What do You think about The Devil In Velvet (1994 Ed) (1994)?
I wrote this review in December and never put a rating on it and so it has just been sitting in the "ether" in Goodreads. It has now seen the light of day!My husband John recommended this book to me and because I loved it so much, as a result I think I now have all the John Dickson Carr (AKA Carter Dickson) books; over eighty in total. These are wonderful mysteries and quite a few from the Golden Age in the 30s/40s.I’ve often wondered why this incredible book by John Dickson Carr has never been made into a film. It combines everything: a social document of life in the seventeenth century, great descriptions about the sewage systems, swashbuckling adventures, time travel and a pact with the devil. What else could you possibly want? It’s well-written and I couldn’t put it down from the moment I started it. The year is 1925 when fifty-eight year old Nicholas Fenton, a History professor at Paracelsus College, Cambridge, casually announces to a much younger friend, Mary Grenville, that he has sold his soul to the devil. He has read a manuscript about the death by poison of Lydia, Sir Nicholas Fenton’s wife, in 1675 and wishes to return to that time, and take over the body of this unrelated person. By doing so he hopes that he can undo history, thus stopping the actual murder. Does he succeed though? Only you the reader can find out.
—Lynne King
In 1926 Cambridge history don and Restoration buff Nicholas Felton does a deal with the Devil to be allowed to go back in time to 1675,to take over the body and temporarily the life of his ancestor, Sir Nick Felton, a staunch Royalist but also, as Felton (to distinguish from Sir Nick) soon discovers, an ogre. Luckily, it's the more urbane Felton who's normally in charge of the proceedings as he swaggers and swordplays his way through the London of Charles II's time; occasionally, however, in tim
—John
This is apparently a classic and I did rather enjoy it. Carr completely circumvented my usual objections to time-travel stories – there are no pseudo-scientific explanations, the hero travelled back to the Restoration via a deal with the devil. So there. Somehow, I find that less problematic. Anyhow, it was kind of fun; I liked the device of the main character struggling over possession of his 17th-century body with the original inhabitant. I found the love story angle unconvincing, however. Ah well. For those who like this sort of thing, Carr was apparently a fencer and there are two or three battles in the book that are quite detailed in description. I tended to skim them, rather in the way I do naval battles in Patrick O’Brian.
—Diana Sandberg
