An heir from Calcutta. R.A. Shtilmark. 1959 book

Robert Stillmark. Heir from Calcutta (novel) Last lifetime edition Numerous drawings by A. Lurie. The action of the novel takes place at the end of the 18th century in England, Italy, Spain and the seas of the Indian Ocean. A pirate ship led by the one-eyed captain Bernardito Luis El Gore captures the ship with the heir to the earl family, Fredrick Ryland, who travels to England from Calcutta with his bride Emilia ... All the features of the adventure genre are manifested in a vivid artistic form in the novel: unsolved secrets, amazing transformations, persecution , intrigues and, finally, the triumph of good over evil. The events of the novel develop rapidly. Courageous and noble heroes enter into a daring fight with vile villains, seductive women, thrown by fate into a stormy whirlpool of events, overcome tragic circumstances. Readers are waiting for earthquakes and storms, fights with predators and deadly poisons. Robert Shtilmark created this legendary novel in the Stalinist camp by order of one of the crime bosses. The work, which was destined to become an imperishable classic of adventure literature, was written by the author in exchange for being freed from exhausting labor at the logging site, having received the privileged job of a “washer” at the bathhouse. The Heir from Calcutta was released in 1958 and was a wild success with readers, the book immediately became a bestseller, being on the same shelf next to Treasure Island and The Count of Monte Cristo, and Robert Shtilmark came to the well-deserved fame of one of the best masters adventure genre. Robert Shtilmark was arrested in 1945 on charges of "counter-revolutionary agitation" and sentenced to ten years in prison. In a forced labor camp, he created the adventure novel "Heir from Calcutta". A certain criminal authority was going to send this work to I. Stalin under his own name in order to receive an amnesty. The book was first published in 1958, after the release and rehabilitation of R. Shtilmark, and was not republished for 30 years, with the exception of publications in Alma-Ata in 1959 and in Chisinau. since it was crushed by literary critics (and publishing houses took note of this), that, they say, there are too many counts there and all sorts of bourgeois adventure trends .. The Alma-Ata edition was the last lifetime edition for Robert Shtilmark in the Soviet Union. An article in Krokodil and, following it, in Komsomolskaya Pravda (“this adventure is alien to Soviet people”) did their job. In the USSR, "The Heir from Calcutta" has not been published since then - until the time of perestroika and glasnost. Publisher: Alma-Ata: Kazakh State Educational and Pedagogical Publishing House Binding: publishing cartonage, 840 pages, 1959 Language: Russian Alma-Ata: Kazuchpedgiz, 1959 Circulation: 225,000 copies. Cover type: hard Format: 84x108/32 (130x200 mm) Pages: 840 Cover illustration by V. Tkachenko, internal illustrations by A. Lurie.