Best of
Historical

1956

Shadow of the Moon


M.M. Kaye - 1956
    SHADOW OF THE MOON is the story of Winter de Ballesteros, a beautiful English heiress come home to her beloved India. It is also the tale of Captain Alex Randall, her protector, who aches to possess her. Forged in the fires of a war that threatens to topple an empire, their tale is the saga of a desperate and unforgettable love that consumes all in its thrall. Filled with the mystery of moonlit palace gardens and the whisperings of passion and intrigue, M. M. Kaye evokes an era at once of its time, yet timeless."Another splendid tale of India." (Wall Street Journal)

Angelique


Anne Golon - 1956
    Angélique de Sance de Monteloup, a vibrant twelve-year-old tomboy, is the daughter of a simple nobleman impoverished by taxes and other burdens. Angélique joins the local peasant children in their games, ranges the ancient forests and swamps of Poitou and when bandits visit destruction and rapine on the humble villagers, our heroine's leadership qualities come to the fore for the first time. The book also tells of Angélique's first meetings with two crucial characters - King Louis XIV of France and Joffrey. One of the scenes in the book sees Angélique and Joffrey attend the wedding of Louis XIV and his queen, Marie-Therese. As Angélique and Joffrey tangle with powerful forces, it is a classic and gripping adventure story, but we also learn about the couple's tender and often unpredictable relationship. The climax of the book is a decision by the French court which has an impact on the whole of the rest of the story - destined to move to the dangerous streets of Paris for the second book...

The Golden Ocean


Patrick O'Brian - 1956
    Sailing through poorly charted waters, Anson and his men encountered disaster, disease, and astonishing success. They circumnavigated the globe and seized a nearly incalcuable sum of Spanish gold and silver, but only one of the five ships survived.This is the background to the first novel Patrick O'Brian ever wrote about the sea, a precursor to the acclaimed Aubrey/Maturin series that shares the excitement and rich humor of those books. The protagonist is Peter Palafox, son of a poor Irish parson, who signs on as a midshipman, never before having seen a ship. Together with his lifelong friend Sean, Peter sets out to seek his fortune, embarking upon a journey of danger, disappointment, foreign lands, and excitement.Here is a tale certain to please not only admirers of O'Brian's work but also any reader with an adventurous soul.

Imperial Woman


Pearl S. Buck - 1956
    According to custom, she moved to the Forbidden City at the age of seventeen to become one of hundreds of concubines. But her singular beauty and powers of manipulation quickly moved her into the position of Second Consort.Tzu Hsi was feared and hated by many in the court, but adored by the people. The Empress's rise to power (even during her husband's life) parallels the story of China's transition from the ancient to the modern way.

The Last of the Wine


Mary Renault - 1956
    As their relationship develops, Renault expertly conveys Greek culture, showing the impact of this supreme philosopher whose influence spans epochs.

The Quiet Wards


Lucilla Andrews - 1956
    But who took it? Twenty-one-year-old Nurse Gillian Snow finds her career in jeopardy when a dangerous drug disappears from the drug cupboard under her care. The situation also affects her romance with dashing house-surgeon Peter Kier. Moved from her ward to do other duties, Gillian experiences the happiness and heartache that comes from nursing both children and accident victims. As she struggles to understand who took the drug, and why, Gillian finds support and truth from some unexpected quarters. The Quiet Wards is the third novel by the bestselling hospital fiction author Lucilla Andrews. For the first time, Lucilla's novels are now available as ebooks (with new print editions available from 2018). More at www.lucillaandrews.com Perfect for fans of Donna Douglas and her Nightingales series, Jean Fullerton, Maggie Hope and Nadine Dorries.

My Lord Monleigh


Jan Cox Speas - 1956
    The rightful Stuart had been driven into exile in France, his country ruled by the dour Presbyterians who had ridden into power on the coattails of Oliver Cromwell's rise to power in England. All who opposed them were rebels and outlaws,to be hunted down and branded as traitors. And the man with the highest price on his head was Monleigh.Anne Lindsay met him first on the windswept moors, though when first she saw him she had no idea who he might be. She knew only that he was handsome and that he did something to her heart, that here was the one man who could bring warmth and happiness into a life seemingly forever chilled by the bleakness of her early childhood. . .

Red Falcons Of Tremoine (Living History Library)


Hendry Peart - 1956
    He knows nothing of his parentage and has little hope for a future outside the familiar but sometimes restrictive monastery walls. Abbot Michael alone knows Leo's story and family line and unexpectedly, when the heir to the house of Wardlock is killed in the Crusades, he sets in motion events in which Leo will need every scrap of wisdom and endurance. For he is not only heir to Wardlock, but also to its rival?the house of Tr?moine! Vividly set in the pious but turbulent England of the twelfth-century this authentic and stirring tale of suffering and courage shows a boy who?to claim his heritage?must first see it transformed by the power of love and forgiveness.Ages 10 and up

Bridal Array


Elizabeth Cadell - 1956
    Though they thought alike on almost all matters, they agreed on none; least of all did they see eye to eye on the subject of men. Jessica, pretty and popular, invited them to come and stay; Mr. de Vrais, irritable and suspicious, invited them to go away and stay away. Fortune-hunters all, he said furiously to his daughter. One and all, they were after her money—his money. One look, he shouted, and he could smell them a mile off. Hangers-on. Yahoos. Parasites.
When Jessica, at the end of June, announced that she was engaged to one of them—a young Frenchman named Hubert Ramage, whom she had known for little more than two weeks—Mr. de Vrais granted to the suitor a short interview and at the end of it announced that any further communication between the couple would be made over his dead body. On a cool, September morning she rose rose early, left a conclusive little note for her father, carried her suitcases down to the car and drove into St. Helier to catch the boat to St. Malo. When her father read the note, it said, she would be married to Hubert. Unfortunately she took the family jewels with her, in case her marriage didn’t work out…

Battle Hymn


Dean E. Hess - 1956
    Hess is the subject of this inspiring autobiography, Battle Hymn, first published in 1956, which tells of his experiences as a U.S. Air Force colonel, including his involvement in the so-called “Kiddy Car Airlift” during the Korean War on December 20, 1950.With the airfield over capacity, Hess sent Korean orphans to an orphanage in Seoul. When the North Korean forces began to capture the city, Hess reportedly organized 15 C-54 Skymaster aircraft to airlift 950 orphans and 80 orphanage staff from the path of the Chinese advance to safety on Jeju Island. When Hess departed Korea in June 1951, a new orphanage on this island held over 1,000 Korean children.The book later served the basis for the 1957 film of the same name, where he was played by Rock Hudson.

King Alfred the Great


L. Du Garde Peach - 1956
    

Return Ticket


Anthony Deane-Drummond - 1956
    This contention is certainly borne out by the experiences of Anthony Deane-Drummond, so simply and yet so convincingly told in RETURN TICKET. Deane-Drummond was one of the first parachutists to land in enemy Italy on a raid in 1941, and was taken prisoner after his mission was completed. Twice he made ingenious and daring escapes;once from a prison and once from a military hospital. On each occasion he reached the heavily guarded Swiss frontier and on the second, he managed to cross it. Thence he traveled through war-time France and back to England.He then promptly joined the First Airborne Division and was dropped with that immortal body of men on Arnhem. There he was taken prisoner once more, and having spent 13 days and 13 nights hidden in a constricted wall-cupboard in a German guard-room, he escaped yet again, recovered in the house of a courageous Dutch family from this truly astonishing feat of endurance and crossed back into the British lines.As a stopry of ingenuity, courage and determination, this is difficult to equal.

Sorrow built a bridge: The life of Mother Alphonsa, daughter of Nathaniel Hawthorne


Katherine Burton - 1956
    Although culturally enhanced by the European travels, her formal education was random and erratic, provided mainly by her parents and by instructors at home. Like both her brother, Julian, and her sister, Una, Lathrop felt compelled to further the Hawthorne literary fame. She began writing stories when she was eleven, married a writer when she was twenty, and spent the next 25 years of an unfulfilled, stormy marriage writing and publishing poetry, short stories, and sketches. Her only child, Francis, died in 1881 at the age of four.Restless and rootless, Lathrop renounced her Unitarian faith in 1891, and she and her husband were received into the Catholic church. In 1895 with church permission, she formally separated from her husband to devote her life to the care of impoverished, dying victims of cancer, and she organized a group who called themselves Servants of Relief for Incurable Cancer. In 1900, two years after the death of her husband, Lathrop was named Sister Mary Alphonsa in the Dominican Order. A year later, as head of two resident homes she had established for the incurably ill, she became Mother Alphonsa. She directed one of these homes, Rosary Hill, in Hawthorne, New York, until her death.

Afternoon of an Autocrat


Norah Lofts - 1956
    He ruled his village with a firm but kindly hand--instructing his tenants on their crops, their children and their love affairs. And when he died and the new Squire came, the village stirred uneasily. For the new Squire had strange ideas-and even stranger friends-friends like Mr. Mundford who never seemed to grow any older and whose name was linked with the terrible Hell Fire Club. And Mr. Mundford was interested in too many things that should not have concerned him... like the ruins of the old Roman temple... and what happened in the village on All-Hallow's Night...and in the silent, amber-eyed young woman called Damask Greenaway.

Early Irish Lyrics: Eighth to Twelfth Century


Gerard Murphy - 1956
    The first of the anthology's two sections contains thirty-three poems of monastic inspiration, including well-known works such as the poem of the Scholar and his cat Pangur ban; the second section is devoted to secular works, and features twenty-five poems containing lyrics mainly spoken by characters in the prose sagas. Reprint (3rd Printing)