[quote=""Misfit""]
Pride's Castle, The Golden Hawk and A Woman Called Fancy by Frank Yerby
[/quote]
My Dad was a reader Frank Yerby and had most of them so I read them in my early teens but not absolutely all of them. I can't remember anything about Pride's Castle. But I am pretty sure I read the other two. However, without using the "P" my Dad was always pretty convinced that a couple of them were very similar to some of Sabatini's and the Golden Hawk might well be one of those. It is too long ago for me to remember and I didn't read Sabatini myself until some years later. Without going and looking up the synopsis wjocj O cam't be bothered to do, I can really only remember the plot and setting of The Saracen Blade and the one set in the Athens of Socrates' time which I can't remember the name of (and hopefully no-one will remind me) but for me was slightly reminiscent of MR's Last of the Wine but was nowhere near as good.
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Book Shopping Today (2011 edition)
-
MLE (Emily Cotton)
- Bibliomaniac
- Posts: 3565
- Joined: August 2008
- Interest in HF: started in childhood with the classics, which, IMHO are HF even if they were contemporary when written.
- Favourite HF book: Prince of Foxes, by Samuel Shellabarger
- Preferred HF: Currently prefer 1600 and earlier, but I'll read anything that keeps me turning the page.
- Location: California Bay Area
[quote=""Misfit""]
Son of a Hundred Kings and Ride with Me by Thomas Costain
Pride's Castle, The Golden Hawk and A Woman Called Fancy by Frank Yerby
The two Costains are very tempting. One is about a young boy come in search of his father, I think it ends in Canada. The other is set during the Napoleonic wars.[/quote]
Those are two of my favorite Costains. At least, they were three decades ago. I read several Yerbys, too, when my parents weren't looking (they were 'red marked books' at the library, i.e. books kids weren't allowed to check out). Tried to re-read one recently and gagged on the gawdawful purple prose. The second mention of 'ruby lips and heaving bosoms'
got the thing wallbanged.
Son of a Hundred Kings and Ride with Me by Thomas Costain
Pride's Castle, The Golden Hawk and A Woman Called Fancy by Frank Yerby
The two Costains are very tempting. One is about a young boy come in search of his father, I think it ends in Canada. The other is set during the Napoleonic wars.[/quote]
Those are two of my favorite Costains. At least, they were three decades ago. I read several Yerbys, too, when my parents weren't looking (they were 'red marked books' at the library, i.e. books kids weren't allowed to check out). Tried to re-read one recently and gagged on the gawdawful purple prose. The second mention of 'ruby lips and heaving bosoms'
got the thing wallbanged.
[quote=""MLE""]Those are two of my favorite Costains. At least, they were three decades ago. I read several Yerbys, too, when my parents weren't looking (they were 'red marked books' at the library, i.e. books kids weren't allowed to check out). Tried to re-read one recently and gagged on the gawdawful purple prose. The second mention of 'ruby lips and heaving bosoms' got the thing wallbanged.[/quote]
Both of those Costains are really calling me at the moment. I want to give Yerby a whirl, a friend at Goodreads just finished off The Girl from Storyville and that sounds awfully dark and victorian.
got the thing wallbanged.[/quote]Both of those Costains are really calling me at the moment. I want to give Yerby a whirl, a friend at Goodreads just finished off The Girl from Storyville and that sounds awfully dark and victorian.
At home with a good book and the cat...
...is the only place I want to be
...is the only place I want to be
Posted by MLE
Here's a sample from OOS
"What boots is that ‘tis not the same as the pale fairness of my race, my tribe? ‘Tis beauty, still. Take in your hand a violet, and a rose. The violet’s swart, the rose is fair. Wouldst say then that only roses are pleasing to the sight and toss all violets out to wither on the ground?”
Some months ago I thought I'd try a Yerby and settled on The Odor of Sanctity because I thought the setting (9th century Moorish Spain) an interesting one. Oh dear! It's the ironic story of a sinner who becomes revered as a saint and is full of sexploits rendered in purple prose and written in an infuriatingly "forsoothly" style. I did think at one point that if I came across the phrase "God wot" one more time I wouldn't be responsible for myselfTried to re-read one recently and gagged on the gawdawful purple prose. The second mention of 'ruby lips and heaving bosoms' got the thing wallbanged.
Here's a sample from OOS
"What boots is that ‘tis not the same as the pale fairness of my race, my tribe? ‘Tis beauty, still. Take in your hand a violet, and a rose. The violet’s swart, the rose is fair. Wouldst say then that only roses are pleasing to the sight and toss all violets out to wither on the ground?”
[quote=""annis""]
Here's a sample from OOS
"What boots is that tis not the same as the pale fairness of my race, my tribe? Tis beauty, still. Take in your hand a violet, and a rose. The violets swart, the rose is fair. Wouldst say then that only roses are pleasing to the sight and toss all violets out to wither on the ground?[/quote]
I have several Yerbys on Mt Tbr...
Here's a sample from OOS
"What boots is that tis not the same as the pale fairness of my race, my tribe? Tis beauty, still. Take in your hand a violet, and a rose. The violets swart, the rose is fair. Wouldst say then that only roses are pleasing to the sight and toss all violets out to wither on the ground?[/quote]
I have several Yerbys on Mt Tbr...
It sounds like cod Shakespeare! As I recall, Georgette Heyer wrote a couple of non Regencies that went in for just this kind of purple prose!
Les proz e les vassals
Souvent entre piez de chevals
Kar ja li coard nI chasront
'The Brave and the valiant
Are always to be found between the hooves of horses
For never will cowards fall down there.'
Histoire de Guillaume le Mareschal
www.elizabethchadwick.com
Souvent entre piez de chevals
Kar ja li coard nI chasront
'The Brave and the valiant
Are always to be found between the hooves of horses
For never will cowards fall down there.'
Histoire de Guillaume le Mareschal
www.elizabethchadwick.com
Posted by EC
( I think it was Josephine Tey who described it as writing in the "forsoothly" manner). It seems to have been a bit of a hangover from the Victorian authors with their quasi-medieval heroic stodge. Georgette Heyer's Elizabethan romantic adventure Beauvallet definitely goes for this dialogue style - one of the few of Heyer's novels I couldn't bring myself to finish - would'st had I followed the same policy with Yerby's Odor of Sanctity!
Historical novelists now would be laughed out of hand if they came up with this stuff, though sometimes i wonder if we've gone a bit far in the other direction with dialogue often full of rather jarringly modern vernacular.
According to Rosemary Sutcliff, this style was known in the trade as "gadzookery"It sounds like cod Shakespeare! As I recall, Georgette Heyer wrote a couple of non Regencies that went in for just this kind of purple prose!
( I think it was Josephine Tey who described it as writing in the "forsoothly" manner). It seems to have been a bit of a hangover from the Victorian authors with their quasi-medieval heroic stodge. Georgette Heyer's Elizabethan romantic adventure Beauvallet definitely goes for this dialogue style - one of the few of Heyer's novels I couldn't bring myself to finish - would'st had I followed the same policy with Yerby's Odor of Sanctity!Historical novelists now would be laughed out of hand if they came up with this stuff, though sometimes i wonder if we've gone a bit far in the other direction with dialogue often full of rather jarringly modern vernacular.
Last edited by annis on Mon December 12th, 2011, 9:15 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Just zapped the latest India Black book onto the Kindle via library loan. That is so danged easy to do. Don't even have to park and go in and get the book off of the hold shelf.
At home with a good book and the cat...
...is the only place I want to be
...is the only place I want to be
[quote=""Misfit""]Just zapped the latest India Black book onto the Kindle via library loan. That is so danged easy to do. Don't even have to park and go in and get the book off of the hold shelf.[/quote]
Instant gratification: I see, I pay, I have....It's great when you are stuck somewhere and have run out and there are no decent bookshops around. That is where the Kindle scores over the iPad for me (my iPad isn't 3g and if it was, the 3g would not be free). I can even buy English language books with ease whilst abroad. Real books good, e-books quick, easy and an awful lot less heavy.
Instant gratification: I see, I pay, I have....It's great when you are stuck somewhere and have run out and there are no decent bookshops around. That is where the Kindle scores over the iPad for me (my iPad isn't 3g and if it was, the 3g would not be free). I can even buy English language books with ease whilst abroad. Real books good, e-books quick, easy and an awful lot less heavy.
Currently reading - Emergence of a Nation State by Alan Smith