The Eagle’s Shadow (1904) is the debut novel of James Branch Cabell, a master of fantasy fiction and an underrated figure of twentieth-century American literature. The novel is significant for being among few of Cabell’s works to take place both around the time of its publication and to be set in the contemporary world. Like many of his works, however, it paints an intricate portrait of romance and power, immersing its reader into a fiction more real than they’d care to admit.
Most of the novel’s action occurs at Selwoode, a recently built mansion located in the English countryside. Following the death of her uncle Frederick, Margaret Hugonin finds herself his unlikely heiress, and is thrust into a life she could not have prepared for even if she had managed to imagine it in the first place. As she faces down suitor after suitor while enduring a routine of lessons on philanthropy, culture, and charity, she navigates the complexities of her love for Billy Woods, her cousin through marriage and the nephew of Selwoode’s deceased scion, Frederick. Throughout the story, the eagle—both Frederick’s chosen heraldic animal and a symbol of power—looms over their relationship. The ill-gotten nature of the family fortune—acquired through the exploitation enabled by imperialism and solidified in the shadows of Wall Street—threatens to destroy not only their love, but their entire world. The Eagle’s Shadow, a novel at times tragic and comedic, is a brilliant and bold social critique masquerading as romance, and a literary work for all time.
Cabell’s work has long been described as escapist, his novels and stories derided as fantastic and obsessive recreations of a world lost long ago. To read The Eagle’s Shadow, however, is to understand that the issues therein—the struggle for power, the unspoken distance between men and women—were vastly important not only at the time of its publication, but in our own, divisive world.
With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of James Branch Cabell’s The Eagle’s Shadow is a classic of comedy and romance reimagined for modern readers.
