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By: Jane Porter (1776-1850) | |
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The Scottish Chiefs
An adventure novel about William Wallace, one of the most popular books ever written by Jane Porter. The French version was even banned by Napoleon, and the book has remained very popular with Scottish children, but is equally enjoyable for adults. |
By: Vicente Blasco Ibáñez (1867-1928) | |
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Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, by Vicente Blasco Ibañez and translated into English by Charlotte Brewster Jordan, depicts two branches of a family with its roots in the pampas of Argentina. The wealthy Argentinian, Julio Madariaga, comes from Spain and raises himself from poverty, becoming a self-made, wealthy cattleman. He is a man of extremes; an honest man with a rascally knack for taking advantage of others; a self-made man with overweening pride, prejudices, and a sharp, flinty temper that can spark into violence, he is at the same time given to great generosity toward those who are under him... |
By: Robert Michael Ballantyne (1825-1894) | |
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Post Haste
In this book, Ballantyne weaves the story of Phillip Mayland and his friend, George Aspel with an interesting portrayal of the British Post Office as it existed in the 19th century. In the words of R. M. Ballantyne himself: "This tale is founded chiefly on facts furnished by the Postmaster-General’s Annual Reports, and gathered, during personal intercourse and investigation, at the General Post-Office of London and its Branches. It is intended to illustrate—not by any means to exhaust—the subject of postal work, communication, and incident throughout the Kingdom... | |
By: Baroness Orczy (1865-1947) | |
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I Will Repay
This is a sequel novel to the Scarlet Pimpernel. The second Pimpernel book written by Orczy, it comes (chronologically) third in the series and should be read after Sir Percy Leads the Band and before The Elusive Pimpernel. | |
Laughing Cavalier; Ancestor of the Scarlet Pimpernel
The enigmatic smile of The Laughing Cavalier of Franz Hals' famous painting invites you to wonder just what mischievousness hides behind that face. In this novel, inspired by the painting, Baroness Orczy recounts the adventures of an ancestor of her famous character, the Scarlet Pimpernel. Set in Holland during the turbulent times of 1623/1624, this is the story of a swashbuckling romanticist, whose desire for wealth and success always seems to be eclipsed by his sense of what is right and gentlemanly... |
By: Thomas Love Peacock (1785-1866) | |
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Maid Marian |
By: Mary Johnston (1870-1936) | |
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To Have And To Hold
When I first started reading this book, I thought it to be a historical romance novel. As I read further, I pondered whether it might be a sea-faring story. Reading still further, I determined it to be an adventure story. Alas, it is all three. To Have And To Hold, written by Mary Johnston was the bestselling novel of 1900. The story takes place in colonial Jamestown during the 1600’s. Captain Ralph Percy, an English soldier turned Virginian explorer buys a wife - little knowing that she is the escaping ward of King James I... | |
1492 |
By: Ford Madox Ford (1873-1939) | |
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The Fifth Queen
The Fifth Queen trilogy is a series of connected historical novels by English novelist Ford Madox Ford. It consists of three novels, The Fifth Queen; And How She Came to Court (1906), Privy Seal (1907) and The Fifth Queen Crowned (1908), which present a highly fictionalized account of Katharine Howard's marriage to King Henry VIII. |
By: George Alfred Henty (1832-1902) | |
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By Pike and Dyke
It is the 1570's, and the people of the Netherlands live in terror under the cruel dominion of Spain. Though many long to be free of Spanish tyranny, efforts at rebellion are failing, and allies are nowhere to be found. Edward “Ned” Martin, son of an English captain and a Dutch lady, is thrust into the conflict when he resolves to help his mother’s people and avenge his murdered relatives. Entering the service of the revolutionary leader William the Silent, Prince of Orange, Ned is called upon to carry out dangerous secret missions deep within occupied territory... |
By: Walter Pater (1839-1896) | |
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Marius the Epicurean
Marius the Epicurean is a philosophical novel written by Walter Pater, published in 1885. In it Pater displays, with fullness and elaboration, his ideal of the aesthetic life, his cult of beauty as opposed to bare asceticism, and his theory of the stimulating effect of the pursuit of beauty as an ideal of its own. The principles of what would be known as the Aesthetic movement were partly traceable to this book; and its impact was particularly felt on one of the movement’s leading proponents, Oscar Wilde, a former student of Pater at Oxford. |
By: James Driscoll | |
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The Brighton Boys in the Radio Service
The Brighton Boys in the Radio Service is a boys adventure story set in WWI – Three College Chums join the military and face the perils of spies, submarines and enemy soldiers in the trenches of embattled Europe. An engaging story set in a period where good guys wore white hats, bad guys wore black hats and every chapter ends with a cliffhanger so you have to come back for more! |
By: Émile Gaboriau (1832-1873) | |
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Monsieur Lecoq Part 2: The Honor of the Name
Monsieur Lecoq is a captivating mystery, historical and love story: Around 11 o'clock, on the evening of Shrove Sunday 18.., close to the old Barrière d'Italie, frightful cries, coming from Mother Chupin's drinking-shop, are heard by a party of detectives led by Inspector Gévrol. The squad runs up to it. A triple murder has just been committed. The murderer is caught on the premises. Despite Gévrol's opinion that four scoundrels encountered each other in this vile den, that they began to quarrel, that one of them had a revolver and killed the others, Lecoq, a young police agent, suspects a great mystery... |
By: Théophile Gautier (1811-1872) | |
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Romance of a Mummy and Egypt
MANUAL OF SURGERY, OXFORD MEDICAL PUBLICATIONSBY ALEXIS THOMSON, F.R.C.S.Ed.PREFACE TO SIXTH EDITION Much has happened since this Manual was last revised, and many surgical lessons have been learned in the hard school of war. Some may yet have to be unlearned, and others have but little bearing on the problems presented to the civilian surgeon. Save in its broadest principles, the surgery of warfare is a thing apart from the general surgery of civil life, and the exhaustive literature now available on every aspect of it makes it unnecessary that it should receive detailed consideration in a manual for students... |
By: George Gissing (1857-1903) | |
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In the Year of Jubilee
The Jubilee marks the fiftieth year of the reign of Queen Victoria. Dickensian in its sweeping scope of London life, Jubilee depicts the harsh and disreputable conditions of lower-middle class life at the end of the 19th century. (Introduction by S. Kovalchik) |
By: Stewart Edward White (1873-1946) | |
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The Blazed Trail
Stewart Edward White wrote fiction and non-fiction about adventure and travel, with an emphasis on natural history and outdoor living. White's books were popular at a time when America was losing its vanishing wilderness and many are based on his experiences in mining and lumber camps. The Blazed Trail is the story of early lumbermen in the northern woods of Michigan. The novel portrays the challenges faced by the workers focusing on one, Harry Thorpe, as he endeavors to be successful though completely unskilled when he enters the woods... |
By: Clara Reeve (1729-1807) | |
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The Old English Baron
The story follows the adventures of Sir Philip Harclay, who returns to medieval England to find that the castle seat and estate of his friend Lord Lovel have been usurped. A series of revelations, horrors and betrayals climax in a scene of single combat in which good battles evil for the return of the prize. |
By: John Dos Passos (1896-1970) | |
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Three Soldiers
Three Soldiers, the second novel by John Dos Passos, follows the experiences of several young Americans thrown into the confusion and brutality of World War I.Written when the author was just twenty-three, it was key to the development of a realistic depiction of war in American literature, and earned Dos Passos, later named by Jean-Paul Sartre "the greatest living writer of our time", important early attention.Critic H L Menken said of it: "no war story can be written in the United States without challenging comparison with it--and no story that is less meticulously true will stand up to it... |
By: Henryk Sienkiewicz (1846-1916) | |
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Quo Vadis: a narrative of the time of Nero |
By: Charlotte Mary Yonge (1823-1901) | |
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Armourer's Prentices
Set in the sixteenth century, two young boys are left orphans and are turned out of their home by their older brother, or, more particularly, his shrewish wife. John has taken over their father's position as verdurer, but what are young Ambrose and Stephen to do? Visit and seek counsel from their old and infirm uncle, who lives on charity after leading a military life? Or chase the dream of finding their ne'er-do-well maternal uncle, who has reputedly made his fortune in the king's court. | |
A Modern Telemachus |
By: Eugène Sue (1804-1857) | |
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Gold Sickle
The Gold Sickle; or, Hena the Virgin of the Isle of Sen. A Tale of Druid Gaul is the first part of Eugène Sue's The Mysteries of the People; or, History of a Proletarian Family Across the Ages, in which he intended to produce a comprehensive "universal history," dating from the beginning of the present era down to his own days. Sue's own socialist leanings made this history that of the "successive struggles of the successively ruled with the successively ruling classes". In the first volume we meet the Gallic chief Joel, whose descendants will typify the oppressed throughout the suite of novels... |
By: Alexander Pushkin (1799-1837) | |
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Daughter of the Commandant
"The Daughter of the Commandant" (better known as "The Captain's Daughter") is a historical novel by the Russian writer Alexander Pushkin, and is considered to be his finest prose work. The novel is a romanticized account of Pugachev's Rebellion in 1773-1774. The 17-year-old Pyotr Andreyich is sent by his father to military service in a remote Russian outpost, where he leans honor and love while being caught up in a violent uprising of tribal groups against the imperial government. |
By: Joseph Alexander Altsheler (1862-1919) | |
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The Young Trailers: A Story of Early Kentucky
This is the story of Henry Ware, a young boy living in the wilds of the Kentucky frontier of the 1700's. The story follows Henry as he helps to establish a frontier outpost, is captured by an Indian tribe, and ultimately ensures the safety and security of a band of settlers against the warring Shawnee Indians. The Young Trailers is action packed and brings to life the adventures that awaited the early settlers as they traversed into the endless forests of the American frontier. | |
The Guns of Shiloh
The Northern Army has just be handed a great defeat at Bull Run and is headed back to Washington, DC. How will the North answer this defeat? Follow our hero, Dick Mason, into the Western campaign to find out.This is the second book in the Civil War Series by Joseph A. Altsheler. | |
The Star of Gettysburg
The Army of Northern Virginia, still victorious after three hard years of fighting, capitalize on their victories at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, and a young Harry Kenton, is an eyewitness to the Confederate invasion of the north, culminating in the epic three-day struggle at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, where Robert E. Lee puts into place a strategy that will end the war, or shatter his army. (Introduction by Robert Fletcher) | |
Guns of Bull Run
The first volume in the Civil War series, following the adventures of Harry Kenton, who leaves his home in Kentucky. He travels through dangerous territory to South Carolina on a secret mission on the eve of the Civil War. (From Chapter 4) "They will not fire! They dare not!" cried Shepard in a tense, strained whisper. As the last word left his lips there was a heavy crash. A tongue of fire leaped from one of the batteries, followed by a gush of smoke, and a round shot whistled over the Star of the West... | |
The Last of the Chiefs A Story of the Great Sioux War | |
Sword of Antietam
"The Sword of Antietam" tells a complete story, but it is one in the chain of Civil War romances, begun in "The Guns of Bull Run" and continued through "The Guns of Shiloh" and "The Scouts of Stonewall." The young Northern hero, Dick Mason, and his friends are in the forefront of the tale. | |
Scouts of Stonewall
In this third book of Joseph Altsheler's Civil War series, Harry Kenton, a lieutenant in the Southern Army, is on scout patrol in the Shenandoah Valley. He has attracted the notice of the great General Stonewall Jackson after his regiment, the Invincibles of South Carolina, suffered great losses at the Battle of Bull Run. As the war continues, Harry meets each challenge that he faces with his close friends and fellow warriors. | |
The Scouts of the Valley | |
Shades of the Wilderness
"The Shades of the Wilderness" is the seventh book of the Civil War Series by Joseph A. Altsheler. Picking up where "The Star of Gettysburg" left off, this story continues the Civil War experiences of Harry Kenton and his friends in the Southern army, from the retreat after Gettygurg, to Richmond, and then through the battles of the Wilderness and Spottsylvania, to Robert E. Lee's heroic stand during the siege of Petersburg. Other books in the Civil War series are: "The Guns of Bull Run," "The Guns of Shiloh," "The Scouts of Stonewall," "The Sword of Antietam", "The Star of Gettysburg","The Rock of Chickamauga", and "The Tree of Appomattox." |
By: Irving Bacheller (1859-1950) | |
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Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country
Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country. Having lost both parents and his home in northern Vermont, orphan Willie Brower is taken in by Eben Holden, "Uncle Eb" who transports him westward to save him from being sent to an orphanage. Through the Adirondacks and into the St. Lawrence valley they travel. Eben is kind, happy, and loves to tell stories to the youngster, many of which were to shape the life and ideals of Willie during his life.This story follows Willie as a young orphan, later as a journalist, and finally as a soldier who enlists in the army at the outset of the American Civil War... |
By: Marcus Clarke | |
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For the Term of His Natural Life
For the Term of his Natural Life, written by Marcus Clarke, was published in the Australian Journal between 1870 and 1872 (as His Natural Life), appearing as a novel in 1874. It is the best known novelisation of life as a convict in early Australian history. Described as a “ripping yarn”, and at times relying on seemingly implausible coincidences, the story follows the fortunes of Rufus Dawes, a young man transported for a murder which he did not commit. The harsh and inhumane treatment meted out to the convicts, some of whom were transported for relatively minor crimes, is clearly conveyed... |
By: John A. Joyce | |
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Shakspere: Personal Recollections
Recording of Shakspere: Personal Recollections, by John A. Joyce.A fictitious account of a "friend" of William Shakespeare, who accompanies him from his birth to his death and beyond, chronicling Shakespeare's life, adventures, speeches, and impromptu bursts of poetry. |
By: Ivan S. Turgenev (1818-1883) | |
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Fathers and Children | |
On the Eve
On the Eve appeared in 1860, two years before Fathers and Sons, Turgenev's most famous novel. It is set in the prior decade (by the end of the novel, the Crimean War (1853-56) has already broken out. It centers on the young Elena Nikolaevna Stakhov, daughter of Nikolai Arteyemvitch and Anna Vassilyevna Stahov. Misunderstood by both her parents (Nikolai Artemyevitch is at least as interested in his German mistress as in members of her family) she is on friendly terms with both the would-be professor Andrei Petrovitch Bersenyev and the rising young sculptor Pavel Yakovitch Shubin, both of whom might be -- or might not be -- in love with her... |
By: Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (1863-1944) | |
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The Blue Pavilions | |
Hetty Wesley |
By: Annie F. Johnston (1863-1931) | |
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The Little Colonel
The scene of this story is laid in Kentucky. Its heroine is a small girl, who is known as the Little Colonel, on account of her fancied resemblance to an old-school Southern gentleman, whose fine estate and old family are famous in the region. (Introduction taken from original book.) |
By: Katherine Thurston (1875-1911) | |
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The Masquerader
The Masquerader is one of two Katherine Cecil Thurston’s books that appeared on the Publisher’s Weekly best-sellers list in 1905. The Masquerader is part mystery, part romance and part political thriller – all tied up in one neat package. Nature has a way of sometimes making two people nearly indistinguishable in appearance. Such is the premise for this book. John Chilcote, a British politician, and John Loder, a man down on his luck meet by accident one night during one of London’s worst fogs... | |
The Gambler
Clodagh, 18 years old, is the eldest daughter of Dennis Asshlin, an Irish gentleman who lives in an area of Ireland called Orristown. Dennis is passionate, proud and indebted to no one. But, Dennis has an obsession with gambling that is leading the family to ruin. When tragedy strikes, Clodagh finds herself in a situation where she must defend the family honor because “no Asshlin is ever obliged to anyone”. She marries a man she does not love who is many times her age and is thrust from adolescence to adulthood literally overnight... |
By: Madame de La Fayette (1634-1693) | |
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The Princess of Cleves |
By: Mór Jókai (1825-1904) | |
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Eyes Like the Sea
He was a painter, a poet, a novelist. He lived during the Hungarian revolution and his love of freedom meant his life was often in peril. She was his first love, this girl with the eyes like the sea. She was at heart noble, good and loving. What an excellent lady might have been made out of this woman, if she had only met with a husband who, in the most ordinary acceptance of the word, had been a good fellow, as is really the case with about nine men out of every ten. But she always managed to draw the unlucky tenth out of the urn of destiny... | |
Tales from Jókai
Móric Jókay de Ásva, known as Mór Jókai or Maurus Jokai, was a Hungarian dramatist and novelist. He was a very prolific writer from an early age and wrote hundreds of novels, novellas, and short stories in his lifetime. The nine stories in this selection tell about hard times in Eastern Europe, especially in Hungary (Jokai was involved in the Hungarian uprising of 1848), as well as of ancient superstitions and folk lore. In the novella "The City of the Beast", Jokai gives his version of the sinking of Atlantis. |
By: Robert Hugh Benson (1871-1914) | |
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Come Rack! Come Rope!
Come Rack! Come Rope! is a historical novel by the English priest and writer Robert Hugh Benson, a convert to Catholicism from Anglicanism. Set in Derbyshire at the time of the Elizabethan persecution of Catholics, when being or harboring a priest was considered treason and was punishable with death, it tells the story of two young lovers who give up their chance of happiness together, choosing instead to face imprisonment and martyrdom, so that "God's will" may be done.The book was written nearly nine years after Benson's reception into the Catholic Church... |
By: Alfred de Musset (1810-1857) | |
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The Confession of a Child of the Century
In this autobiographic novel, an aging man reflects on his past. We are witness to the relationships he has along the way, his mistakes, and finally- in the most unexpected and honorable way- the sudden developement of his belief in god. |
By: Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881) | |
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Alroy The Prince Of The Captivity |
By: William MacLeod Raine (1871-1954) | |
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A Daughter of Raasay A Tale of the '45 |
By: Burton Egbert Stevenson (1872-1962) | |
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A Soldier of Virginia |
By: Rex Beach (1877-1949) | |
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The Spoilers
MANUAL OF SURGERY, OXFORD MEDICAL PUBLICATIONSBY ALEXIS THOMSON, F.R.C.S.Ed.PREFACE TO SIXTH EDITION Much has happened since this Manual was last revised, and many surgical lessons have been learned in the hard school of war. Some may yet have to be unlearned, and others have but little bearing on the problems presented to the civilian surgeon. Save in its broadest principles, the surgery of warfare is a thing apart from the general surgery of civil life, and the exhaustive literature now available on every aspect of it makes it unnecessary that it should receive detailed consideration in a manual for students... |
By: George Washington Cable (1844-1925) | |
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The Grandissimes | |
Bonaventure, A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana
This is a gentle, delightful story of life and love on the bayoux of Acadian Louisiana during the latter half of the 19th century. Bonaventure is a Creole raised among the Acadians. He loves learning, and through his calling as a teacher, and his own unique force of character, comes to have a lasting effect on the people around him. A word of warning: This story has occasional references to Jews and African Americans that the modern mind finds offensive. They are retained here in the interest of preserving the original text. |
By: Byron A. Dunn (1842-1926) | |
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Raiding with Morgan
It is a fictional tale of cavalry actions during the U.S. Civil War, under General John Morgan. |
By: Maria Edgeworth (1768-1849) | |
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Castle Rackrent |
By: Richard D. Blackmore (1825-1900) | |
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Lorna Doone A Romance of Exmoor |
By: William Wells Brown (1814-1884) | |
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Clotel, or, The President's Daughter
Clotel; or, The President's Daughter is a novel by William Wells Brown (1815-84), a fugitive from slavery and abolitionist and was published in London, England in December 1853. It is often considered the first African-American novel. This novel focuses on the difficult lives of mulattoes in America and the "degraded and immoral condition of the relation of master and slave in the USA" (Brown). It is about the tragic lives of Currer, Althesea, and Clotel. In the novel, Currer is the former mulatto mistress of President Thomas Jefferson who together have two daughters, Althesea and Clotel... |
By: Émile Gaboriau (1832-1873) | |
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Monsieur Lecoq: The Inquiry
Monsieur Lecoq is a captivating mystery, historical and love story : Around 11 o'clock, on the evening of Shrove Sunday 18.., close to the old Barrière d'Italie, frightful cries, coming from Mother Chupin's drinking-shop, are heard by a party of detectives led by Inspector Gévrol. The squad runs up to it. A triple murder has just been committed. The murderer is caught on the premises. Despite Gévrol's opinion that four scoundrels encountered each other in this vile den, that they began to quarrel, that one of them had a revolver and killed the others, Lecoq, a young police agent, suspects a great mystery... |
By: Agnes C. Laut (1871-1936) | |
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Lords of the North | |
Heralds of Empire Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade |