11 h 32 minAudiobook13 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 11 h 32 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
In colonial Virginia, keeping your word is a matter of honor—and trusting someone can be a matter of survival.
Mary Johnston’s The Old Dominion places honor, betrayal, and survival in a colony shaped by danger. English settlers live along tidal rivers, with forest behind them and the ocean as their only road home. Here, people depend on one another for safety, and loyalty carries real weight.
Johnston explores the pull between duty and conscience in a world where a gentleman must keep his word, defend his name, and stand by his friends. Her historical romance brings vivid action, strong feeling, and formal speech to early Virginia. The setting shapes the choices, while betrayal tests the bonds that help people survive.
What you’ll discover
- A colony edged by wilderness Enter a Virginia of tidal rivers, forests, and an ocean separating settlers from home.
- The demands of honor Explore a world where keeping promises and defending a name place heavy demands on people.
- Trust under pressure Consider what betrayal means when people rely on each other for their safety.
- Duty against conscience Follow the tension between what loyalty requires and what conscience asks.
- History with strong feeling Experience Johnston’s historical romance through vivid action, heightened drama, and a strong sense of place.
Who will love it
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.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A Sloop Brings a Convict
- A Man Who Stares Too Long
- Dinner, Duty, and a Breaking Heart
- A Whisper in the Tobacco
- A Conspiracy in the Marsh
- A Blow, a Whipping, and a Vow
- Murder in the Marsh
- A Storm, a Wreck, and a Face
- What the Story Is Really About
- How the Story Is Told
Who’s who
- Godfrey LandlessA proud Commonwealth veteran, sold into bondage as a convict he says he is not, who wants freedom and honor.
- Patricia VerneyThe spoiled, beautiful daughter of a Virginia planter, who fears the convict's gaze and must learn what he is worth.
- Sir Charles CarewA witty courtier from Whitehall who wants Patricia's hand and her father's fortune, and enjoys tormenting the convict.
- Colonel Richard VerneyThe jovial, land-hungry master of Verney Manor, a councilor and friend of the Governor, who wants a great family estate.
- Robert GodwynA lame net mender and former scholar who plans a republic in Virginia and chooses Landless as his lieutenant.
- Betty CarringtonPatricia's gentle, serious friend, the Surveyor-General's daughter, who pities servants and Indians.
- Luiz SebastianA smooth-tongued mulatto from the Indies who joins the plot but follows a darker plan of his own.
- MonakatockaA Susquehannock captive whose life Landless saves, and who promises never to forget a friend.
Formats and delivery
- eBook
- On your phone, tablet, computer or Kindle, with the type as large as you like.
- Large-print eBook
- The same book in bigger, clearer type, from the first page.
- Audiobook
- 11 h 32 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 13 minutes, to read or to hear.
- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
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El Antiguo Dominio
A convict with a gentleman's pride is sold to a Virginia planter, and his master's daughter cannot bear his gaze.
Medium level10–20 hours to read25 languages
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In short
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.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
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.
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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.
The author
Mary Johnston
1870–1936 · American novelist and suffragist
American novelist and women's rights advocate.
More by Mary Johnston
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