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 220 of 254
Chapter XVI · The Affair of the Missionary · pp. 301–316
The Keepers of the People
p. 316“The Varandals will never know whether he is living or dead. There is no example to be made of him: he is merely put out of the way,” said Prince Ralph.
“Oh, I see,” said Ruth. “Then he doesn’t matter.”
“I cannot see what he wanted to teach the Varandals. Surely a kindly, honest people are Christians?” said Prince Ralph.
“He did not find them gentle enough for one thing,” said Ruth.
“The happy are gentle,” said Prince Ralph.
“You were right. It was not Christianity at all. It was a foolish perversion of it,” said Ruth.
“He is scarcely worth talking about,” said Althea with a little yawn. “He can do no mischief now.”
Socrates
Reading The Keepers of the People · Book II, Chapter XVI · The Affair of the Missionary · Book II, Chapter XVI · The Affair of the Missionary · pp. 301–316
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.