Books with author Erskine Childers

The Riddle of the Sands by Erskine Childers is a vivid account of German preparations to invade England, released at a time when tensions between the two countries were at an all time high. Often cited as one of the 100 greatest novels of all time, The Riddle of the Sands has delighted generations of sailing aficionados and thriller readers with its nautical and political verisimilitude.

This eBook has been formatted to the highest digital standards and adjusted for readability on all devices. Carruthers, a minor official in the Foreign Office, is contacted by an acquaintance, Davies, asking him to join in a yachting holiday in the Baltic Sea. Carruthers agrees, as his other plans for a holiday have fallen through. As they sail off Davies gradually reveals that he suspects that the Germans are undertaking something sinister in the German Frisian islands. This is based on his belief that he was nearly wrecked by a German yacht luring him into a shoal in rough weather during a previous trip. Davies is suspicious about what would motivate the Germans to try to kill him. Having failed to interest anyone in the government in the incident, he feels it is his patriotic duty to investigate further – hence the invitation to Carruthers.

This eBook has been formatted to the highest digital standards and adjusted for readability on all devices. Carruthers, a minor official in the Foreign Office, is contacted by an acquaintance, Davies, asking him to join in a yachting holiday in the Baltic Sea. Carruthers agrees, as his other plans for a holiday have fallen through. As they sail off Davies gradually reveals that he suspects that the Germans are undertaking something sinister in the German Frisian islands. This is based on his belief that he was nearly wrecked by a German yacht luring him into a shoal in rough weather during a previous trip. Davies is suspicious about what would motivate the Germans to try to kill him. Having failed to interest anyone in the government in the incident, he feels it is his patriotic duty to investigate further – hence the invitation to Carruthers.

In the rough waters of the North Sea, two sailors fight to save Britain Charles Carruthers is languishing in the crushing heat of a London summer when an old university chum named Davies throws him a lifeline, inviting him on a yachting expedition in the North Sea. It sounds like a lark, but Carruthers finds that the Dulcibella is hardly a yacht, and Davies’s trip is no pleasure cruise. Off the coast of the mysterious Frisian Islands, he has spotted a German fleet, supposedly engaged in hunting for buried treasure. Battling the elements, the two Englishmen find themselves surrounded by the German navy, which is using the fogs of the North Sea to disguise something monstrous—the Kaiser’s plot to launch a sneak attack on the British Isles. Published more than a decade before World War I began, this groundbreaking spy novel inspired a young Winston Churchill to reinvigorate Britain’s naval defenses, and it remains just as stirring today. This ebook has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.

Written in 1903 by the active and ultimately executed Irish republican Erskine Childers, "The Riddle of the Sands: A Record of Secret Service" unfolds the story of a minor official in the Foreign Office, Carruthers, and his complete boredom with his occupation. Although his prospects are good, he feels an emptiness in his life, and this in large part encourages Carruthers to go sailing with his friend Davies. This acquaintance suspects German naval activity in the Baltic, and the two overcome numerous obstacles, both by suspicious German patrol boats and tricky inshore sailing, to discover information that complicates the feelings of both young men. The lone masterpiece of a man who died for a cause, this earliest of spy thrillers details not only the love of Davies, but the revival of Carruthers in a time of intrigue, adventure, suspicion, and burgeoning war.

I began to take a spurious interest in the remaining five millions, and wrote several clever letters in a vein of cheap satire, indirectly suggesting the pathos of my position, but indicating that I was broad-minded enough to find intellectual entertainment in the scenes, persons, and habits of London in the dead season. I even did rational things at the instigation of others. For, though I should have liked total isolation best, I, of course, found that there was a sediment of unfortunates like myself, who, unlike me, viewed the situation in a most prosaic light. There were river excursions, and so on, after office-hours; but I dislike the river at any time for its noisy vulgarity, and most of all at this season. So I dropped out of the fresh air brigade and declined H—'s offer to share a riverside cottage and run up to town in the mornings. I did spend one or two week-ends with the Catesbys in Kent; but I was not inconsolable when they let their house and went abroad, for I found that such partial compensations did not suit me. Neither did the taste for satirical observation last.

The Riddle of the Sands: A Record of Secret Service is a 1903 novel by Erskine Childers. It is an early example of the espionage novel, with a strong underlying theme of militarism. It has been made into a film and TV film.It is a novel that "owes a lot to the wonderful adventure novels of writers like Rider Haggard, that were a staple of Victorian Britain"; perhaps more significantly, it was a spy novel that "established a formula that included a mass of verifiable detail, which gave authenticity to the story – the same ploy that would be used so well by John Buchan, Ian Fleming, John le Carré and many others." Ken Follett called it "the first modern thriller."The Observer, in a "fundamentally English" list published to coincide with the Big Read campaign in 2003, listed the book as #37 on its list of "The 100 Greatest Novels" from the past 300 years. -- from Wikipedia

Regarded as one of the best spy stories ever written, this is the classic Secret Service novel. More like fact than fiction, it holds a special place in the affections of spy-novel fans for its richness of technical detail about inshore sailing, its highly sympathetic characters, an unsurpassed narrative style, and a setting and plot that recapture the European political scene on the eve of World War I.Two young Englishmen, Davies and Carruthers, head for the Baltic Sea in the late 1890s for a holiday of sailing and duck-shooting. The mood gradually darkens as Davies discloses his suspicions of espionage in the North Frisian Islands, and Carruthers joins in an investigation that develops into a series of increasingly dangerous intrigues. Norman Donaldson, an expert on detective and suspense fiction, offers an Introduction with details about the author as well as the novel's background and its place in the history of the spy-novel genre.

Loosely based on the author's own experiences, The Riddle of the Sands takes readers back to the early days of the twentieth century, when Britain shared a tense rivalry with the Kaiser's Germany. Tempted by the idea of duck shooting, Carruthers is lured by his friend Davies into a yachting expedition in the Baltic, only to discover that the itinerary involves more than killing fowl. Soon they're on a wild journey of intrigue, meeting danger at every turn, and ultimately unraveling Germany's secret plans to invade England. Tautly written and full of unexpected twists, this is a timeless work of espionage fiction.

First Published in 1903, Erskine Childers’ “The Riddle of the Sands: A Record of Secret Service”, is one of the earliest examples of an espionage novel and was immensely influential in the creation of this popular genre. Childers led an interesting and adventurous life, becoming an amateur sailor as a young man before enlisting in the military and serving in the Boer War and eventually the First World War. In “The Riddle of the Sands”, a gripping and thrilling story begins with a minor official in the Foreign Office, Carruthers, and his complete boredom with his occupation. Although his prospects are good, he feels an emptiness in his life, and this in large part encourages him to accept an invitation to go sailing with his friend Davies. Davies suspects German naval activity in the Baltic, and the two overcome numerous obstacles, both by suspicious German patrol boats and tricky inshore sailing, to discover information that threatens the lives and safety of their countrymen back home. Childers’s tale is a masterpiece of suspense and intrigue, as well as a patriotic tale of men willing to die for their country in a dangerous time of secret plots and burgeoning war. This edition is printed on premium acid-free paper.

A level 5 Oxford Bookworms Library graded reader. Retold for Learners of English by Peter Hawkins.When Carruthers joins his friend Arthur Davies on his yacht Dulcibella, he is expecting a pleasant sailing holiday in the Baltic Sea. But the holiday turns into an adventure of a different kind. He and Davies soon find themselves sailing in the stormy waters of the North Sea, exploring the channels and sandbanks around the German Frisian Islands, and looking for a secret – a secret that could mean great danger for England.Erskine Childers’ novel, published in 1903, was the first great modern spy story, and is still as exciting to read today as it was a hundred years ago.