Valerie French

Valerie French is a 1923 adventure novel by the English author Dornford Yates (Cecil William Mercer), a sequel to Anthony Lyveden. It was first published in monthly instalments in The Windsor Magazine. Plot Anthony Lyveden loses his memory, and confuses the two women who love him, Valerie French and André Strongi’th’arm. Background After completing Anthony Lyveden, the chance reading of an article in The Spectator convinced Mercer that his writing needed more gravitas, and he significantly altered his style for this volume to incorporate the systematic use of the colon. He also introduced a device that became his trademark – the words 'More' or 'Worse' standing alone between periods. His biographer AJ Smithers commented, "Whether or not this was an improvement on his old style must be a matter of opinion."