Down on his luck and down to his last few shillings, John Crayton finds himself marooned in Yokohama at the Four Winds Hotel. A financial disaster has nearly wiped out his bank account back home in England and he needs a job quickly in order to pay his hotel bill or risk jail in Japan. He and a similarly unemployed friend have a fortuitous encounter with the shady and morose Abel Starkenden in a local bar that changes their luck. The Starkenden Quest has overtones of Haggard, Bedford-Jones and all the Indiana Jones movies. Starkenden and his two explorers-for-hire encounter a run-in with Chinese pirates, crossing a raging river of white rapids in a most unusual fashion, and travelling through an ancient cavern equipped with a lantern made from a human skull. Collins is well worth investigating for readers who like intelligent rousing adventures. First published in 1925 by Gerald Duckworth and Co. The Starkenden Quest was popular enough in its day to merit an abridged version in the pulp magazine Famous Fantastic Mysteries in the October 1949 issue. The Raven's Head Press edition contains a foreword by genre fiction critic J.F. Norris who gives us a fascinating insight into the man behind the novel, Gilbert Collins. A ROUSING ADVENTURE NOVEL IN THE LOST RACE GENRE WITH DWARFISH APE-LIKE CREATURES, A HIDDEN TREASURE TROVE OF GEMS, A MUMMY, A WHITE GODDESS, A LOVE INTEREST AND HEROIC CHARACTERS FIGHTING FOR THEIR LIVES. THIS IS PULP...