Set in the early 1500s in Renaissance Italy this novel is the story of Andrea Orsini, a peasant boy who rises far and becomes a secret agent for Cesare Borgia, who entrusts him with the most delicate political, military and romantic missions, Orson Welles was cast as Borgia, Tyronne Power as Orsini in the film version.

A young Frenchman and a young Englishwoman are caught in the wild plots and counterplots surrounding the Bourbon conspiracy against Francis I in 16th century France. Complete with rich pageantry, a jealousy-maddened king, an evil nobleman, Sire Francois the Sorcerer, wolf hounds and mad gallops across the French countryside, master story teller and scholar, Samuel Shellabarger has once again created an adventure and suspense story that never falters.Shellabarger's style of writing ...

"Well, well, it's very mystifying. But then, murders ought to be like that, oughtn't they?"The reefs, lonely, vast, and menacing, made a thunderous sound as the surf rose and fell ― a cry that mounted “ shriek upon shriek, as of some tortured devil, lifting and quavering and dying away.” “That's them,” residents of Clearport would say. “Hear 'em? The Five Sisters.”Retired sea captain George M. Gleasing named his three daughters after the reefs and then proceeded to raise th...

For five generations, dating from 1753, the ancestral home of the Tolbecken family had grown and the land had dwindled; the house had become a mansion and the land a town block. By the end of the 19th century, not only the land, but the fortune of the Tolbecken family was diminishing, and, fiber by fiber, the roots were snapping, as the tree that supported their old life began toppling toward the earth.The patriarch of the family, Judge Rufus Tolbecken, has pinned a great deal of h...

Maryland fried chicken and cream gravy, asparagus on toast, telephone peas, hearts of lettuce with French dressing, cream cheese balls, and meringue with whipped cream, all freshly prepared by Mrs. Lee, the new manager of the Montenera Inn - an old tavern with native stone and grumbly walls and an evil reputation. Needless to say, the indomitable Mrs. Lee is not interested in nonsense of that sort.Recently widowed, Mrs. Lee and her spunky daughter, Ann, and young son, Buck, are cou...

The last gift given Lady Blanche from her beloved father as a token of his love was a silver girdle – “wrought with figures men and beasts” – to be worn by one who knows lonely sorrow and the pain of toil, but also granting the strength to endure and the right of lordship. Lady Blanche dons the silver girdle after discovering that her new husband, Count Raoul de Roche-Bernard, has not been true to his vows and has betrayed her. Though unhappy in her marriage, when the Count leaves for the ...

To every man, joy and grief before night.~Old Norse proverbCount and Countess Falke of Falkenborg are deeply in debt and are about to lose the ancient but respectably shabby family castle when they meet Patricia Morier, a wealthy American heiress, who feels a tingle along her veins when she first sets eyes on the passionate and masterful Count and instantly falls in love. Since the Count doesn't resist their mutual attraction too energetically, Patricia promptly buys the dilapidate...

Peter Court is summoned to Dunbar Manor (the stuff in the house is worth millions) at the request of the lady of the house, Nina Galliard, who submitted to an affair with an unscrupulous Italian society man in a moment of rattle-brained, life-thirsty longing to experience what was missing in her marriage, and now finds herself being blackmailed.Nina Galliard's husband is 20 years her senior, and is so stuffy, conceited, rigid, humorless, controlling, and hypocritical (to name a few...

Lord Chesterfield was an immortal of his age, synonymous with the art of gracious living and representative of his world at its best in point of culture, international relations, and the social arts. Yet, today's literary world knows him through an extraordinary collection of letters to his illegitimate son―letters of admonition, encouragement and advice, often two thousand words long, revolving around the love and ambitions Chesterfield held for the boy himself as well as letters to those...

A Study in Fading Chivalry by a Professor of History at Princeton University.Pierre Bayard belonged to a generation of men so fully absorbed in the sport of war that decades of their lives were often spent in battle following the whims of kings whom they believed acted on their behalf in an evil world. Their ideals were few and clear: duty, the service of honor, and the responsibility of noblesse―nothing more.In the long history of mounted warfare, Chevalier Bayard, a homme...

“But when nothing spiritual remains, what is left to man but the worship of vanity? Lord Vanity rules our present world.”Richard Morandi (also known as Richard Hammond) is the illegitimate son of an English lord who lives in Venice with his ballerina mother. He makes his living as an actor and musician, but when he stabs a Venetian of greater rank in self-defense – an act considered both cowardly and unmannerly – he is condemned to life as a galley slave and is severed from all he ...

A new edition of the mid-20th century popular classic of a Spanish nobleman who accompanies Cortez to conquer Mexico.