Sir John Dering

Name: Sir John Dering
Rating: 4.16 (19 reviews)

by Jeffery Farnol

First published 1923

Amazon Project Gutenberg

3.7(19)

Sir John Dering lives beneath the shadow of an old duel and the reputation it has given him. His meeting with Lady Herminia draws him into a second network of danger involving family feuds, George Potter’s smugglers and officials whose claim to uphold the law does not guarantee justice. The Sussex Downs and coast become a landscape of secret movement, pursuit and divided loyalties.

Farnol uses the Georgian smuggling economy to blur the line between criminality and honour. Contraband networks depend on local knowledge and community silence, while respectable authority can be compromised by private interest. Dering’s romance therefore develops alongside a question central to the novel’s adventure: whether a man should be judged by legal reputation, by inherited enemies, or by what he chooses to protect when violence returns.