"Book 4 in the "Doctor Nikola" series, continuing the story of an occultist anti-hero seeking immortality and world domination!By 1899, the mysterious literary figure of Dr. Nikola has obtained so strong a hold upon novel readers that the return of this dramatic character needed only be announced to insure immediate attention. And Boothby demonstrated once again the value of suspended interest, and his story held readers until the last page."

My Dear Ingleby," the letter from his benefactor read, "I am sorry to learn from my housekeeper that affairs have not been prospering with you. This must be remedied, and at once. There never was such luck as your being in want of employment at this particular moment. I've a billet standing ready and waiting for you; one of the very sort you are fitted for, and one that you will enjoy, unless you have lost your former tastes and inclinations. You have never met Dr. Nikola, but you must do so without delay. I tell you, Ingleby, he is the most wonderful man with whom I have ever been brought in contact, and engaged in an experiment of the most incredible nature. When you have met him, I venture to think you will not doubt that he will carry it through.

Doctor Nikola has finally found the secret to immortality, but he hasn’t put it to the test yet. He needs someone who can help him conduct some experiments. Doctor Ingleby seems to be the perfect choice since he is currently struggling financially and as such, seems willing to go to great lengths to get himself out of misery. Will Nikola and Ingleby’s experiments be successful? Find out in "Dr Nikola’s Experiment". Guy Boothby was an Australian author who lived in the period 1867-1905. His earlier works described life in Australia, but he gained wide popularity with his later fiction, which offered a vivid combination of crime, science fiction and horror stories. Boothby is well known for his Doctor Nikola series, a collection of novels telling the story of an occultist who seeks immortality and world domination. Other popular stories by him are "A Prince of Swindlers", which tells the story of a thief, and "Uncle Joe's Legacy and Other Stories", which is a collection of ghost stories. All in all, Guy Boothby left the world a colourful and rich literary legacy.

Mr. Le Queux, afraid that the old attraction of a treasure-hunt would fail to draw, has added some curious embellishments. A very queer craft dating from about the time of the Armada is sighted and taken in tow by the name 'Sea Horse.' It has on board a still more queer mariner, who looks like a survival of the same period. It has also one treasure—Italian, Spanish, and English gold pieces—and the clue to another. Then follows the accustomed struggle between the honest men and the villains for the possession of the hoard, every circumstance being of an extravagant kind, even down to the composition of the party of villains. Among them is an ex-Professor of Cambridge! We find him first as a common seaman deciphering a writing which has puzzled every one else.—The Spectator, August 29, 1903.

Boothby was once well known for his series of novels about Doctor Nikola, an occultist anti-hero seeking immortality and world domination. The adventures of Nikola were launched with the first episode of A Bid for Fortune which was serialised in The Windsor Magazine (a rival to The Strand Magazine). Nikola is described as dressing in "faultless evening dress, slender, having dark peculiar eyes and dark hair, and white toad-coloured skin." He lives in a bungalow on the Rue de Lafayette in Shanghai. Stanley L. Wood often illustrated the Nikola stories and his portraits depict Dr Nikola in white cravat and fur coat, with his perennial companion, the black cat Apollyon (named after a dark angel) - huge, baleful, gleaming-eyed - perched on Nikola's shoulder. Nikola - cosmopolitan, cultivated, universally feared - is highly intelligent but unscrupulous.John Clute writes that " The heart of the series is devoted to the Doctor's convoluted search for a Tibetan process that will resuscitate the dead and ensure immortality in the living, and there are some hints that - unhampered by compunctions, armed with psi powers and blessed with a powerful experimental intellect - he may have reached his goal."