Joan Delano Aiken was an English writer specialising in supernatural fiction and children's alternative history novels. In 1999 she was awarded an MBE for her services to children's literature. For The Whispering Mountain, published by Jonathan Cape in 1968, she won the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize, a book award judged by a panel of British children's writers, and she was a commended runner-up for the Carnegie Medal from the Library Association, recognising the year's best children's book by a British writer. She won an Edgar Allan Poe Award (1972) for Night Fall.
Tristan, also known as Tristram, Tristyn or Tristain and similar names, is the hero of the legend of Tristan and Iseult. In the legend, he is tasked with escorting the Irish princess Iseult to wed Tristan's uncle, King Mark of Cornwall. Tristan and Iseult accidentally drink a love potion during the journey and fall in love, beginning an adulterous relationship that eventually leads to Tristan's banishment and death. The character's first recorded appearance is in retellings of British mythology from the 12th century by Thomas of Britain and Gottfried von Strassburg, and later in the Prose Tristan. He is featured in Arthurian legends, including the seminal text Le Morte d'Arthur, as a skilled knight and a friend of Lancelot.
The Swallows and Amazons series is a series of twelve children's adventure novels by English author Arthur Ransome. Set in the interwar period, the novels involve group adventures by children, mainly in the school holidays and mainly in England. They revolve around outdoor activities, especially sailing. Literary critic Peter Hunt believes it "changed British literature, affected a whole generation's view of holidays, helped to create the national image of the English Lake District and added Arthur Ransome's name to the select list of classic British children's authors." The series remains popular and inspires visits to the Lake District and Norfolk Broads, where many of the books are set.
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, written in 1838, is the only complete novel by American writer Edgar Allan Poe. The work relates the tale of the young Arthur Gordon Pym, who stows away aboard a whaler called the Grampus. Various adventures and misadventures befall Pym, including shipwreck, mutiny, and cannibalism, before he is saved by the crew of the Jane Guy. Aboard this vessel, Pym and a sailor named Dirk Peters continue their adventures farther south. Docking on land, they encounter hostile, black-skinned natives before escaping back to the ocean. The novel ends abruptly as Pym and Peters continue toward the South Pole.
Villette is an 1853 novel written by English author Charlotte Brontë. After an unspecified family disaster, the protagonist Lucy Snowe travels from her native England to the fictional Continental city of Villette to teach at a girls' school, where she is drawn into adventure and romance.
The Lyonesse Trilogy is a group of three fantasy novels by Jack Vance, set in the European Dark Ages, in the mythical Elder Isles west of France and southwest of Britain, a generation or two before the birth of King Arthur. The stories contain references to Atlantis and Arthurian mythology, particularly to the mythical country of Lyonesse. They are told in several related storylines which are not always strictly chronological.
Gareth is a Knight of the Round Table in Arthurian legend. He is the youngest son of King Lot and Queen Morgause, King Arthur's half-sister, thus making him Arthur's nephew, as well as brother to Gawain, Agravain and Gaheris, and either a brother or half-brother of Mordred. Gareth is particularly notable in Le Morte d'Arthur, where one of its eight books is named after and largely dedicated to him, and in which he is also known by his nickname Beaumains.
Allan Quatermain is the protagonist of H. Rider Haggard's 1885 novel King Solomon's Mines, its one sequel Allan Quatermain (1887), twelve prequel novels and four prequel short stories, totalling eighteen works. An English professional big game hunter and adventurer, in film and television he has been portrayed by Richard Chamberlain, Sean Connery, Cedric Hardwicke, Patrick Swayze and Stewart Granger among others.
Pequod is a fictional 19th-century Nantucket whaling ship that appears in the 1851 novel Moby-Dick by American author Herman Melville. Pequod and her crew, commanded by Captain Ahab, are central to the story, which, after the initial chapters, takes place almost entirely aboard the ship during a three-year whaling expedition in the Atlantic, Indian and South Pacific oceans. Most of the characters in the novel are part of Pequod's crew.
Black Hearts in Battersea is a children's novel by Joan Aiken first published in 1964. The second book in the Wolves Chronicles, it is loosely a sequel to her earlier Wolves of Willoughby Chase. The book is set in a slightly altered historical England—during the reign of King James III—in the early 19th century, and follows the adventures of Simon, an orphan whose plans to study painting in London are derailed by high adventure. Aiken was inspired to create an atmosphere of important events having already transpired offstage, and also included an involved "Dickensian plot" which she believed to complement the habit many children have of rereading or having a book reread to them.
In some versions of Arthurian legend, Lynette is a haughty noble lady who travels to King Arthur's court seeking help for her beautiful sister Lyonesse, whose lands are besieged by the Red Knight. The young Gareth picks up the quest, eventually marrying Lyonesse, while Lynette becomes the lady of his brother Gaheris.
Is, known in the United States as Is Underground, first published in 1992, is the eighth book in the series of novels by Joan Aiken normally called the Wolves Chronicles and sometimes the James III sequence. Where previous books have followed the characters Bonny, Sylvia, Simon, and the street-urchin Dido Twite, this marks the first appearance of Dido's sister, Is Twite, as the protagonist. The story follows Is from London to the fictional town of Blastburn in the north of England, in her quest to discover the mystery behind the disappearance of many London children and to track down two missing boys in particular. Like the rest of the books in this series, Is takes place in an alternative history version of the early nineteenth century and has elements of steampunk and magical realism.
Ginevra King Pirie was an American socialite and heiress. As one of the self-proclaimed "Big Four" debutantes of Chicago during World War I, King inspired many characters in the novels and short stories of Jazz Age writer F. Scott Fitzgerald; in particular, the character of Daisy Buchanan in The Great Gatsby. A 16-year-old King met an 18-year-old Fitzgerald at a sledding party in Saint Paul, Minnesota, and they shared a passionate romance from 1915 to 1917.
The Nantucket series is a set of alternate history novels written by S. M. Stirling.
Mary Wolverston, Lady Killigrew, was a gentlewoman from Suffolk, married into an ancient Cornish family, who was accused of piracy during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558-1603).
Nightbirds on Nantucket is a children's novel by Joan Aiken, first published in 1966. Taking place in an alternate history, the story presents the further adventures of Dido Twite, an eleven-year-old Victorian tomboy, aboard a whaling ship and in Nantucket.
The Cuckoo Tree is a children's novel by Joan Aiken, first published in 1971. Taking place in an alternate history, the story presents the further adventures of Dido Twite, a teenage Victorian tomboy, in southern England. The novel is chronologically the fifth of the Wolves Chronicles, a series of books set in a fictional 19th century in which the Stuart kings had not been ousted by William of Orange; a key plot driver is the efforts of "Hanoverians" to overthrow "King James III" and his heirs. The Cuckoo Tree was published before its prequel, The Stolen Lake. 'The Cuckoo Tree' is also a sequel to 'The Whispering Mountain', with Captain Hughes of HMS 'Thrush', eventually reunited with his son, Owen, the hero of the previous book, who takes part in the coronation, but is otherwise only briefly mentioned in 'The Cuckoo Tree'.
The Story of King Arthur and His Knights is a 1903 children's novel by the American illustrator and writer Howard Pyle. The book contains a compilation of various stories, adapted by Pyle, regarding the legendary King Arthur of Britain and select Knights of the Round Table. Pyle's novel begins with Arthur in his youth and continues through numerous tales of bravery, romance, battle, and knighthood.
Eneide is a seven-episode 1971–1972 Italian television drama, adapted by Franco Rossi from Virgil's epic poem the Aeneid. It stars Giulio Brogi as Aeneas and Olga Karlatos as Dido, and also stars Alessandro Haber, Andrea Giordana and Marilù Tolo. RAI originally broadcast the hour-long episodes from 19 December 1971 to 30 January 1972. A shorter theatrical version was released in 1974 as Le avventure di Enea.
