Lorna Doone By R.D. Blackmore RD Blackmore was a prolific and popular writer of novels and poetry during the mid-nineteenth century. Lorna Doone is the only one of his works to survive the test of time. Lorna Doone is a love story. Yet in choosing its subtitle, A Romance of Exmoor, the author had something …
Category: heroic deeds
1066
Viking Fire by Justin Hill A Review I love good historical fiction. However, it's not often I discover a book that is totally absorbing and at the same time an author who makes me think, why the devil didn't I learn all this at school? Of course, our schools are good at putting our country/countries …
Breathing New Life into the Classics
The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller The epic poems of Homer always bear retelling. Whether in the original format or recast in one of the many variations that have appeared over the centuries, these stories of kings, heroes, gods and goddesses have the power to stir the imagination. Occasionally, a new version appears which …
Allan Quatermain
by Henry Rider Haggard 'I have seen beautiful women in my day, and am no longer thrown into transports at the sight of a pretty face; but language fails me when I try to give some idea of the blaze of loveliness that then broke upon us in the persons of these sister Queens.' This …
Heroic Conflict
Five Great Literary Battles Conflict is a feature of all good fiction. It stirs the emotions, moving us to love or to hate the characters. Heroic acts against the odds, family feuds, human beings against the natural elements, tense sexual encounters - all serve as stimuli, teasing us to imagine ourselves in the world of …