Books with author Mary. Johnston

Excerpt from Pioneers the Old South: A Chronicle of English Colonial BeginningsElizabeth of England died in 1603. There came to the English throne James Stuart, King of Scot land, King now oi England and Scotland. In 1604! A treaty of peace ended the long war with Spain. Gone was the sixteenth century; here, though in childhood, was the seventeenth century.Now that the wars were over, old colonization schemes were revived in the English mind. Of the motives which in the first instance had prompted these schemes, some with the passing of time had become weaker, some remained quite as strong as before. Most Englishmen and women knew now that Spain had clay feet; and that Rome, though she might threaten, could not always perform what she threatened. To abase the pride of Spain.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

"She will reach the wharf in half an hour." The speaker shaded her eyes with a great fan of carved ivory and painted silk. They were beautiful eyes; large, brown, perfect in shape and expression, and set in a lovely, imperious, laughing face. The divinity to whom they belonged was clad in a gown of green dimity, flowered with pink roses, and trimmed about the neck and half sleeves with a fall of yellow lace. The gown was made according to the latest Paris mode, as described in a year-old letter from the court of Charles the Second, and its wearer gazed from under her fan towards the waters of the great bay of Chesapeake, in his Majesty's most loyal and well beloved dominion of Virginia.

Released in February, 1900, it sold over 220,000 copies in just twelve weeks, and launched the career of one of the South's most talented writers, Mary Johnston. The plot is tailor-made for action. A beautiful maid-of-honor, a ward of King James I, escapes marriage to a libertine nobleman, who is the king's favorite. She flees to colonial Virginia with a cargo of brides sent out by the Virginia Company of London, and marries a rough, hard-working, settler. He turns out to be a former English soldier and a famous swordsman, who must now defend his wife against her former fiancee who has tracked her to Jamestown. From that starting point, we are treated to duels, shipwrecks, sieges, poisonings, adventures with pirates, and capture by indians-each following the other with breathtaking rapidity. To Have and to Hold was the first romance novel to go #1 on an official bestseller list

Mary Johnston (November 21, 1870 – May 9, 1936)[1] was an American novelist and women's rights advocate from Virginia. She was one of America's best selling authors during her writing career and had three silent films adapted from her novels.The daughter of an American Civil War soldier who became a successful lawyer, Mary Johnston was born in the small town of Buchanan, Virginia. A small and frail girl, she was educated at home by family and tutors. She grew up with a love of books and was financially independent enough to devote herself to writing Johnston wrote historical books and novels that often combined romance with history. Her first book, Prisoners of Hope (1898), dealt with colonial times in Virginia as did her second novel, To Have and to Hold (1900), and later, Sir Mortimer (1904). The Goddess of Reason (1907) uses the theme of the French Revolution, and in Lewis Rand (1908) the author portrayed political life at the dawn of the 19th century.To Have and to Hold was serialized in the The Atlantic Monthly in 1899 and published in book form 1900, by Houghton Mifflin. The book proved enormously popular and was the bestselling novel in the United States in 1900. Johnston's next work, titled Audrey, was the fifth bestselling book in the U.S. in 1902, and Sir Mortimer, serialized in Harper's Monthly magazine from November 1903 through April 1904, was published in 1904. Her best-selling 1911 novel on the American Civil War, The Long Roll, brought Johnston into open conflict with Stonewall Jackson's widow, Mary Anna Jackson. Beyond her native America, Johnston's novels were also very popular in Canada and in England.