Colonial Literature

After the conquest of the Incas in the 1530s, the Portuguese threat prompted the authorization of a second expedition, commanded this time by Pedro de Mendoza with a force of some 1,500 men. The party arrived at the mouth of the Río de la Plata in 1536, and there Mendoza founded the settlement of Nuestra Señora Santa María del Buen Ayre. This was the basis of the future city of Buenos Aires.

Captain Amara Corrin, hero of the late Solar Wars, commands the first colonial fleet. Full of hopeful dreamers looking for a new home, world-weary ex-soldiers, and those just seeking escape, five ships set out from Earth with the hopes of humanity behind them. But Amara soon finds herself with more trouble than she can handle. The Council, Earth’s new governing body, has saddled her with their political rivals, exiling them to a place where they could do them no harm.

Professor Augustus Van Dusen, the 'Thinking Machine,' is an eccentric scientist with superior mental powers, who insists that logic will solve any problem. He has an assistant, the clever newspaper reporter Hutchinson Hatch, who brings him cases. the escapades of Professor Van Dusen provide a splendid romp for all lovers of traditional mysteries.

From the author of The Widow’s War and Bound comes a compelling new novel about a young woman’s struggle to decide where her loyalties lie - with family or with forbidden love; with royalist tradition or upstart independence - on the eve of the Revolutionary War.

Hamburg 1888: After thirty prosperous years, coffee importer Peter Hansen & Sons faces hard times - and certain bankruptcy - unless three brothers can make savvy moves to save the faltering business after their father’s untimely death. For Robert Hansen, that means meeting changing demands by following the future from Vienna to Africa. He relocates his family to the German colony of Cameroon and takes ownership of a cocoa plantation. With a spirit as adventurous as her father’s, Robert’s fifteen-year-old daughter Luise discovers an exciting new world.

Pubblicato nel 1850, "La lettera scarlatta" è uno dei più importanti romanzi nordamericani dell'Ottocento. Nelle intenzioni dell'autore esso doveva rappresentare al meglio lo spirito puritano dell'epoca coloniale americana. Nella società puritana la libertà dell'individuo coincideva con il bene della comunità, che doveva essere purificata da ogni elemento estraneo, considerato al soldo di Satana. Per questa ragione le autorità imponevano stili di vita improntati a un inflessibile rigore morale.

In the harsh wilderness of colonial Massachusetts, Martha Allen works as a servant in her cousin's household, taking charge and locking wills with everyone. Thomas Carrier labors for the family and is known both for his immense strength and size and mysterious past. The two begin a courtship that suits their independent natures, with Thomas slowly revealing the story of his part in the English Civil War.

Despite what seems like the unending war between French and British, Scottish exile Duncan McCallum has begun to settle into a new life on the fringes of colonial America, traveling the woodlands with his companion Conawago, even joining the old Indian on his quest to find the last surviving members of his tribe. But the joy they feel on reaching the little settlement of Christian Indians is shattered when they find its residents ritually murdered. As terrible as the deaths may be, Conawago perceives something even darker and more alarming.

Soldiers, Witches and Taverns is a historical novel about two families in colonial New York and New England during the 150 years prior to the nation’s founding. Many of the events in the story are historical, and most of the men and women really existed and are brought back to life in this gripping tale.

The American Colonies, 1765. As the Stamp Act dissent marks the first organized resistance to English rule, someone is kidnapping and killing members of the Iroquois Nation. Asked by an elder to investigate, Scottish exile Duncan McCallum soon uncovers a network of secret runners supporting the nascent “committees of correspondence", engaged in the political dissent fomenting across colonial borders. But as Duncan follows the trail further, it leads to his capture.

1850 Sarah Hallow is orphaned, penniless and alone, with only the skills learned from her midwife mother to guide her. Passage on a ship bound for the new settlement of Brisbane, Australia, is her last option. Though her skills are quickly dismissed by the ship's doctor, Sarah is pleased to find instant friendship with her cabin mate, Bridie, a fiery Irish girl with a sharp tongue and midwifery skills of her own. When the two women come to the aid of a labouring woman onboard, Sarah's dreams of opening her own midwifery practice in Brisbane don't seem so impossible.

The mad goblin scholar Bugbear and his gambler cousin Tudmire come into possession of a most peculiar scroll. It is through this scroll that the mystical world of Annwfn and the world of 19th-century humanity are suddenly and inadvertently thrust together. Allying themselves with the awkward human stage magician Martin Manchester and the fierce warrior woman Maga, Bugbear and Tudmire must rally the frightened folk of the small town of Willow Prairie against the gathering evil.

In Tom Swift and His Motor Boat, Tom's father - Barton Swift - a world-famous scientist, has been robbed of one of his greatest inventions. It's up to Tom to bring the criminals to justice, but he becomes a target of the rogues' anger when he unknowingly buys a boat in which the criminals have an interest in. This full cast production is an exciting adventure for the whole family.

Toby Veck is a humble porter who has lost his faith in humanity. Then high up in a church steeple, where spiders spin their castles in the air, the spirit of the bells appear to take Toby on a New Year's Eve journey where he discovers all he has to be grateful for.

On Christmas Eve, a traveler finds himself waiting out a snowstorm at the Holly Tree Inn. While passing the hours waiting for the weather to pass so his coach can continue its journey, the warm hearth of the inn brings his mind to roam to pass recollections, both happy and grave. He also ponders the true meaning of his current journey and reason for his melancholy: the woman he planned on marrying is, instead, going to marry his best friend. However, the delay at the inn is about to bring him a miraculous discovery.

Elizabeth Macquarie, widow of the disgraced former Governor of New South Wales, Lachlan Macquarie, is in mourning—not only for her husband, but the loss of their shared dream to transform the penal colony into a bright new world. Over the course of one long sleepless night on the windswept isle of Mull, she remembers her life in that wild and strange country; a revolution of ideas as dramatic as any in history; and her dangerous alliance with the brilliant, mercurial Francis Greenway, the colony's maverick architect.

1898, Geelong, Victoria. Stella Truehart is all alone in the world. Her good-for-nothing husband has died violently at the hands of an unknown assailant. Her mother is dead, her father deserted them before she was born, and now her kindly Truehart grandparents are also in their graves. Private detective Bendigo Barrett has been tasked with finding Stella. He believes his client's intentions are good, but it is evident that someone with darker motives is also seeking her. For her own part, Stella is fiercely independent, but as danger mounts, she agrees to work with Bendigo.

Arthur Leary thought that his part in the Revolution ended when his generals surrendered their army to the Americans after the Battle of Saratoga. Little did he know that political maneuvering at the highest levels of British and American government would leave him and his fellow soldiers marching across the landscape for years to come...unless he could find a way out. The rocky soil of a New England farm owned by fierce patriots to the American cause offered him hard labor and harder choices - choices that would shape his future and that of his country.

Cameroon, 1929. As colonial powers fight for influence in Africa, French military surgeon Eugène Jamot is dispatched to Cameroon to lead the fight against sleeping sickness there. But despite his humanitarian intentions, the worst comes to pass: seven hundred local villagers are left blind as a result of medical malpractice by a doctor under Jamot’s watch.

Nathaniel is a well-intentioned, if naive, British cleric feeling blessed to educate a West African village about the benevolent power of God. But as slavers encroach, Nathaniel’s endeavor is daunted by the realities unfolding on the beautiful homeland of his congregation. It seems the Devil has power too. What follows for Nathaniel is a profound spiritual upheaval as he questions his purpose and even his humanity.