MAN FROM MT. VERNON

by Burke Boyce ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A

Here is a historical novel written with style and feeling. Surely one of the most difficult forms of fiction is the novel based on the life of a well-known historical figure. The very importance of the background often seems a handicap to the conscientious writer, and his original sources can overshadow the dramatic development of the work. Burke Boyce, the author of The Perilous Night, Miss Mallett, and Cloak of Folly, has avoided these pitfalls and produced a stirring, motivated story of the man who won the American Revolution, tracing his development from the time Congress gave him command of our forces until victory was in sight after the battle of Yorktown. Washington emerges as a man of enormous stature--passionate, fiery-tempered, indomitable, honest, and determined to live by his principles. The way he forges an army out of his ragged troops and his relations with his wife and stepson carry the reader along in a real desire to know what happens next and how. Several passages, such as the discovery of the treachery of Benedict Arnold and the execution of his personable British contact, Major Andre, are genuinely moving. The research certainly seems carefully done, but even if scholars should manage to quarrel with one or two details the reader will feel that if it didn't happen this way, it should have.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Harper

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1960

Categories: FICTION