Bristow does "a grand job of storytelling" (the New York Times) in this
memorable novel of the late eighteenth-century pioneers who settled the
Louisiana wilderness, establishing a civilization of charm, luxury, and
tragic injustice For his service in the king's army during the French
and Indian War, Judith Sheramy's father, a Puritan New Englander, is
granted a parcel of land in far-off Louisiana. As the family ventures
down the Mississippi to make a new home in the wilderness, Judith meets
Philip Larne, an adventurer who travels in the finest clothes Judith has
ever seen. He is a rogue, a killer, and a thief-and the first thing he
steals is Judith's heart. Three thousand acres of untamed jungle,
overrun with jaguars, Indians, and pirates, wait for Philip in
Louisiana. He and Judith will struggle with their stormy marriage and
the challenges of the American Revolution as they strive to build an
empire for future generations. This is the first novel in Gwen Bristow's
Plantation Trilogy, which also includes The Handsome Road and This Side
of Glory. "A tremendously vital and exciting story of the founding of a
colonial dynasty." -The New York Times "Bristow has the true gift of
storytelling." -Chicago Tribune Gwen Bristow (1903-1980), the author of
seven bestselling historical novels that bring to life momentous events
in American history, such as the siege of Charleston during the American
Revolution (Celia Garth) and the great California gold rush (Calico
Palace), was born in South Carolina, where the Bristow family had
settled in the seventeenth century. After graduating from Judson College
in Alabama and attending the Columbia School of Journalism, Bristow
worked as a reporter for New Orleans' Times-Picayune from 1925 to 1934.
Through her husband, screenwriter Bruce Manning, she developed an
interest in longer forms of writing-novels and screenplays. After
Bristow moved to Hollywood, her literary career took off with the
publication of Deep Summer, the first novel in a trilogy of
Louisiana-set historical novels, which also includes The Handsome Road
and This Side of Glory. Bristow continued to write about the American
South and explored the settling of the American West in her bestselling
novels Jubilee Trail, which was made into a film in 1954, and in her
only work of nonfiction, Golden Dreams. Her novel Tomorrow Is Forever
also became a film, starring Claudette Colbert, Orson Welles, and
Natalie Wood, in 1946.
