Johnston McCulley

The Mark of Zorro (1924) is a novel by Johnston McCulley. Originally published as, The Curse of Capistrano (1919), McCulley's novel was, rereleased to capitalize on the success of the 1920 silent film of the same name starring Douglas Fairbanks. Beloved by generations of readers and moviegoers alike, Zorro is, recognized as a symbol of justice and rebellion throughout the world. "Outside the wind shrieked and the rain dashed against the ground in...

Introduces Zorro, a mysterious masked hero who champions the oppressed in Old California with the help of his masterful sword skills, and who hides his heroic identity under the guise of the foppish and vain Don Diego Vega.

In nineteenth-century California, Don Diego de la Vega lives the life of a mild-mannered scholar by day and becomes the masked avenger Zorro at night.

Mark of Zorro: Don Diego Vega is a comically effete young nobleman with a taste for tasseled sombreros and juvenile silk-hanky magic tricks. But when danger calls, Diego swathes himself in black, straps on a well-honed sword and storms the countryside as the mysterious Zorro, slicing his initial into the faces of the sentinals of oppression, pausing only to boldly romance the woman to whom his shy alter-ego can hardly summon the courage to speak. Don...