The Winds of Chance

Undated but 1920-1930. First edition, second impression.  282pp.  Green cloth-covered boards with black rules on front panel, black lettering on spine.  12mo.  Cloth is worn, stained and marked, moderately rubbed and rounded on corners and on spine ends and joints.  Text block edges toned.  Prize presentation plate, dated 1914, on front paste down.  Endpapers spotted and marked.  Pencil annotations and a red felt tip tick on half title.  Some faint and occasional spotting and some smudge marks throughout.  Slightly shaken. Silas Kitto Hocking (1850-1935) was a Cornish Methodist preacher and a prolific writer, especially of didactic stories for children.  His second novel, Her Benny (1879) was a best-selling success and made his reputation as a popular author; it was turned into a silent movie in the 1920s.  The Winds of Chance  was one of his last novels, first published in 1928, is a romance-laden adventure, set in Cornwall and is now one of his harder to find titles.