The Second Class Passenger: Fifteen Stories

"The Second Class Passenger: Fifteen Stories" by Perceval Gibbon is a collection of short stories likely written in the early 20th century. The stories focus on various characters, exploring their experiences and interactions, often highlighting themes of social class differences, cultural encounters, and the complexity of human relationships within different societal settings. The opening of the first story introduces a character named Dawson, who is depicted as a second-class passenger arriving in Mozambique. After a day of sightseeing with fellow travelers, he undertakes a quest to retrieve a bronze idol for a companion, Miss Paterson. However, during his return, Dawson becomes lost in a dark alley while navigating the rainy city streets. He encounters a diverse array of unsettling characters, leading to a tense and chaotic situation where he unwittingly finds himself embroiled in a violent conflict involving a woman and two men in a cramped room. The chaos escalates as violence erupts, and Dawson, initially a passive observer, takes drastic action to defend the woman amid the turmoil. This gripping start sets the tone for a narrative rich with drama and exploration of human nature under duress. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

Perceval Gibbon was an author and journalist, serving for the Rand Daily Mail in South Africa, as well as for other publications. Gibbon had travelled to South Africa in 1898, moved to the war front and became the representative of a syndicate of colonial newspapers at the outbreak of the Anglo-Boer War. He is best remembered for his short stories, which often contained an ironic twist at the end. Gibbon's influence on the work of later South African authors has been acknowledged. For instance, the fictional narrator of Vrouw Grobelaar's Leading Cases (1905) is said to be a forerunner of Herman Charles Bosman's character Oom Schalk Lourens.