrical career, appearing in productions on the London stage during the late 1880s. He began writing during this period, seeing his first novel, A Romance of Wastdale, published in 1895. A commercial failure, it was quickly followed by The Courtship of Maurice Buckler (1896), which was well-received and commercially successful, launching Mason's writing career.

Already a well-known and successful novelist, in 1902 Mason wrote The Four Feathers, generally regarded as the masterpiece of a career that produced some thirty novels and four volumes of short stories, as well as three major theatrical productions and one screenplay. His most enduringly popular work, The Four Feathers is a tale of cowardice, heroism, duty, redemption, and sacrifice set against the background of the Egyptian and British military campaigns in the Sudan in the mid- to late 1880's. The book was an immediate success, and the tale is still widely known today, with numerous film adaptations and perennial reprint editions.

Elected to parliament in 1904, Mason served one term, retiring at the next general election in 1910. Upon leaving office Mason published At the Villa Rose, the first of his "Inspector Hanaud" mystery novels. There would ultimately be five mysteries featuring his French detective. Still popular with mystery fans, the Inspector Hanaud stories have been in and out of print over the years. Between 1909 and 1913, three plays written by Mason were produced by Sir George Alexander in St James' Theatre.

Despite his age -he was nearly fifty years old - at the outbreak of World War I Mason joined the military, first serving as a major in the Royal Marine Light Infantry, then transferring to naval intelligence, helping to set up counter-espionage networks. His experiences in espionage would serve as the inspiration for his first postwar novel, The Summons (1920). A year later he published The Royal Exchange, his first work of non-fiction.

With advancing age Mason's output slowed. While writing the noteworthy Fire Over England in 1936 he became fascinated with British naval history, publishing The Life of Francis Drake in 1941. He was working on a life of Admiral Robert Blake (1598-1657) when he died, at age 83, on November 22, 1948, reputed to have declined knighthood because "such honors have little meaning for a childless man."