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The Impossible Virgin
''The Impossible Virgin'' is the title of the fifth novel chronicling the adventures of crime lord-turned-secret agent Modesty Blaise. The novel was published in 1971 and was written by Peter O'Donnell, who had created the character for a comic strip in the early 1960s. The book was first published in the United Kingdom by Souvenir Press Ernest Hecht (21 September 1929 – 13 February 2018)Katherine Cowdrey"'Wise and witty' Ernest Hecht dies, aged 88" ''The Bookseller'', 13 February 2018. was a British publisher, producer, and philanthropist. In 1951, he founded Souvenir Press L .... The "Impossible Virgin" of the book's title refers to the name given by the local natives to a special geographic formation encountered during the adventure. Plot summary Mischa Novikov had never even considered defecting from Russia until one day when his analysis of a satellite picture of a tiny bit of central Africa awakens an unbridled greed in him. Hidden in an almost inaccessible valley h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peter O'Donnell
Peter O'Donnell (11 April 1920 – 3 May 2010) was an English writer of mysteries and of comic strips, best known as the creator of ''Modesty Blaise'', an action heroine/undercover trouble-shooter. He was also an award-winning gothic historical romance novelist who wrote under the female pseudonym Madeleine Brent, in 1978, his novel ''Merlin's Keep'' won the Romantic Novel of the Year Award by the Romantic Novelists' Association. Biography Born on 11 April 1920 in Lewisham, London, O'Donnell was the son of Bernard O'Donnell, a journalist on the ''Empire News'', and was educated at Catford Central School. He began to write professionally at the age of 16. In 1938 he joined the British Army, and during the war served as an NCO in mobile radio detachment (3 Corps) of Royal Corps of Signals in the 8th Army. He saw active service in Persia in 1942, after which his unit was moved to Syria, Egypt, the Western Desert, and Italy, and he was with forces that went into Greece in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Modesty Blaise
''Modesty Blaise'' is a British comic strip featuring a fictional character of the same name, created by author Peter O'Donnell and illustrator Jim Holdaway in 1963. The strip follows Modesty Blaise, an exceptional young woman with many talents and a criminal past, and her trusty sidekick Willie Garvin. It was adapted into films in 1966, 1982, and 2003, and from 1965 onwards, 11 novels and two short-story collections were written. Fictional character biography In 1945, a nameless girl escapes from a displaced person (DP) camp in Kalyros, Greece. She remembers nothing from her short past and wanders through post-World War II Mediterranean, the Middle East, and regions of North Africa, where she learns to survive the hard way. She befriends Lob, another wandering refugee, who is a Jewish Hungarian scholar from Budapest. He gives her an education and a first name: Modesty. Sometime later, Modesty chooses her last name, Blaise, after Merlin's tutor from the Arthurian legends. Whe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spy Fiction
Spy fiction is a genre of literature involving espionage as an important context or plot device. It emerged in the early twentieth century, inspired by rivalries and intrigues between the major powers, and the establishment of modern intelligence agencies. It was given new impetus by the development of fascism and communism in the lead-up to World War II, continued to develop during the Cold War, and received a fresh impetus from the emergence of rogue states, international criminal organizations, global terrorist networks, maritime piracy and technological sabotage and espionage as potent threats to Western societies. As a genre, spy fiction is thematically related to the novel of adventure (''The Prisoner of Zenda'', 1894, ''The Scarlet Pimpernel'', 1905), the thriller (such as the works of Edgar Wallace) and the politico-military thriller (''The Schirmer Inheritance'', 1953, ''The Quiet American'', 1955). History Commentator William Bendler noted that "Chapter 2 of the He ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Souvenir Press
Ernest Hecht (21 September 1929 – 13 February 2018)Katherine Cowdrey"'Wise and witty' Ernest Hecht dies, aged 88" ''The Bookseller'', 13 February 2018. was a British publisher, producer, and philanthropist. In 1951, he founded Souvenir Press Ltd, one of the very few remaining independently owned major publishing houses in Great Britain. In 2003 he set up the Ernest Hecht Charitable Foundation. Described by ''The Bookseller'' as "one of a number of émigrés who changed the face of British publishing after the Second World War alongside George Weidenfeld, Paul Hamlyn and André Deutsch", Hecht has been called "the last of the great publishers".Sally Chatterton"Who is the publisher who makes the best impression?" ''The Independent'', 4 May 1999. He was awarded an OBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours List for services to Publishing and Charity in June 2015. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Taste For Death (Modesty Blaise)
''A Taste for Death'' is the title of an action-adventure novel by Peter O'Donnell which was first published in 1969, featuring the character Modesty Blaise which O'Donnell had created for a comic strip several years earlier. It was the fourth novel to feature the character. The book was first published in the United Kingdom by Souvenir Press. Plot summary Canadian Dinah Pilgrim (blind since 11) and her sister Judy are vacationing in Panama. They're attacked on a lonely beach by a pair of gunmen, and Judy is killed and Dinah is taken prisoner. Willie Garvin is nearby and he intervenes, killing the two gunmen, and incidentally determining that they work for Gabriel, the villain from the first Modesty Blaise book. Willie and Dinah go into hiding, knowing that Gabriel can mobilise the entire Panamanian underworld to search for Dinah. Modesty comes to their aid, and a deadly cat-and-mouse game ensues, with both Modesty and Willie barely surviving traps that should not possibly be su ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pieces Of Modesty
''Pieces of Modesty'' is a short story collection by Peter O'Donnell featuring his action heroine, Modesty Blaise, first published in 1972. It was O'Donnell's first such collection of stories (he would publish a second, ''Cobra Trap'', decades later). The stories featured in this collection are: #"A Better Day to Die" #"The Giggle-Wrecker" #"I Had a Date with Lady Janet" #"A Perfect Night to Break Your Neck" #"Salamander Four" #"The Soo Girl Charity" Elements from some of these stories would appear in the ''Modesty Blaise'' comic strip which O'Donnell wrote concurrent with his book series. "I Had a Date with Lady Janet" is distinguished as the only Modesty Blaise tale to be told in the first person by Modesty's right-hand man, Willie Garvin. Later novels would include characters introduced in these stories (including the aforementioned Lady Janet), and reference events in some of them (such as "Salamander Four"). The stories in this collection predate the publication of the bo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Comic Strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings, often cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions. Traditionally, throughout the 20th and into the 21st century, these have been published in newspapers and magazines, with daily horizontal strips printed in black-and-white in newspapers, while Sunday papers offered longer sequences in special color comics sections. With the advent of the internet, online comic strips began to appear as webcomics. Strips are written and drawn by a comics artist, known as a cartoonist. As the word "comic" implies, strips are frequently humorous. Examples of these gag-a-day strips are '' Blondie'', ''Bringing Up Father'', ''Marmaduke'', and ''Pearls Before Swine''. In the late 1920s, comic strips expanded from their mirthful origins to feature adventure stories, as seen in ''Popeye'', ''Captain Easy'', ''Buck Rogers'', ''Tarzan'', and ''Terry and the Pira ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1971 British Novels
* The year 1971 had three partial solar eclipses ( February 25, July 22 and August 20) and two total lunar eclipses (February 10, and August 6). The world population increased by 2.1% this year, the highest increase in history. Events January * January 2 – 66 people are killed and over 200 injured during a crush in Glasgow, Scotland. * January 5 – The first ever One Day International cricket match is played between Australia and England at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. * January 8 – Tupamaros kidnap Geoffrey Jackson, British ambassador to Uruguay, in Montevideo, keeping him captive until September. * January 9 – Uruguayan president Jorge Pacheco Areco demands emergency powers for 90 days due to kidnappings, and receives them the next day. * January 12 – The landmark United States television sitcom ''All in the Family'', starring Carroll O'Connor as Archie Bunker, debuts on CBS. * January 14 – Seventy Brazilian political prisoners a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Modesty Blaise Books
Modesty, sometimes known as demureness, is a mode of dress and deportment which intends to avoid the encouraging of sexual attraction in others. The word "modesty" comes from the Latin word ''modestus'' which means "keeping within measure".Jennett, Sheila. The Oxford companion to the body. Eds. Colin Blakemore, and Sheila Jennett. Vol. 7. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2001. Standards of modesty are culturally and context dependent and vary widely. In this use, it may be considered inappropriate or immodest to reveal certain parts of the body. In some societies, modesty may involve women covering their bodies completely and not talking to men who are not immediate family members; in others, a fairly revealing but one-piece bathing costume is considered modest while other women wear bikinis. In some countries, exposure of the body in breach of community standards of modesty is also considered to be public indecency, and public nudity is generally illegal in most of the wor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Souvenir Press Books
A souvenir (), memento, keepsake, or token of remembrance is an object a person acquires for the memories the owner associates with it. A souvenir can be any object that can be collected or purchased and transported home by the traveler as a memento of a visit. The object itself may have intrinsic value, or be a symbol of experience. Without the owner's input, the symbolic meaning is lost and cannot be articulated. As objects The tourism industry designates tourism souvenirs as commemorative merchandise associated with a location, often including geographic information and usually produced in a manner that promotes souvenir collecting. Throughout the world, the souvenir trade is an important part of the tourism industry serving a dual role, first to help improve the local economy, and second to allow visitors to take with them a memento of their visit, ultimately to encourage an opportunity for a return visit, or to promote the locale to other tourists as a form of word-o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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