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The Mad King

by Edgar Rice Burroughs

American Barney Custer travels to the small European kingdom of Lutha, where his resemblance to the young king places him in the middle of a dynastic and constitutional crisis. Court factions, imprisonment and romance with Princess Emma continue into a second part shaped by the outbreak of the First World War.

Although Lutha is imaginary, its position between Austria and Serbia gives the novel the political tension of the pre-war Balkans. The second half moves into the opening of the First World War, turning Barney's resemblance to the king from a comic accident into a dangerous problem of sovereignty, loyalty and national survival.