Review: Canadian Author David Mulholland Dramatizes 1833 Fatal Duel!

Duel:

A Novel of Dramatized History

By David Mulholland
General Store Publishing House
ISBN: 9781897508398
130 Pages

When acts of violence occur, who is at fault? Is it just the individuals actually involved? Or is it the family, the community, or the society in which the individuals lived? Or, could the fault have been lies, deception and betrayal by someone who acted purely on his own self-interest?

David Mulholland in his novel, Duel, presents a dramatization of background and events leading up to the Duel Between Robert Lyon and John Wilson on June 13, 1833. His beautiful cover shares a picture of the actual dueling pistols!

In many ways dueling might be considered the smallest version of a war. It was once considered a respectable means of settling disputes among Gentlemen. Indeed history dwells most on those fought between gentlemen, referring to the same type of action in the lower classes as “merely a vulgar shootout between two Scallywags.” (p. 41)

One major difference with a duel was that it almost always was based on one thing—honor—or more clearly, the perceived offense that brought dishonor to another gentleman! Thus only disagreements between peers were accepted as a reason to “challenge” the other.

Little was known as to why these young men who had been relatively close friends actually proceeded to that duel. There had been many who had tried to stop it and some even said that one of the seconds was the main instigator! That is, until during his research of the event, David Mulholland found a descendent of the town’s blacksmith who had inherited a lengthy report that had been prepared at the request of a professor of moral and mental philosophy at Queen’s College. The manuscript was said to be 126 years old, written 50 years after this fatal affair when Robert Lyon was shot.

If this was indeed written by the blacksmith’s son, readers may immediately wonder why Professor Watson chose to contact this individual as opposed to one of the upper class, or had he learned something about the event and was himself conducting his own investigation? Surely what he discovered was not what he had anticipated!

David Mulholland successfully takes readers to Perth, Upper Canada, during the year 1833 when, “within minutes, Robert Lyon was dead.” (p. 3) The small town was a perfect setting you might say. Historians will want to study the old manuscript against other documents of the era. But in the end, will it really explain how two friends faced each other with dueling pistols, fully expecting only one to walk away?

Duel forces all of us to ponder the cost of honor. Mulholland provides an excellent novel with a significantly picturesque drama in which to explore that potential loss...

G. A. Bixler

New Historical Novel by Canadian Author David Mulholland Fact or Fiction?

General Store Publishing House

PRESS RELEASE:

DUEL

by David Mulholland

NEWLY DISCOVERED MANUSCRIPT SHEDS LIGHT ON FATAL DUEL

RENFREW, Ontario.  Author David Mulholland claims to have uncovered a manuscript describing events that led to the fatal duel between Robert Lyon and John Wilson that took place on June 13, 1833, in the town of Perth, Ontario, 80 kilometres west of Ottawa.

“I’m not at liberty to say who I obtained the manuscript from,” Mulholland says. “I returned it . . . I think! There are days when I wake up and wonder if it was a real document. Or did I just imagine it?”

The novel reproduces the 50-year-old memories of an arthritic blacksmith who says he influenced the fatal meeting between Lyon and Wilson. The blacksmith was still living in Perth in 1883. He wrote his report at the request of John Watson, who was a Professor of Moral and Mental Philosophy (Psychology) at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, from 1872 to 1924.

“John Watson was a real Professor at Queen’s,” Mulholland says. “Of that I’m certain. You can find references to him on the Internet.”

Mulholland says that although some sentences in the 126-year-old handwritten document were difficult to read, “it was in remarkably good condition, and, despite his arthritis, the author’s penmanship was legible. Photographer Denis Filion took photos of some of the writer’s report, which I’ve included in the book. So I guess it must have been real!”

To retain its authenticity, when Mulholland transcribed it, he kept the blacksmith’s sentence and paragraph structure and his 19th century spellings and capitalizations.

Note: Mr. Mulholland has indemnified GSPH against any claims to the truthfulness of his story.





General Store Publishing House,
130 pages, $19.95 + gst,
ISBN: 9781897508398


Available in bookstores and directly from the publisher at http://www.gsph.com/.





Book Review of Duel coming soon!