Good Fiction Worth Reading.
A series of romances containing several of the old favorites in the field of historical fiction, replete with powerful romances of love and diplomacy that excel in thrilling and absorbing interest.
WINDSOR CASTLE. A Historical Romance of the Reign of Henry VIII.,
Catharine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn. By Wm. Harrison Ainsworth. Cloth,
12mo. with four illustrations by George Cruikshank. Price, $1.00.
"Windsor Castle" is the story of Henry VIII., Catharine, and Anne
Boleyn. "Bluff King Hal," although a well-loved monarch, was none too
good a one in many ways. Of all his selfishness and unwarrantable acts,
none was more discreditable than his divorce from Catharine, and his marriage
to the beautiful Anne Boleyn. The King's love was as brief as it
was vehement. Jane Seymour, waiting maid on the Queen, attracted him,
and Anne Boleyn was forced to the block to make room for her successor.
This romance is one of extreme interest to all readers.
HORSESHOE ROBINSON. A tale of the Tory Ascendency in South Carolina
in 1780. By John P. Kennedy. Cloth, 12mo. with four illustrations by
Watson Davis. Price, $1.00.
Among the old favorites in the field of what is known as historical fiction
there are none which appeal to a larger number of Americans than
Horseshoe Robinson, and this because it is the only story which depicts
with fidelity to the facts the heroic efforts of the colonists in South Carolina
to defend their homes against the brutal oppression of the British
under such leaders as Cornwallis and Tarleton.
The reader is charmed with the story of love which forms the thread of the tale, and then impressed with the wealth of detail concerning those times. The picture of the manifold sufferings of the people, is never overdrawn, but painted faithfully and honestly by one who spared neither time nor labor in his efforts to present in this charming love story all that price in blood and tears which the Carolinians paid as their share in the winning of the republic.
Take it all in all, "Horseshoe Robinson" is a work which should be found on every book-shelf, not only because it is a most entertaining story, but because of the wealth of valuable information concerning the colonists which it contains. That it has been brought out once more, well illustrated, is something which will give pleasure to thousands who have long desired an opportunity to read the story again, and to the many who have tried vainly in these latter days to procure a copy that they might read it for the first time.
THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND. A story of the Coast of Maine. By
Harriet Beecher Stowe. Cloth, 12mo. Illustrated. Price, $1.00.
Written prior to 1862, the "Pearl of Orr's Island" is ever new; a book
filled with delicate fancies, such as seemingly array themselves anew each
time one reads them. One sees the "sea like an unbroken mirror all
around the pine-girt, lonely shores of Orr's Island," and straightway
comes "the heavy, hollow moan of the surf on the beach, like the wild
angry howl of some savage animal."
Who can read of the beginning of that sweet life, named Mara, which came into this world under the very shadow of the Death angel's wings, without having an intense desire to know how the premature bud blossomed? Again and again one lingers over the descriptions of the character of that baby boy Moses, who came through the tempest, amid the angry billows, pillowed on his dead mother's breast.
There is no more faithful portrayal of New England life than that which Mrs. Stowe gives in "The Pearl of Orr's Island."
For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the publishers, A. L. BURT COMPANY, 53-58 Duane St., New York.
