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 210 of 254
Chapter XV · The Courting of Vashti · pp. 285–300
The Keepers of the People
p. 300“Must?” said Lord Lisdor.
“Yes; must. Otherwise I inform Prince Ralph. I have no other course. I will keep Vashti from harm!”
“I believe you’re acting on the square; and I give it you,” said Lord Lisdor.
“Very good,” said Althea. “And you must meet in secret, in dead secret till you can see a way of getting things out of this tangle. There is one thing: the Princes will be very slow to suspect that you are breaking the laws of hospitality; they could not conceive it.”
“I will be very careful,” said Lord Lisdor.
“And remember that I am Vashti’s friend; she shall neither be harmed, nor made unhappy. Goodnight.”
“Good-night,” said Lord Lisdor.
She went down an alley to the door opening into the garden of Prince Ralph’s wing; and Lord Lisdor sat a while considering.
Socrates
Reading The Keepers of the People · Book II, Chapter XV · The Courting of Vashti · Book II, Chapter XV · The Courting of Vashti · pp. 285–300
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.