Shadow of Doctor Syn is the seventh and last in the series of Doctor Syn novels by Russell Thorndike. This story is set during the events of the French Revolution and part of the action has Syn rescuing people from the Reign of Terror in the style of the Scarlet Pimpernel. The other main plot element is a love story. Syn has fallen in love with young Cicily Cobtree and hopes his actions against Robespierre will earn him a pardon from the King. When Cicily dies, Syn gives up his ideas of pardon and nearly loses his sanity. This sets the stage for the fiendish character he becomes in Doctor Syn: A Tale of the Romney Marsh.
Shadow of Doctor Syn was published in 1944. It follows the events of Amazing Quest of Doctor Syn. Though it is the last book written in the series it acts as a prequel for the first novel.
Famous quotes containing the words shadow of, shadow and/or doctor:
“I was the shadow of the waxwing slain
By the false azure in the windowpane;
I was the smudge of ashen fluff—and I
Lived on, flew on, in the reflected sky.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)
“Race prejudice is not only a shadow over the colored—it is a shadow over all of us, and the shadow is darkest over those who feel it least and allow its evil effects to go on.”
—Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973)
“A doctor, like anyone else who has to deal with human beings, each of them unique, cannot be a scientist; he is either, like the surgeon, a craftsman, or, like the physician and the psychologist, an artist.... This means that in order to be a good doctor a man must also have a good character, that is to say, whatever weaknesses and foibles he may have, he must love his fellow human beings in the concrete and desire their good before his own.”
—W.H. (Wystan Hugh)