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Last Train Out
"Last Train Out" by E. Phillips Oppenheim. Published by Good Press. Good Press publishes a wide range of titles that encompasses every genre. From well-known classics & literary fiction and non-fiction to forgotten−or yet undiscovered gems−of world literature, we issue the books that need to be read. Each Good Press edition has been meticulously edited and formatted to boost readability for all e-readers and devices. Our goal is to produce eBooks that are user-friendly and accessible to everyone in a high-quality digital format.
- GenresAdventure
Hardcover
First published January 1, 1940
3 people are currently reading
23 people want to read
About the author
E. Phillips Oppenheim
628 books80 followersEdward Phillips Oppenheim was an English novelist, primarily known for his suspense fiction.
He was born in Leicester, the son of a leather merchant, and after attending Wyggeston Grammar School he worked in his father's business for almost 20 years, beginning there at a young age. He continued working in the business, even though he was a successful novelist, until he was 40 at which point he sold the business.
He wrote his first book 'Expiation' in 1887 and in 1898 he published 'The Mysterious Mr Sabin', which he described as "The first of my long series of stories dealing with that shadowy and mysterious world of diplomacy." Thereafter he became a prolific writer and by 1900 he had had 14 novels published.
While on a business trip to the United States in 1890 he met and married Elise Clara Hopkins of Boston and, on return to England, they lived in Evington, Leicestershire until the First World War,and had one daughter. His wife remained faithful to him throughout his life despite his frequent and highly publicised affairs, which often took place abroad and aboard his luxury yacht.
During World War I Oppenheim worked for the Ministry of Information while continuing to write his suspenseful novels.
He featured on the cover of 'Time' magazine on 12 September 1927 and he was the self-styled 'Prince of Storytellers', a title used by Robert standish for his biography of the author.
His literary success enabled him to buy a villa in France and a yacht, spending his winters in France where he regularly entertained more than 250 people at his lavish parties and where he was a well-known figure in high society.
He later purchased a house, Le Vanquiédor in St. Peter Port, in Guernsey. He lost access to the house during the Second World War when Germany occupied the Channel Islands but later regained it.
He wrote 116 novels, mainly of the suspense and international intrigue type, but including romances, comedies, and parables of everyday life, and 39 volumes of short stories, all of which earned him vast sums of money. He also wrote five novels under the pseudonymn Anthony Partridge and a volume of autobiography, 'The Pool of Memory' in 1939.
He is generally regarded as the earliest writer of spy fiction as we know it today, and invented the 'Rogue Male' school of adventure thrillers that was later exploited by John Buchan and Geoffrey Household.
Undoubtedly his most renowned work was 'The Great Impersonation' (1920), which was filmed three times, the last time as a strong piece of wartime propaganda in 1942. In that novel the plot hinges around two very similar looking gentlemen, one from Britain and the other from Germany, in the early part of the 20th century. Overall more than 30 of his works were made into films.
Perhaps his most enduring creation is the character of General Besserley, the protagonist of 'General Besserley's Puzzle Box' and 'General Besserley's New Puzzle Box'.
Much of his work possesses a unique escapist charm, featuring protagonists who delight in Epicurean meals, surroundings of intense luxury, and the relaxed pursuit of criminal practice, on either side of the law.
Gerry Wolstenholme
He was born in Leicester, the son of a leather merchant, and after attending Wyggeston Grammar School he worked in his father's business for almost 20 years, beginning there at a young age. He continued working in the business, even though he was a successful novelist, until he was 40 at which point he sold the business.
He wrote his first book 'Expiation' in 1887 and in 1898 he published 'The Mysterious Mr Sabin', which he described as "The first of my long series of stories dealing with that shadowy and mysterious world of diplomacy." Thereafter he became a prolific writer and by 1900 he had had 14 novels published.
While on a business trip to the United States in 1890 he met and married Elise Clara Hopkins of Boston and, on return to England, they lived in Evington, Leicestershire until the First World War,and had one daughter. His wife remained faithful to him throughout his life despite his frequent and highly publicised affairs, which often took place abroad and aboard his luxury yacht.
During World War I Oppenheim worked for the Ministry of Information while continuing to write his suspenseful novels.
He featured on the cover of 'Time' magazine on 12 September 1927 and he was the self-styled 'Prince of Storytellers', a title used by Robert standish for his biography of the author.
His literary success enabled him to buy a villa in France and a yacht, spending his winters in France where he regularly entertained more than 250 people at his lavish parties and where he was a well-known figure in high society.
He later purchased a house, Le Vanquiédor in St. Peter Port, in Guernsey. He lost access to the house during the Second World War when Germany occupied the Channel Islands but later regained it.
He wrote 116 novels, mainly of the suspense and international intrigue type, but including romances, comedies, and parables of everyday life, and 39 volumes of short stories, all of which earned him vast sums of money. He also wrote five novels under the pseudonymn Anthony Partridge and a volume of autobiography, 'The Pool of Memory' in 1939.
He is generally regarded as the earliest writer of spy fiction as we know it today, and invented the 'Rogue Male' school of adventure thrillers that was later exploited by John Buchan and Geoffrey Household.
Undoubtedly his most renowned work was 'The Great Impersonation' (1920), which was filmed three times, the last time as a strong piece of wartime propaganda in 1942. In that novel the plot hinges around two very similar looking gentlemen, one from Britain and the other from Germany, in the early part of the 20th century. Overall more than 30 of his works were made into films.
Perhaps his most enduring creation is the character of General Besserley, the protagonist of 'General Besserley's Puzzle Box' and 'General Besserley's New Puzzle Box'.
Much of his work possesses a unique escapist charm, featuring protagonists who delight in Epicurean meals, surroundings of intense luxury, and the relaxed pursuit of criminal practice, on either side of the law.
Gerry Wolstenholme
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
July 29, 2024
Another GREAT story!
Published in 1941, Last Train Out must be one of the earliest thrillers to describe the build up to the Second World War. Its story is built around the escape of a Jewish banker from Vienna to Switzerland from before the annexation of Austria by Germany in March 1938 to just after the declaration of war on Germany by Britain and France in September 1939 following the German invasion of Poland.
4* The Evil Shepherd
4* The World's Great Snare
4* The Wicked Marquis
4* Last Train Out
TR The Zeppelin's Passenger
TR False Evidence
TR The Light Beyond
Published in 1941, Last Train Out must be one of the earliest thrillers to describe the build up to the Second World War. Its story is built around the escape of a Jewish banker from Vienna to Switzerland from before the annexation of Austria by Germany in March 1938 to just after the declaration of war on Germany by Britain and France in September 1939 following the German invasion of Poland.
4* The Evil Shepherd
4* The World's Great Snare
4* The Wicked Marquis
4* Last Train Out
TR The Zeppelin's Passenger
TR False Evidence
TR The Light Beyond
December 19, 2023
Visit JetBlackDragonfly (The Man Who Read Too Much) at www.edenthompson.ca/blog
Sir Phillip Mildenhall is a young and energetic British Diplomat travelling through Vienna on the eve of the German invasion. Many Jews have already been taken away and their property seized. There is tension in the air and talk of Poland being invaded next if England and France don't get involved.
Mildenhall meets in a bank Mr. Leopold Benjamin, a well known and wealthy Jew whose high connections may keep him out of trouble, for now. He invites Mildenhall to dine at his estate that night. The guests include a Princess Sophia, Baroness von Ballinstrode, Leopold's assistant Patricia and his right hand man Marius Blute. His home is more like a museum with priceless works of art covering the walls, and when it is asked to see the rest of the collection, it is mysteriously declined. They don't know of his meticulous plans to save the artwork from the Nazis.
Eighteen months later, Mildenhall returns to a very different Vienna under German control. Benjamin had disappeared after that dinner and his collection of priceless art is missing. He is welcomed back to his old hotel where he has left some money in the safe, and begins to search for Patricia and Blute. Weakened and starving, they tell him of their sad circumstances and he is surprised to hear they have been hiding the art collection from the Nazis. They need his diplomatic connections to help get it out of the country by the next morning, on the last train out of Vienna.
It's a tense and exciting adventure, with underground spies, cruel Nazis, heroic countrymen, and a desperate, inventive plan to transport the art from under the noses of the invaders. There is a little romance between Mildenhall and Patricia, but chaste and hesitant. There is the cunning Baroness who plays both sides as it pleases her, and a tense escape across the border to Switzerland.
E. Phillips Oppenheim was an English novelist, writing popular spy thrillers until his death in 1946. I previously read his excellent The Great Impersonation (1920), which is quite like Daphne DuMaurier's The Scapegoat, but more entertaining I think. The Last Train Out, written in 1940, is the second to last novel he wrote. It has a spare style and rips right along. By page 50 I was quickly turning the pages.
Knowing it was written back when the actual events were unfolding added a sense of reality to the scenes. I found it as exciting to read now as if I was back in the day. If you are interested in 1930's/40's spy adventures, many of his novels are available as free eBook downloads.
An exciting adventure of an underground spy network, it was a fun read. Finished it in two days, couldn't put it down!
Sir Phillip Mildenhall is a young and energetic British Diplomat travelling through Vienna on the eve of the German invasion. Many Jews have already been taken away and their property seized. There is tension in the air and talk of Poland being invaded next if England and France don't get involved.
Mildenhall meets in a bank Mr. Leopold Benjamin, a well known and wealthy Jew whose high connections may keep him out of trouble, for now. He invites Mildenhall to dine at his estate that night. The guests include a Princess Sophia, Baroness von Ballinstrode, Leopold's assistant Patricia and his right hand man Marius Blute. His home is more like a museum with priceless works of art covering the walls, and when it is asked to see the rest of the collection, it is mysteriously declined. They don't know of his meticulous plans to save the artwork from the Nazis.
Eighteen months later, Mildenhall returns to a very different Vienna under German control. Benjamin had disappeared after that dinner and his collection of priceless art is missing. He is welcomed back to his old hotel where he has left some money in the safe, and begins to search for Patricia and Blute. Weakened and starving, they tell him of their sad circumstances and he is surprised to hear they have been hiding the art collection from the Nazis. They need his diplomatic connections to help get it out of the country by the next morning, on the last train out of Vienna.
It's a tense and exciting adventure, with underground spies, cruel Nazis, heroic countrymen, and a desperate, inventive plan to transport the art from under the noses of the invaders. There is a little romance between Mildenhall and Patricia, but chaste and hesitant. There is the cunning Baroness who plays both sides as it pleases her, and a tense escape across the border to Switzerland.
E. Phillips Oppenheim was an English novelist, writing popular spy thrillers until his death in 1946. I previously read his excellent The Great Impersonation (1920), which is quite like Daphne DuMaurier's The Scapegoat, but more entertaining I think. The Last Train Out, written in 1940, is the second to last novel he wrote. It has a spare style and rips right along. By page 50 I was quickly turning the pages.
Knowing it was written back when the actual events were unfolding added a sense of reality to the scenes. I found it as exciting to read now as if I was back in the day. If you are interested in 1930's/40's spy adventures, many of his novels are available as free eBook downloads.
An exciting adventure of an underground spy network, it was a fun read. Finished it in two days, couldn't put it down!
September 29, 2019
When the Nazis invade Austria (1938), a Jewish art collector flees Vienna in this wordy laxative and is later (1940) camped cheerily at the Hotel Meurice in Paris. A blinkered Oppenheim published his tosh in 1940 when the Nazis goose-stepped into town and, guess what?, made their military HQ at the Meurice.
December 8, 2016
Though dated stylistically, this novel has the makings of a decent movie thriller. The story takes place between the Anschluss, the Nazi takeover of Austria, March 1938, and the invasion of Poland in September 1939. A wealthy Jewish banker, philanthropist, and art collector is forced to flee Vienna to avoid imprisonment by the Nazi's. He disappears on the night the Germans march into Austria, and his fortune and collection vanishes with him, leaving behind his personal secretary, Pamela Grey, and his agent, the mysterious Marius Blute. Charles Mildenhall, an English diplomat/intelligence agent, is drawn into Grey and Blute's predicament (saving the missing collection) and naturally falls in love with Miss Grey. There is a beautiful and seductive femme fatal, swaggering Nazi officials, and millions at stake, including irreplaceable works of art. The images Oppenheim paints of Vienna are striking, especially the conditions the local citizens endure. While moderately suspenseful, more could have been made of the threat of discovery by the German agents and our heroes' escapes made more narrow. The love story between Grey and Mildenhall is typical of the period and though Pamela Grey shows strength of character, she is swept off her feet a little too easily. Mildenhall demonstrates cleverness in anticipating the opposition's moves but he is clearly not 007. Experienced and courageous, he comes off more as a dilettante. The ending is unexpected and not wholly satisfying as escape is managed too readily.
The story has good bones which a talented screen-writer could turn into an exciting film.
The story has good bones which a talented screen-writer could turn into an exciting film.
January 30, 2024
A bit slow but interesting.
March 17, 2013
Originally published on my blog here in May 2011.
Described in his heyday as "the Prince of Storytellers", the name of E. Phillips Oppenheim was familiar to me pretty much only from the back covers of the Leslie Charteris novels I own in these Hodder yellow jacket editions. When I saw this one - in a book case in the garden of a cottage in the Welsh mountains containing books for sale to support education charities working in Africa - I was keen to take the chance to make my acquaintance with the author. (I would never have thought of searching for it, though; this kind of serendipity is one major reason why physical second hand bookstores are such wonderful places.)
Published in 1941, Last Train Out must be one of the earliest thrillers to describe the build up to the Second World War. Its story is built around the escape of a Jewish banker from Vienna to Switzerland from before the annexation of Austria by Germany in March 1938 to just after the declaration of war on Germany by Britain in France in September 1939 following the German invasion of Poland.
The hero of Last Train Out, Charles Mildenhall, is an upper class British adventurer, working for the Foreign Office in a role somewhere between a diplomat and a troubleshooting spy. It is he, for example, who travels to Poland to assure the leaders there that Britain and France would indeed honour their treaty commitments and declare war if a German invasion takes place. While Oppenheim's novels are publicised on the back of those by Leslie Charteris, Mildenhall resembles the central characters in books by Dornford Yates more than he does the Saint. Apart from his class background, he is more likely to succeed the liberal use of cash than to be supremely useful in a fight with the bad guys. But there are qualities Mildenhall shares with Simon Templar. Both use intelligence to work their way through a problem while not being as cerebral as, say, Holmes or Poirot; both have a personal charm well portrayed by their respective writers; and both, as a result, have a large network of friends everywhere they go who can be counted on to provide aid as needed.
Despite the soubriquet bestowed on Oppenheim, I felt there were occasional infelicities in the storytelling in the Last Train. The most noticeable is the sudden jump from the eve of the Anschluss to the eve of the invasion of Poland, with Mildenhall's activities during these seventeen months described only later as he describes them to others. Oppenheim clearly wanted to keep most of the action in Vienna and not bring in characters and activities elsewhere in Europe, but it would have made the story flow better to follow his hero's actions chronologically.
Overall, though, the characters are good, the story is exciting (if a little slow compared to more modern thrillers), and Oppenheim carefully builds up the tension towards the final scenes as the last train out leaves for Switzerland. I was pleased to enjoy reading it, and will look out for more of Oppenheim's novels in the future.
Described in his heyday as "the Prince of Storytellers", the name of E. Phillips Oppenheim was familiar to me pretty much only from the back covers of the Leslie Charteris novels I own in these Hodder yellow jacket editions. When I saw this one - in a book case in the garden of a cottage in the Welsh mountains containing books for sale to support education charities working in Africa - I was keen to take the chance to make my acquaintance with the author. (I would never have thought of searching for it, though; this kind of serendipity is one major reason why physical second hand bookstores are such wonderful places.)
Published in 1941, Last Train Out must be one of the earliest thrillers to describe the build up to the Second World War. Its story is built around the escape of a Jewish banker from Vienna to Switzerland from before the annexation of Austria by Germany in March 1938 to just after the declaration of war on Germany by Britain in France in September 1939 following the German invasion of Poland.
The hero of Last Train Out, Charles Mildenhall, is an upper class British adventurer, working for the Foreign Office in a role somewhere between a diplomat and a troubleshooting spy. It is he, for example, who travels to Poland to assure the leaders there that Britain and France would indeed honour their treaty commitments and declare war if a German invasion takes place. While Oppenheim's novels are publicised on the back of those by Leslie Charteris, Mildenhall resembles the central characters in books by Dornford Yates more than he does the Saint. Apart from his class background, he is more likely to succeed the liberal use of cash than to be supremely useful in a fight with the bad guys. But there are qualities Mildenhall shares with Simon Templar. Both use intelligence to work their way through a problem while not being as cerebral as, say, Holmes or Poirot; both have a personal charm well portrayed by their respective writers; and both, as a result, have a large network of friends everywhere they go who can be counted on to provide aid as needed.
Despite the soubriquet bestowed on Oppenheim, I felt there were occasional infelicities in the storytelling in the Last Train. The most noticeable is the sudden jump from the eve of the Anschluss to the eve of the invasion of Poland, with Mildenhall's activities during these seventeen months described only later as he describes them to others. Oppenheim clearly wanted to keep most of the action in Vienna and not bring in characters and activities elsewhere in Europe, but it would have made the story flow better to follow his hero's actions chronologically.
Overall, though, the characters are good, the story is exciting (if a little slow compared to more modern thrillers), and Oppenheim carefully builds up the tension towards the final scenes as the last train out leaves for Switzerland. I was pleased to enjoy reading it, and will look out for more of Oppenheim's novels in the future.
November 24, 2014
Light thriller about last days of peace before war in Austria and the smuggling of precious paintings.Rather good
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews