Sunrise

William Black (1841 -1898) was a Scottish novelist. He was educated to be a landscape painter and this training shows up in the vivid descriptions in his writing. During the Austro-Prussian War he worked as a war correspondent. Sunrise (1881) is a novel of international political intrigue. The story begins, "One chilly afternoon in February, while as yet the London season had not quite begun, though the streets were busy enough, an open barouche was being rapidly driven along Piccadilly in the direction of Coventry Street; and its two occupants, despite the dull roar of vehicles around them, seemed to be engaged in eager conversation. One of these two was a tall, handsome, muscular-looking man of about thirty, with a sun-tanned face, piercing gray eyes, and a reddish-brown beard cropped in the foreign fashion; the other, half hidden among the voluminous furs of the carriage, was a pale, humpbacked lad, with a fine, expressive, intellectual face, and large, animated, almost woman-like eyes."