Robert William Chambers

Illustrated In Search of the Unknown by Robert William Chambers

This book is a collection of five stories hunting for strange animals and the supernatural. They are vaguely linked by a frame narrative (our protagonist is sent to help secure an odd creature) and similar structure (our protagonist falls in love and fails to win the heart of the source of his infatuation). It's clear that Chambers mainly wrote romances, as that crept in quite distinctly. However, the character of the protagonist is not entirely consistent, leading us to determine that not all these were written at the same time. Like swimming squirrels, IN SEARCH OF THE UNKNOWN navigates with the help of Heaven and a stiff breeze, but it never lands where it hopes to.