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The Eye Of Ishtar
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As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.
As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
382 pages, Unknown Binding
First published January 1, 1900
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About the author
William Le Queux
450 books30 followersWilliam Tufnell Le Queux was born in London on 2 July 1864. His father, also William of Chateauroux, Indre, was a French draper's assistant and his mother was English.
He was educated in Europe and studied art under Ignazio Spiridon in Paris. He walked extensively in France and Germany and supported himself for a time writing for French newspapers. It was one of his sensational stories in 'The Petit Journal' that attracted the attention of the French novelist Emile Zola and it was supposedly he who encouraged Le Queux to become a full-time writer.
In the late 1880s he returned to London where he edited the magazines 'Gossip' and 'Piccadilly' before joining the staff of the newspaper 'The Globe' in 1891 as a parliamentary reporter. But he resigned in 1893 and decided to abandon journalism to concentrate on writing and travelling. And his extensive travelling saw him visit Russia, the Near East, North Africa, Egypt and the Sudan and in 1912-13 he was a correspondent in the Balkan War for the Daily Mail. On his travels he found it necessary to become an expert revolver shot.
His first book was 'Guilty Bonds' (1891), which concentrated on political conspiracy in Russia to such a degree that it was subsequently banned in that country. A series of short stories 'Strange Tales of a Nihilist' followed in 1892 and from then on he was producing books on a regular basis until his death, and beyond, as a number of posthumous works were published.
His works mainly related to espionage activity and it was said that he was employed for a number of years as a member of the British Secret Service, where he was an expert on wireless transmission. He did claim to have been the first wireless experimenter to have broadcast from his station at Guildford in 1920/21 and he was president of the Wireless Experimental Association and a member of the Institute of Radio Engineers.
He stated at one time that he began writing to help finance his work for British Intelligence for whom he was required to undertake much travelling and to make personal contact with royalty and other high-ranking people. He recorded some of the latter meetings in his autobiography entitled 'Things I Know about Kings, Celebrities and Crooks' (1923).
He was at one time Consul of the Republic of San Marino and he possessed Italian, Serbian and Montenegrin decorations. He was also a keen collector of medieval manuscripts and monastic seals.
However, all his activities did not stop him turning out novel after novel and at the time of his death he had well over 100 books to his credit.
After several weeks' illness, he died at Knocke, Belgium, in the early hours of 13 October 1927. His body was returned to England and on 19 October he was cremated at Golders Green with the Reverend Francis Taylor of Bedford conducting the service, which was attended by Le Queux's brother and a few intimate friends.
Gerry Wolstenholme
January 2013
He was educated in Europe and studied art under Ignazio Spiridon in Paris. He walked extensively in France and Germany and supported himself for a time writing for French newspapers. It was one of his sensational stories in 'The Petit Journal' that attracted the attention of the French novelist Emile Zola and it was supposedly he who encouraged Le Queux to become a full-time writer.
In the late 1880s he returned to London where he edited the magazines 'Gossip' and 'Piccadilly' before joining the staff of the newspaper 'The Globe' in 1891 as a parliamentary reporter. But he resigned in 1893 and decided to abandon journalism to concentrate on writing and travelling. And his extensive travelling saw him visit Russia, the Near East, North Africa, Egypt and the Sudan and in 1912-13 he was a correspondent in the Balkan War for the Daily Mail. On his travels he found it necessary to become an expert revolver shot.
His first book was 'Guilty Bonds' (1891), which concentrated on political conspiracy in Russia to such a degree that it was subsequently banned in that country. A series of short stories 'Strange Tales of a Nihilist' followed in 1892 and from then on he was producing books on a regular basis until his death, and beyond, as a number of posthumous works were published.
His works mainly related to espionage activity and it was said that he was employed for a number of years as a member of the British Secret Service, where he was an expert on wireless transmission. He did claim to have been the first wireless experimenter to have broadcast from his station at Guildford in 1920/21 and he was president of the Wireless Experimental Association and a member of the Institute of Radio Engineers.
He stated at one time that he began writing to help finance his work for British Intelligence for whom he was required to undertake much travelling and to make personal contact with royalty and other high-ranking people. He recorded some of the latter meetings in his autobiography entitled 'Things I Know about Kings, Celebrities and Crooks' (1923).
He was at one time Consul of the Republic of San Marino and he possessed Italian, Serbian and Montenegrin decorations. He was also a keen collector of medieval manuscripts and monastic seals.
However, all his activities did not stop him turning out novel after novel and at the time of his death he had well over 100 books to his credit.
After several weeks' illness, he died at Knocke, Belgium, in the early hours of 13 October 1927. His body was returned to England and on 19 October he was cremated at Golders Green with the Reverend Francis Taylor of Bedford conducting the service, which was attended by Le Queux's brother and a few intimate friends.
Gerry Wolstenholme
January 2013
Ratings & Reviews
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
January 12, 2018
The mystery started off interesting, but then got bogged down with a melodramatic love story throw into the plot. An info dump by one of the characters at the end explains the whole mystery in one chapter. Sloppy writing.
July 25, 2016
This is an adventure story that doesn't do much right.
The initial adventures of the title character in Sokoto have little bearing on the supposed subject of the book and indeed the author seems interested in making these diversions as long as possible to sidetrack from actually having to do a lost race story. It takes until chapter 34 for the main character to even get to the place, and he leaves again 8 chapters later, to return for the final few, so very little is ever even seen of the city of Ea, despite two hundred and fifty pages during which going there is being set up. The story of intrigue between the Chief Eunuch of the Sultan of Sokoto and the Khalifa of the Mahdists is never really acknowledged and is just dropped and the main character, despite making repeated pleas to Ishtar, Queen of the lost city of Ea, that he means her no ill, he still goes about telling this all to the Sultan and leading his army to conquer and sack the city using modern methods, conquering a whole people and killing gods know how many thousands, just so he can marry the Sultan's daughter. This act alone, presented as genuine heroism and not vile, self-centered, craven treachery and betrayal, made finishing the final pages of this book very infuriating for me, as I was hoping in vain the main character would fail, and it's rather a bad sign that, 355 pages in, you suddenly start to want the main character to be soundly defeated just for the sake of morality.
Overall the lost race element is not worth the slog it took to get to it and the ending will make you extremely angry anyway if you actually like that part of the book even slightly.
The initial adventures of the title character in Sokoto have little bearing on the supposed subject of the book and indeed the author seems interested in making these diversions as long as possible to sidetrack from actually having to do a lost race story. It takes until chapter 34 for the main character to even get to the place, and he leaves again 8 chapters later, to return for the final few, so very little is ever even seen of the city of Ea, despite two hundred and fifty pages during which going there is being set up. The story of intrigue between the Chief Eunuch of the Sultan of Sokoto and the Khalifa of the Mahdists is never really acknowledged and is just dropped and the main character, despite making repeated pleas to Ishtar, Queen of the lost city of Ea, that he means her no ill, he still goes about telling this all to the Sultan and leading his army to conquer and sack the city using modern methods, conquering a whole people and killing gods know how many thousands, just so he can marry the Sultan's daughter. This act alone, presented as genuine heroism and not vile, self-centered, craven treachery and betrayal, made finishing the final pages of this book very infuriating for me, as I was hoping in vain the main character would fail, and it's rather a bad sign that, 355 pages in, you suddenly start to want the main character to be soundly defeated just for the sake of morality.
Overall the lost race element is not worth the slog it took to get to it and the ending will make you extremely angry anyway if you actually like that part of the book even slightly.
September 11, 2017
Nicely told tale, mystery and romance - altogether fun and well narrated by Tom Weiss (his usual performance).
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews