Ralph Marlowe

Ralph Marlowe is the second in a Tribute Series to James Ball Naylor. It is a reprinted, reformatted version of Naylor’s 1901 best seller, edited and annotated by Theresa Marie Flaherty, the author of Naylor’ biography, The Final Test. Included in this edition is a Foreward and Afterword by Ms. Flaherty and an Addendum that includes contemporary reviews, period photographs and identifies some of the actual persons that characters were based upon as well as real locations of places used in the book. Ralph Marlowe, in an effort to put his past behind him and get a new start, arrives in Babylon to accept a position as a drug clerk in the office of Dr. Barwood, an eccentric, misunderstood physician. Despite warnings that no man has been able to work very long with the doctor, Marlowe remains. Marlowe concedes graciously to the doctor’s demands, but expects no interference in fulfilling them. In the midst of these trying circumstances Naylor falls in love with one of Barwood’s daughters. A number of the eccentric characters such as Jep Tucker, Barwood’s hired hand; Lon Crider, the drummer; the lazy, worthless Jim Crawford; Morris McDivitt, ruined at the gambling tables and saved by Barwood’s religious daughter, are personalities that command the attention of the reader. Based on real people and actual experience, Ralph Marlowe is written in a singular, convincing style that reads as well today as it did more than a hundred years ago.