Zusammenfassung
Zusammenfassung von Die Alte Herrschaft
Für wen es gedacht ist
Readers who enjoy colonial America, Cavaliers and Roundheads, duels and sieges, forest chases and a romance that grows by degrees, and who like to see a proud outcast and a spoiled beauty each learn what the other is made of.
Worum es in diesem Buch geht
The Old Dominion is a historical novel by Mary Johnston, set in Virginia in 1663, a few years after the restoration of King Charles the Second. Johnston builds her story on the colony's real tensions: wealthy Cavalier planters, indentured servants, convicts shipped from Newgate, enslaved Africans, Indian nations pushed from their land, and old soldiers of Cromwell's army who have been sold into bondage.
The book opens on a bright morning at Verney Manor, a tobacco plantation on the Chesapeake. Patricia Verney waits for crates of fashionable clothes, while her cousin Sir Charles Carew, a courtier from Whitehall, plans to win her hand and her father's fortune. Among the new servants stepping off the boat is a convict whom Sir Charles has already tormented on the voyage. His name is Godfrey Landless.
What you get here is a story of honor, class, and love that runs from the plantation porch to a conspiracy in the marshes, a siege in the night, and a chase through the Blue Mountains. Let us begin with the meeting on the wharf, where a proud young servant first sees the lady of the manor.
In dieser Zusammenfassung
- 1A Sloop Brings a ConvictFree
- 2A Man Who Stares Too Long
- 3Dinner, Duty, and a Breaking Heart
- 4A Whisper in the Tobacco
- 5A Conspiracy in the Marsh
- 6A Blow, a Whipping, and a Vow
- 7Murder in the Marsh
- 8A Storm, a Wreck, and a Face
- 9What the Story Is Really About
- 10How the Story Is Told
Punkt 1 von 10
A Sloop Brings a Convict
The story opens in June 1663 on the porch of Verney Manor. Patricia Verney, a lovely and willful girl, watches a sloop crawl up the creek with three crates from England. Her cousin Sir Charles Carew lounges beside her. He has been in Virginia only a fortnight and is already counting how many hogsheads of tobacco it would take to clear his gambling debts.
Sir Charles tells her, with lazy cruelty, about a convict he watched on the ship that brought him over. The man had an air of better days and kept his rags clean. He would not answer a word, and he once defended another prisoner's honor. Sir Charles admits he enjoyed baiting him.
The sloop brings Colonel Richard Verney home from Jamestown with six enslaved Africans and three felons from Newgate. The colonel is a jovial planter, a councilor, and a friend of Governor Berkeley. The overseer Woodson reports on the crops, and we see how the plantation runs.
As the felons come up the wharf steps, the third man is the one Sir Charles described. The two recognize each other at once, and a quarrel that will shape the whole book is set in motion.
The opening chapters also set the world before us. Land and tobacco are wealth. Servants are bought and sold. The planters fear an uprising they say they do not expect.
That’s 1 of 10 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
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Questions about Die Alte Herrschaft
What is The Old Dominion about?
It tells of a Commonwealth veteran, Godfrey Landless, who is sold as a convict servant on a Virginia plantation in 1663. He falls in love with his master's daughter and is drawn into a plot to free the colony's servants.
When and where is The Old Dominion set?
The story is set in Virginia in 1663, soon after the Restoration of Charles the Second. It moves from a tobacco plantation on the Chesapeake Bay to Jamestown, an Indian village, and the Blue Mountains.
Is The Old Dominion based on a true story?
The people and plot are invented, but the setting is real. Governor Sir William Berkeley appears, along with the laws, plantation life, and the fear of servant uprisings that marked colonial Virginia in the 1660s.
Who is Landless and why is he a convict?
Godfrey Landless is the son of a Cromwellian colonel who fought at Worcester. He was sent to Virginia as a Newgate convict after a conviction he says was false, brought about by a powerful enemy.
Is The Old Dominion an easy book to read?
It is a romance of adventure with vivid scenes, short chapters, lively dialogue, and a clear plot. Duels, storms, sieges, and forest chases keep the story moving from the first chapter.