Lost empires : being Richard Herncastle's account of his life on the variety stage from November 1913 to August 1914 together with a prologue and epilogue

Priestley's nostalgic novel set in the last years of the England that disappeared for ever in World War I. In 1913, young Richard Herncastle exchanges his office stool for a life of adventure, joining his uncle's illusionist act on the variety stage, and awakening to the worlds of love and sex. In 1913-1914 a young Yorkshire boy's uncle sweeps him away from a dreary office job into the nomadic, boozy, amorous life of Variety performers on tour.