The barge of haunted lives by J. Aubrey Tyson
"The barge of haunted lives" by J. Aubrey Tyson is a novel written in the early 20th century. Framed as a mystery-adventure, it gathers men and women with “haunted” pasts aboard a lavish barge run by financier Hewitt Westfall, where their intertwined confessions promise to reveal the truth about a beautiful, enigmatic aviatrix and a cryptic affair tied to the Rajiid Buddha. Key figures include the grim duckhunter Colonel Canbeck, the Veiled
Aeronaut (believed to be Princess Maranotti), and the Fugitive Bridegroom whose story sets the larger design in motion. The opening of the novel follows Colonel Canbeck on a bleak Long Island marsh, where a seaplane drops a stunning young woman who seeks escape to a railway; together they find a hidden barge whose deckhouse conceals a rich, uncanny salon of faceless statues, ancient armor, and a mummy. Locked in, they meet Westfall, who reveals the barge as a refuge for “haunted lives” and announces a private dinner where a veiled guest (the young woman) will hear how all present are bound to her fate and to the mystery of the Rajiid Buddha. A gallery of oddly titled men assembles, the Veiled Aeronaut is seated incognito, and the Fugitive Bridegroom begins his tale: a fogbound yacht collides with a derelict; he survives alone, clambers aboard the fire-gutted hulk via a dangling rope, and endures thirst, fever, and eerie night visitations—bats, a crone, and the vampiric Laquella—before rescue. Convalescing, he returns to New York, falls deeply in love with the radiant Paula Trevison, yet is dogged by an unnameable dread even as they wed and board a liner for Europe. The section closes on the pier at sailing time, tightening the sense of foreboding that his past and present are about to collide. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
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About this eBook
| Author | Tyson, J. Aubrey (John Aubrey), 1870-1930 |
|---|---|
| LoC No. | 23004980 |
| Title | The barge of haunted lives |
| Original Publication | New York: The Macmillan Company, 1923. |
| Credits | Tom Trussel, Tim Lindell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) |
| Language | English |
| LoC Class | PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature |
| Subject | Detective and mystery stories |
| Subject | Gems -- Theft -- Fiction |
| Category | Text |
| EBook-No. | 77879 |
| Release Date | Feb 7, 2026 |
| Copyright Status | Public domain in the USA. |
| Downloads | 188 downloads in the last 30 days. |
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