Diotimos Library · Literary Fiction Collection · English Edition
The Keepers of the People
A Critical Edition of the 1898 Novel
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English Edition · Branch 129 of 254
Chapter IV · The Revolt of the Princess Agnes · pp. 161–171
The Keepers of the People
p. 164The people took to soldiering as to a pastime: the young men burned to win glory; the older men to taste once more the joy of battle. They were patient, trusting to the wisdom of the Princes to choose the right time to go forth; and by the time the rolling months had blunted the edge of their ardour, they had reached a high pitch of excellence. Then Prince Ralph thought that the time had come to spur their flagging zeal; and he told the head-men that a foreign foe was marching to invade Varandaleel, and enslave them. At these tidings their spirit flamed to a fury; and they addressed themselves to their drill, their shooting, and their swordplay with a savage earnestness.
Socrates
Reading The Keepers of the People · Book II, Chapter IV · The Revolt of the Princess Agnes · Book II, Chapter IV · The Revolt of the Princess Agnes · pp. 161–171
Ask about a concept, passage, contradiction, or connection.
Socrates will begin with this book and its sources.About This Reading Edition
Edgar Jepson’s The Keepers of the People begins as a late-Victorian lost-kingdom romance and becomes an unsettling political argument. Ralph Falcon moves from an English country house to the hidden state of Varandaleel, where laughter, secrecy, violence, education, and the duties of rulers are tested against one another.
Historical Text
The novel was first published in London in 1898 by C. Arthur Pearson. This reading text follows the owner-supplied critical edition, whose copy-text is the Methuen Colonial Library issue of the same year digitised by the Internet Archive. The supplied editorial note records the edition’s corrections, normalisations, limits, and unresolved textual risks.
About This Edition
This English Edition preserves the complete supplied text and apparatus: the introduction, reading guide, key words, plot outline, editorial note, both books and all thirty chapters, and the end notes. Its reader branches end at paragraph boundaries, with the original chapter structure and chapter page references mapped to the 1898 printing.
Rights
Edgar Jepson’s 1898 novel is in the public domain. The introduction, reader’s guide, key words, outline, editorial note, notes, editorial arrangement, and design of the supplied edition are © 2026 Diotimos Editions.