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Subjects: France -- History -- Wars of the Vendée, 1793-1832 -- FictionNotes: This is an OCR reprint. There may be numerous typos or missing text. There are no illustrations or indexes.When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. You can also preview the book there. ... Read more

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This volume is produced from digital images created through the University of Michigan University Library's large-scale digitization efforts. The Library seeks to preserve the intellectual content of items in a manner that facilitates and promotes a variety of uses. The digital reformatting process results in an electronic version of the original text that can be both accessed online and used to create new print copies. The Library also understands and values the usefulness of print and makes reprints available to the public whenever possible. This book and hundreds of thousands of others can be found in the HathiTrust, an archive of the digitized collections of many great research libraries. For access to the University of Michigan Library's digital collections, please see http://www.lib.umich.edu and for information about the HathiTrust, please visit http://www.hathitrust.org ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

A must-read
... This is a great book. I would rank it among my top 20 favourite novels, perhaps even the top 10, along with works by Tolstoy, Dickens, Austen and others of that calibre... I urge you to read this book if you have not yet done so. It succeeds on several levels: It is an adventure yarn, with daring escapes, chases, intrigues and battles. It is a philosophical novel, raising thought-provoking questions about priestly celibacy and religious observance. It is a war novel, presenting a convincing portrayal of men in combat. It is a psychological novel, probing the nature of male companionship. Well written, absorbing and satisfying, read it before it disappears from booklists completely.

Spectacular
It's hard to believe this book is largely forgotten and unavailable. Despite what some of the other reviewers claim, you do not need to be a Medievalist to enjoy it--or even be thrilled by it, as I was. Get a used copy while you still can.

The Cloister and the Hearth
I don't think it fair for the editorial review to give away the ending.

A Sublime Evocation of a Distant Era
The Cloister and the Hearth is one of the most powerful reading experiences I have had.It is a great pity, but no surprise, that this masterpiece is not familiar even to lovers of Victorian literature, and has not had a fashion in recent times like the works of, say, Austen or Trollope.I say no surprise because Cloister is challenging in ways that those authors are not.First, it is long, 750 pages, far longer than anything by the Great Jane, and most of Trollope.Second, the dialogue is written in a deliberately archaic style intended to evoke the Middle Ages, an ersatz 15th century English in the mouths of characters who are Dutch, German, French, Italian, but none English.To my ear, it was tremendously effective, but it will not come easily to modern readers who find Shakespeare and the King James Bible difficult.Third, it takes the values of the era it describes seriously, rather than looking back from an arch, "modern" 19th century perspective. That third point is the most important.As the title suggests, the theme of the work is the tension between domestic private life and the spiritual domain of the Church.Most of the dramatic conflict arises from the demands of priestly celibacy, which Reade reveals as a "vile heresy" only three pages from the end.Such is his skill that, despite their lives having been devastated by it, neither of the two lover/ protagonists ever questions the rule's propriety or justice, and both honor it absolutely. (Perhaps the female utters a doubt or two somewhere, but if so, they are feebly stated and soon forgotten.)The two main characters are not subtle, but are medieval virtue personified.Yet they work, especially Gerard, the male.Unlike Dickens's goody-two shoes heroes (think David Copperfield or Esther Summerson), the extraordinary virtues of Gerard and Margaret never made this reader roll his eyes.Reade considered himself a dramatist, not a novelist, and the reconciliation scenes in this book are as emotionally driven as anything you will see on the stage. It is shorter than War and Peace, and once you get the hang of it, the pages turn much faster than Tolstoy's.I've only read an abridged W&P, years ago, but I'd put Cloister up there on the same level, as historical literature, not just historical fiction, of the very highest order.

The Cloister and the Hearth
My first year at university it was a required reading. Back then reading wasn't my favourite hobby; However when I started to the novel, I justcouldn't put it down. It was very exciting and a pleasure to read. Highlyrecommended. I lost my book and I'm hoping that Amazon.com will locate acopy for me,please! ... Read more

Product Description
This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishing's Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone! ... Read more

Product Description

Product Description
This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishing's Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone! ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Scuttling ships for profit and surviving on a deserted island
As a novelist and dramatist, Charles Reade loved to investigate social issues of his day; prison reform, labor unions, and sexual issues all came under Reade's scrutiny. In this novel, published in 1868, his target was the shipping industry and insurance companies that would insure goods aboard ships for loss while placing passengers at great risk. If ships sank, the value of goods would be paid for in full, thus giving little incentive for shipping companies to maintain safe ships. The book is part social reform and part Robinson Crusoe. Robert Penfold is accused of forgery (he's the victim of a practical joke) and serves time in prison. Upon his release, he changes his name to James Seaton and signs on as a seaman aboard the Proserpine, a ship destined to be scuttled by its owners for the insurance money. When she does sink, Seaton and an aristocratic and consumptive woman named Helen Rolleston share a lifeboat. They make it to a deserted island where the Robinson Crusoe likenesses kick in. Seaton is a man who can do no wrong and has a solution for everything; if he felt like building a rocket to the moon, Reade would see that he succeeded. Helen, too, proves very resourceful and miraculously (thanks to all that sunshine and fresh air) recovers from her consumption. After being rescued, Seaton proves his innocence in the forgery he was accused of and goes back to being Robert Penfold, actually Rev. Robert Penfold. In case you couldn't guess, he and Helen marry. Much of what happens on the deserted island is unbelievable, as is Seaton's character, but that is not as important to Reade as the fact that by 1875 Parliament had passed a bill addressing the insurance issues he had brought to the fore in the novel. "The end crowns the work," as they say, though it's a fairly pedestrian novel. ... Read more

Product Description
This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishings Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the worlds literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone! ... Read more

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Publisher: New York : Harper ... Read more

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Originally published in 1894. This volume from the Cornell University Library's print collections was scanned on an APT BookScan and converted to JPG 2000 format by Kirtas Technologies.All titles scanned cover to cover and pages may include marks, notations and other marginalia present in the original volume. ... Read more

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General Books publication date: 2009Original publication date: 1896Original Publisher: Chatto ... Read more

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This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Product Description
This edition contains the three most important works of Charles Reade (1814-1884). Reade adapted the social purpose and concern for detail of the realistic novel to the stage. He was much concerned with poverty, the brutality of the prison regime of his time, and the abuse of mental asylums. He assigned a specially important role to women in his plays, choosing to write for the charismatic actresses of his day. Masks and Faces (1852) is concerned with the public image and private life of a leading Covent Garden actress; The Courier of Lyons (1854) is based upon a real case of mistaken identity; and It Is Never Too Late to Mend (1865) describes the legal and financial oppression of poor English farming folk.All these plays were very popular and successful, performed and revived many times. Dr Hammet provides alongside them an informative introduction, notes on the text, a short biography of Reade, a full list of his plays and productions, and a bibliography. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more