Dead Man's Rock

Dodo Collections brings you another classic from Arthur Quiller-Couch ‘Dead Man's Rock.’

"Dead Man's Rock" was Q's first published novel. The genesis came from a curious bit of family lore, in which his great grandfather Richard had a key hanging from a beam, with instructions that no one should take it down till he returned. Richard was lost at sea during a war, and the key was never touched. What might it have unlocked? Hence the inspiration for the story. A family in poverty, great wealth to be unlocked by a key, two parties vying for it, and a curse on the treasure the key could unlock.

Quiller-Couch was a noted literary critic, publishing editions of some of Shakespeare's plays (in the New Shakespeare, published by Cambridge University Press, with Dover Wilson) and several critical works, including Studies in Literature (1918) and On the Art of Reading (1920). He edited a successor to his verse anthology: Oxford Book of English Prose, which was published in 1923. He left his autobiography, Memories and Opinions, unfinished; it was nevertheless published in 1945.