Most Popular Books by Thomas B. Costain

Thomas B. Costain''s ''The Silver Chalice'' is a substantive foray into the intricacies of historical fiction, seamlessly weaving narratives of faith, art, and ambition set in the nascent Christian era. The author''s narrative craftsmanship is evident in his rich portrayal of the 1st-century world, where readers follow the creation of a bejeweled cup meant to hold the cup from the Last Supper. Costain''s literary style is notable for its detailed descriptions and its focus on painting a vivid historical milieu, allowing the piece to stand alongside other mid-20th-century historical works that ponder the human condition amidst epochal changes. The novel is marked by its careful research and evocative prose, indulging readers in the grandeur and turmoil of the period, making it not just historical fiction but a valuable addition to the collective literature concerning the Classical World. Thomas B. Costain, a Canadian-American author, demonstrated an innate fascination with history and narrative that is fully realized in ''The Silver Chalice''. His background as a reporter and an editor fortified his ability to craft compelling stories, complementing his meticulous historical research. Costain''s career, flourishing primarily in the 1940s and 1950s, was marked by a series of well-received historical novels which often explored themes of spirituality and morality within historical contexts. The creation of ''The Silver Chalice'', possibly influenced by his own spiritual leanings and interest in history''s pivotal moments, showcases his talent for blending the grandiose sweep of history with intimate human experiences. ''The Silver Chalice'' comes highly recommended for aficionados of historical fiction seeking immersive storytelling. Readers will appreciate Costain''s adept skill in bringing the past to life, offering both entertainment and intellectual nourishment. The detailed landscape of early Christian intrigue provides a meaningful exploration of themes like belief, honor, and creativity, rendered through the lens of Costain''s masterful narrative voice. This carefully reproduced edition by DigiCat Publishing ensures that new generations have access to what can be considered not just a tale of the past, but a mirror reflecting timeless human struggles and aspirations.

Thomas B. Costain''s book, The Pageant of England (Complete Plantagenets Series), provides a comprehensive and engaging account of the Plantagenet dynasty, covering a period from the 12th to the 15th centuries. Costain''s writing style is both informative and captivating, allowing readers to immerse themselves in the rich historical and political landscape of medieval England. The book delves into the lives of monarchs such as Richard the Lionheart, King John, and Edward III, detailing their triumphs, struggles, and the intricate webs of intrigue that shaped the course of English history. Costain''s meticulous research and attention to detail shine through in every page, making The Pageant of England a must-read for history enthusiasts and scholars alike. Thomas B. Costain, known for his historical fiction and non-fiction works, was a prolific Canadian author with a passion for bringing the past to life through his writings. His expertise and dedication to historical accuracy are evident in The Pageant of England, demonstrating his commitment to preserving and sharing the stories of the past. Costain''s thorough exploration of the Plantagenet era in this book showcases his talent for engaging storytelling and scholarly research. I highly recommend The Pageant of England to anyone interested in delving into the fascinating world of medieval English history. Costain''s vivid narrative and in-depth analysis make this book a valuable addition to any history lover''s library, offering a captivating journey through the tumultuous reigns of the Plantagenets.

Thomas B. Costain''s four-volume history of the Plantagenets begins with THE CONQUERING FAMILY and the conquest of England by William the Conqueror in 1066, closing with the reign of John in 1216. The troubled period after the Norman Conquest, when the foundations of government were hammered out between monarch and people, comes to life through Costain''s storytelling skill and historical imagination.

DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "The Conquerors: The Pageant of England" by Thomas B. Costain. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.

THE THREE EDWARDS, third in Thomas B. Costain''s survey of Britain under the Plantagenets, covers the years between 1272 and 1377 when three Edwards ruled England. Edward I brought England out of the Middle Ages. Edward II had a tragic reign but gave his country Edward III, who ruled gloriously, if violently.

DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "Below the Salt" by Thomas B. Costain. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.

DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "The Last Love" by Thomas B. Costain. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.

DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "The Black Rose" by Thomas B. Costain. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.

DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "Son of a Hundred Kings" (A Novel of the Nineties) by Thomas B. Costain. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.

DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "The Chord of Steel" (The Story of the Invention of the Telephone) by Thomas B. Costain. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.

DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "The Amateur Diplomat" (A Novel) by Thomas B. Costain, Hugh Smithurst Eayrs. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.

The Magnificent Century, the second volume of Costain''s A History of the Plantagenets, covers Henry III''s long and turbulent reign, from 1216 to 1272. During his lifetime Henry was frequently unpopular, unreliable and inconsistent. Yet his reign saw spectacular advancement in the arts, sciences and theology, as well as in government. Despite all, it was truly a magnificent century. "Combines a love of the subject with factual history. . .a great story." —San Francisco Chronicle A History of the Plantagenets includes The Conquering Family, The Magnificent Century, The Three Edwards and The Last Plantagenets.

DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "Ride With Me" by Thomas B. Costain. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.

DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "The Darkness and the Dawn" by Thomas B. Costain. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.

This is the fascinating story of the French regime in Canada. Few periods in the history of North America can equal it for romance and color, drama and suspense, great human courage and far-seeing aspiration. Costain, who writes history in the terms of the people who lived it, wrote of this book: "Almost from the first I found myself caught in the spell of these courageous, colorful, cruel days. But whenever I found myself guilty of overstressing the romantic side of the picture and forgetful of the more prosaic life beneath, I tried to balance the scales more properly. [This] is . . . a conscientious effort at a balanced picture of a period which was brave, bizarre, fanatical, lyrical, lusty, and, in fact, rather completely unbalanced."

A LUSTY, BRAWLING NOVEL ABOUT SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY PIRATES Fore My Great Folly, which was first published in 1942, is the powerful story of a young scholar who leaves his books to join a pirate ship—and achieves manhood fighting side by side with the legendary buccaneer John Ward. Fore My Great Folly re-creates the fascinating era of English pirates who waged a private war with Spain in the seventeenth century. For My Great Folly was the beginning of Thomas B. Costain’s great career in historical fiction, and it remains of one of the truly great sea stories in modern literature.

THE LAST PLANTAGENTS—A GREAT STORYTELLER’S MOST DAZZLING BESTSELLER Here is Thomas B. Costain’s most magnificent performance, rivaling even THE BLACK ROSE for color and drama. Here are history’s most spectacular Kings and Queens—and a brilliant new probing of the greatest mystery of all time, the death of the Princes in the Tower. “EXCITEMENT...ROMANCE...STRANGER THAN FICTION”—Saturday Review “COLORFUL AND LUSTY”—Christian Science Monitor “WILD, EXTRAVAGANT, BRILLIANT, COURAGEOUS, STIRRING”—San Francisco Examiner “Novelist as well as historian, Mr. Costain is especially interested in personalities and motives and character. He deals throughout with world figures who have kingdoms at stake...Here is an actual record of the heroism of the kings and queens of England and France, their villainies, their weaknesses, their loves and hates...”—Book-of-the-Month-Club News “No man alive writes popular history with greater understanding...what he cares about is the color, drama and pageantry...the personalities, triumphs and disasters...”—New York Times “The familiar Costain ‘touch’ with all its powers...is present here in abundance”—New Haven Register “Happily wedded in author Costain are a scholar’s integrity and the ability to endow history with brilliant colors”—San Francisco Examiner

DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "The Magnificient Century: The Pageant of England" by Thomas B. Costain. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.

THE THRILLING STORY OF A GREAT CONSPIRACY AND A GREAT LOVE IN THE COURT OF KING CHARLES VII His name was Jacques Coeur In the fashionable court of France’s Charles VII he was the King’s “moneyman.” He was also a powerfully rich and jealously feared merchant prince. He exerted enormous influence over King Charles, partially because of his great wealth which enabled him to help support the war against England and partially through his friendship with and influence over the King’s mistress, the ailing Agnes Sorel. When it became obvious that Agnes Sorel would have to be replaced, it was Jacques Coeur who chose her successor—the astonishingly beautiful sixteen-year-old Valerie. What Jacques Coeur couldn’t have known was that his choice of this lovely girl was to weave the first strands in a fatal net of love and intrigue.

A magnificent historical romance chronicling the adventures of the fabulous Le Moyne Family of Montreal who became the heroes of French Canada and founded the storied city of New Orleans. “Beyond [a] brief record of [the Le Moyne brothers’] achievements and the vital statistics in the archives at Montreal, what is known of the ten stout brothers? What manner of men were they? Were they typical of the French-Canadian people of this early period, brave, resolute, devout, light-hearted? “To deal with them as characters in a novel, therefore, is a task approaching that of the scientist who tries to reconstruct a monster of prehistoric times with nothing more to go on than a broken rib and a fragment of jawbone. The result is certain to raise doubts in the minds of historians who are skeptical necessarily of anything stemming from the imagination. In my opinion, nevertheless, the only way to tell the saga of the Le Moynes, and to attempt the rescue of these remarkable brothers from the oblivion into which they have sunk, is to set down their story in the guise of historical fiction.” (Thomas B. Costain, Introduction)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Spanning 60+ years, beginning on the day Waterloo was won, it is a multigenerational story of 3 families during the Industrial Revolution. Lots of detailed descriptions of life among the varied social classes, it has been likened to stories by Dickens. It’s a very good historical fiction. A tontine is a life insurance scheme, stratified by age. Enrollees received payouts after an initial growth period, the amounts determined by the number of living recipients. Over time, as participants died, the payouts became more and more substantial. Towards the end, when the recipients became a mere handful, all sorts of betting occurred in the general populace on who would be the last survivor.

“The Mississippi Bubble” was a wild, giddy, devastating, international episode in eighteenth century French and American history that ought to be better known, if, as nothing else, a cautionary tale. At its simplest, a Scottish fugitive named John Law convinced the rulers of France to let him use France as a laboratory for his economic theories, and one of his schemes was selling shares for a new colony in America, eventually centered around what was to become New Orleans. The sales pitches weren’t tethered to reality, especially as the scheme got more and more out of hand. Costain does a good job of following the twists and turns and tyrannical moves that were put in play to try to prop things up...

In volume II of The Tontine, the multigenerational story of 3 families continues. The number of recipients receiving payouts on the life insurance scheme are dying out and the payouts are becoming more and more substantial. Towards the end, when the recipients become a mere handful, all sorts of betting occurs in the general populace on who will be the last survivor. Who wins the tontine and who loses?

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.