Moonfleet by John Meade Falkner

Moonfleet by John Meade Falkner

Orphaned John Trenchard grows up in the village of Moonfleet with his aunt, entranced by the local legend of the ghostly Blackbeard, who rises each winter night to search for his lost diamond.

John Meade Falkner's tale of smuggling, a cursed diamond, revenge, ghosts, a secret code, wrongful imprisonment and great sacrificeIt calls for comparison with The Three Musketeers, Treasure Island, Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth, H. Rider Haggard's King Solomon's Mines, Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World and Edgar Rice Burroughs's Tarzan of the Apes. A novel of claustrophobic darkness, storm-wracked seas and wild romantic landscapes, it sweeps the reader irresistibly along, like the deadly undertow at Moonfleet Beach * Washington Post *
A ripping yarn...a wonderful story of smuggling and skulduggery * Independent *
This one of the great adventure stories for young people, perhaps even more enjoyable than Treasure Island * Observer *
It's a Victorian adventure story about the 18th century; about an orphan boy who becomes involved with smugglers and with one particular mentor figure - the grim old Elzevir Block. It is beautifully written and astonishingly vivid: you live alongside the boy trapped in a tomb, escaping along a cliff track, let down a deep well by a villain to find a lost diamond, fleeing to the Hague, being duped, arrested, put in a prison camp for years, transported to Java, shipwrecked at last on his own home beach -- Libby Purves
A tale of smuggling and diamonds and winter storms, all set around a fictional village on the edge of Chesil Beach. In Faulkner's book, as in Ian McEwan's, the beach takes on a character of its own and the final scene, with its fearsome storm and its smugglers and crashing timbers, is as much about the beach as the characters. * Mail on Sunday *

John Meade Falkner was born in Wiltshire in 1858. He worked as a teacher at Derby school, and climbed through the ranks of a large Newcastle arms manufacturer to become its director in 1901, after working for the company founder as his family's tutor for many years. After retiring in 1926, Falkner became honorary librarian to the dean and chapter of Durham Cathedral. He wrote three novels including Moonfleet (1898), as well as publishing a volume of poetry (Poems, 1933) and a pocket history of Oxfordshire. J. Meade Falkner died on July 22, 1932.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780099541127
ISBN 10	0099541122
Title	Moonfleet
Author	John Meade Falkner
Series	Vintage Classics Ser
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Vintage Publishing
Year published	2011-02-03
Number of pages	272
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.