Edgar Wallace was one of the most popular and prolific authors of his era. This novel is framed as several witness accounts to a fictious journalist and starts as an entertaining adventure yarn with even some pirate episodes, but the story looses steam at the half-way point when it turns into a very predictable society novel. Wallace follows his passions for horse-racing and adventure, and the title character in all his generosity and extravagance is clearly autobiographical. The story of a man who founds his own colony on an uninhibited island, returns to England to find true love and manages to keep the island out of the hands of various foreign powers.