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Issue Details: First known date: 1934... 1934 A Warning to Wantons : A Fantastic Romance Setting Forth the Not Undeserved but Awful Fate Which Befell a Minx
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'SHE commences: "The following curious tale is set in a mountainous district in south-eastern Europe, hitherto undisturbed by the march of progress on account of its barren inaccessibility."

'Here we find two castles owned by the two magnates of the district. Count Anton Kardak and Count Stephen Boruli. Count Anton, who is a merry widower, has a son, Max, and Count Boruli a blonde Amazon daughter, Maria.

'She is like a goddess and rides a motor bike and is about to marry Max when Count Anton commits the indiscretion of bringing, as a guest to his castle, Renee de la Vailliere, a young woman of high intelligence but low morals.

'As might be expected, Maria does not take kindly to Renee, with the result that Renee sets out deliberately to steal Max's affections even though his wedding night is but a few days off.

'The best part of the story is the chapters dealing with Renee's antics to captivate Max, which she finally does on the night before his marriage. Maria catches her fiance and Renee in a compromising situation, and decides that the time has arrived for direct action.

'So, having drained Max's car of half its petrol, she arranges things so that he will be forced to drive Renee home when the party is over.

'Everything works to plan. The car stops half-way between the two castles. Max gets out to walk to Castle Kardak, for another car, leaving Renee behind. When he returns she has disappeared.

It is only the next day, when the wedding is over, that Renee's clothes are discovered by the side of a mysterious lake from which no one, who went in, had ever come out. The whole neighbourhood accepts the belief that Renee, tired of waiting for Max, thought she would go for a swim, and got drowned.

'Denouement

'IT is here that the reader anticipates a brilliant denouement, but it is not forthcoming. One suspects, with Count Anton, that Renee is not really dead, and that Maria has been responsible for her disappearance, but she has vanished so completely that her whereabouts are beyond conjecture.

'However, it turns out at last that Maria, on the fatal eve of her wedding, forced Renee to strip off her clothes by the edge of the lake, and then took her by motor-bike to a far-away and inaccessible village, where she left her in a peasant's cottage.

'The owner of the cottage, Pauli Matafa, accepted her as a gift from the woods, and Renee is apparently unable to get back to civilisation. She lives with Pauli in unwashed simplicity for months and months, until Count Anton suddenly discovers her and takes her back to Castle Kardak.

'The rivalry between Renee and Maria then starts all over again, until Pauli arrives on the scene, and the story finishes with Renee marrying him and becoming a peasant worker on Count Anton's estate. In this way she changes from a young woman of high intelligence and low morals to one of low intelligence and high morals. It is all very unsatisfactory; nevertheless there are fine passages in the book, and one can truthfully say that this new writer is well worth getting acquainted with.'

Source:

'A Warning to Wantons', Australian Women's Weekly, 7 April 1934, p.6.

Adaptations

form y separately published work icon Warning to Wantons James Laver , Donald B. Wilson , ( dir. Donald B. Wilson ) United Kingdom (UK) : Aquila Film , 1949 6734076 1949 single work film/TV humour romance

A British film adaptation of Mary Mitchell's novel.

Notes

  • 'Setting forth the not undeserved but awful fate which befell a Minx. The most discussed book of the year.' (Publisher's blurb, All About Books, 6 (4), 1934, p.70)
  • Miller incorrectly lists first date of publication as 1933. (Miller, Australian Literature from Its Beginnings to 1935, 1940.)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

Alternative title: Renée und ihre Liebhaber : ein Weltkind geht verloren : Roman
Language: German
    • Berlin,
      c
      Germany,
      c
      Western Europe, Europe,
      :
      Transmare ,
      1934 .
      Extent: 355p.

Other Formats

Works about this Work

A Gout of Bile : Metic and Immigrant Expatriates Peter Morton , 2011 single work criticism
— Appears in: Lusting for London : Australian Expatriate Writers at the Hub of Empire, 1870-1950 2011; (p. 37-55)
'In the unpublished novel by the young Philip Lindsay, The Mangle...there is a fine scene when the character Ronnie Doebrook is leaving for England. He does not expect ever to return. As his liner pulls away from the Sydney dockside, Ronnie picks up one of the yellow paper streamers dangling over the rail, raises it to his lips, and pretends to send a gout of bile spurting over his receding friends and relatives. It is his parting comment on his birthplace. He is realizing his wish. Already he has become - what? An emigrant? An exile? Or an expatirate?' (Author's introduction 36)
y separately published work icon Twice Privileged Or Does Your Mother Know What You Are Doing? Millie Mills , Sydney : Millie Mills , 2006 Z1337181 2006 single work autobiography
Round the World 1947 single work column
— Appears in: The Australasian Book News and Literary Journal , September vol. 2 no. 3 1947; (p. 168)
New Australian Work Frederick T. Macartney , 1935 single work review
— Appears in: All About Books , 12 August vol. 7 no. 8 1935; (p. 125-127)

— Review of Black Waterlily 'William Hatfield' , 1935 single work novel ; Battle Fronts Of Outback Francis Birtles , 1935 single work prose ; The Lemon Farm Martin Boyd , 1935 single work novel ; Pendulum Swing Mary Mitchell , 1935 single work novel
Editorial 1934 single work criticism
— Appears in: Desiderata , 1 August vol. 21 no. 1934; (p. 3)
'In the steady flow of books by Australian authors, whether published here or overseas, it is interesting to observe how Australian literature is growing up. Where hitherto knowledge, sophistication, breadth of mind, cosmopolitan thought, and ability to write appeared only at infrequent intervals, tended and sheltered like some hothouse plant, there is now found hardy growth in the open air.' (From Author’s introduction)
Two Australian Authors Succeed Abroad 1934 single work review
— Appears in: All About Books , 14 March vol. 6 no. 3 1934; (p. 60)

— Review of Rome for Sale Jack Lindsay , 1934 single work novel ; A Warning to Wantons : A Fantastic Romance Setting Forth the Not Undeserved but Awful Fate Which Befell a Minx Mary Mitchell , 1934 single work novel
Australian Books Praised in England 1934 single work review
— Appears in: All About Books , 12 April vol. 6 no. 4 1934; (p. 75-76)

— Review of The Gallant Company : An Australian Soldier's Story of 1915-18 Williams H. R. , 1933 single work autobiography ; A Warning to Wantons : A Fantastic Romance Setting Forth the Not Undeserved but Awful Fate Which Befell a Minx Mary Mitchell , 1934 single work novel ; Scandal of Spring Martin Boyd , 1934 single work novel
Editor's note: Three Australian writers - H. R. Williams, Mary Mitchell and Martin Boyd - receive good reviews in London papers.
A Warning to Wantons C. M. W. , 1934 single work review
— Appears in: Desiderata , 1 May no. 20 1934; (p. 13-14)

— Review of A Warning to Wantons : A Fantastic Romance Setting Forth the Not Undeserved but Awful Fate Which Befell a Minx Mary Mitchell , 1934 single work novel
Round the World 1947 single work column
— Appears in: The Australasian Book News and Literary Journal , September vol. 2 no. 3 1947; (p. 168)
Best Sellers and A.B.A. Recommendations 1934 single work column
— Appears in: All About Books , 12 April vol. 6 no. 4 1934; (p. 80-81)
Australian Literature Society [Meeting Report] Doris Hayball , 1934 single work column review
— Appears in: All About Books , 12 October vol. 6 no. 10 1934; (p. 204)
New Australian Work Frederick T. Macartney , 1935 single work review
— Appears in: All About Books , 12 August vol. 7 no. 8 1935; (p. 125-127)

— Review of Black Waterlily 'William Hatfield' , 1935 single work novel ; Battle Fronts Of Outback Francis Birtles , 1935 single work prose ; The Lemon Farm Martin Boyd , 1935 single work novel ; Pendulum Swing Mary Mitchell , 1935 single work novel
y separately published work icon Twice Privileged Or Does Your Mother Know What You Are Doing? Millie Mills , Sydney : Millie Mills , 2006 Z1337181 2006 single work autobiography
Last amended 24 Jul 2014 09:23:55
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