In the original dust sheet. Red cloth binding with black titles on the spine.

It is the intent of F.B.A. to provide an in-depth photographic presentation of this book offered so to almost stimulate your feel and touch on the book. If requested, more traditional book descriptions are immediately available.

The Amateur Gentleman is an early novel by the popular author of Regency period swashbucklers, Jeffery Farnol, published in 1913. The novel was made into a silent film in 1920, another silent film in 1926 and a talking film in 1936 with Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. starring as the protagonist, Barnabas Barty.

The format of the novel is essentially that of a bildungsroman. It tells the story of Barnabas Barty, the son of John Barty, the former boxing champion of England and landlord of a pub in Kent. At the start of the tale, Barnabas comes fortuitously into the possession of a vast fortune – £700,000, an astronomical amount by Regency standards – and determines to use this fortune to become a gentleman. His father objects to this plan and they quarrel. They settle their differences in a round of fisticuffs, which Barnabas wins, beating his father fair and square. Barnabas sets off for London to further his ambitions and, on the way there, contrives to make a number of influential friends and enemies.

Farnol exploits the naivety of the youth for comic effect. For instance, Barnabas is gulled by the chapman who sells him a book on etiquette at an outrageous mark-up. At the other end of the spectrum, Farnol is equally disdainful of Barnabas’ sophisticated concealment of his identity.

In literary criticism, a Bildungsroman, plural Bildungsromane, is a literary genre that focuses on the psychological and moral growth of the protagonist from childhood to adulthood (coming of age), in which character change is important. The term comes from the German words Bildung (“education”) and Roman (“novel”).

Jeffery Farnol (10 February 1878 – 9 August 1952) was a British writer from 1907 until his death, known for writing more than 40 romance novels, often set in the Georgian Era or English Regency period, and swashbucklers. He, with Georgette Heyer, largely initiated the Regency romantic genre. Farnol published his first romance novel, My Lady Caprice, in 1907. The success of his early novels led Farnol to become a professional writer. He produced about 40 novels and volumes of stories, and some non-fiction and children’s books. His last book was completed by his second wife Phyllis.

Two of his early books, The Amateur Gentleman and The Broad Highway, have been issued in a version edited by romance novelist Barbara Cartland. The Amateur Gentleman was adapted for British cinema in 1920 and 1936, and for American cinema in 1926.