The Quest of Youth

by Jeffery Farnol

First published 1927

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2.7(7)

A young protagonist leaves the security of ordinary expectations for Farnol’s familiar world of country roads, inns and chance encounters, seeking the independence and experience that sheltered life cannot provide. The journey brings friendship, danger and romance, while apparently casual meetings gradually prove connected to secrets that make the road less innocent than it first appears.

Set in the Georgian and Regency world Farnol repeatedly revisited, the novel treats travel as a form of self-education. Social rank matters less on the road than courage, judgement and the ability to read strangers, and the appearance of Jasper Shrig adds the possibility of criminal explanation to romantic adventure. The result is a late variation on the open-road pattern that made The Broad Highway and Peregrine’s Progress characteristic Farnol novels.