Zusammenfassung
Zusammenfassung von Die rote Maskerade
Go deeper: the whole of Die rote Maskerade
About 4 h 30 min to read.Für wen es gedacht ist
You will love this if you enjoy gentleman thieves, masked villains, secret councils and daring rescues in old London. Readers who like a heroine finding her own courage will feel at home.
Worum es in diesem Buch geht
What would you pay for a painting you suspect is a fake? Michael Lanyard pays twenty thousand one hundred guineas, on impulse, because a cruel man wants the canvas and a lovely woman cannot afford it. That one bid opens Red Masquerade and sets two generations of trouble moving.
Louis Joseph Vance wrote this adventure thriller in 1919, as part of his series about Lanyard, the gentleman thief known as the Lone Wolf. The first part is set in London in 1900, the second in the years after the Great War. You get masked schemers, secret councils and a heroine who learns how strong she is.
In dieser Zusammenfassung
- 1A collector bids against a princeFree
- 2The painting hides a bundle of letters
- 3Lanyard turns a robbery into a bargain
- 4A cashier on a high stool watches life pass
- 5An advertisement sends her running into the night
- 6A prince in Queen Anne's Gate claims her
- 7Seven masked men plot a revolution
- 8Love blooms, then seems to be a lie
- 9A watched servant, a crystal and a trance
- 10Masks, names and the heart beneath
Punkt 1 von 10
A collector bids against a prince
The book opens in London in 1900, on a wet afternoon in an auction room on King Street. Michael Lanyard leans against a wall with a catalogue. He is young, rich and admired as a collector, and behind that polish he is a thief who feels no more guilt than indigestion.
He notices a pale man in the front row whose face he can describe with one word, evil. Two women come in. One is a golden-haired Russian in sable, Princess Sofia Vassilyevski, separated from her husband. The pale man is that husband, Prince Victor, and he stares at her with pure hatred.
A landscape attributed to Corot comes up. Victor bids, and Sofia, shaking with fear, bids against him until she is beaten and close to tears. Lanyard cannot bear it and calls out five thousand one hundred. He wins at twenty thousand one hundred guineas, a wild sum for a canvas he suspects is a copy. One impulsive kindness can set a long chain of trouble in motion.
That’s 1 of 10 key points.
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Go deeper: the whole of Die rote Maskerade
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Questions about Die rote Maskerade
What is Red Masquerade about?
It follows Sofia, a Soho cashier who learns she is the daughter of a notorious thief and is taken into the house of a prince who claims to be her father. Disguise, hidden letters and a revolution plot drive the story.
Who is the Lone Wolf in Red Masquerade?
The Lone Wolf is the nickname of Michael Lanyard, a gentleman thief and art collector in the first part of the book. He appears across Vance's series, and in this novel the name is used by his enemies as well.
Is Red Masquerade a true story?
No. It is a work of fiction published in 1921, an adventure thriller set in London, with imagined villains, secret councils and a fantastical gas plot. It reflects the fears about revolution in the years after the war.
Do I need to read the other Lone Wolf books first?
No. The story begins with its own opening chapters about Lanyard as a young man, and the second part follows Sofia from the start, so the plot is easy to follow without any earlier volume.
What is the main message of Red Masquerade?
It argues that character comes from choices, not inherited blood or the roles people play. Sofia is told she is destined to be a thief, and her instinctive honesty and courage prove otherwise.
Cite this edition
Vance, Louis Joseph. Red Masquerade. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/red-masquerade.
Vance, L. J. (2026). Red masquerade. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/red-masquerade (Original work published 1921)
Vance, Louis Joseph. Red Masquerade. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/red-masquerade.
@book{vance2026red,
author = {Vance, Louis Joseph},
title = {Red Masquerade},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/red-masquerade},
note = {First published 1921}
}
