The Black Rose (novel)
First edition
|
|
| Author | Thomas B. Costain |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Historical Novel |
| Publisher | Doubleday, Doran & Co., Inc |
|
Publication date
|
1945 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover) |
| Pages | 208 |
| OCLC | 168057 |
| LC Class | PZ3.C8235 Bl 1945 |
The Black Rose is a 1945 historical novel by Thomas B. Costain. It is a fictional story set in the 13th century about a young Saxon who journeys to the far-away land of Cathay in search of fortune. Included in this narrative are several notable figures: Roger Bacon, Bayan Hundred Eyes, Edward I of England and his consort Eleanor of Castile. Costain also includes a passage depicting the building of a galere da mercato at the Venetian Arsenal in a single day.
Five years after its publication, 20th Century-Fox adapted it into a film of the same name starring Orson Welles, Tyrone Power, and Cécile Aubry.
In 1273 in England, Walter of Gurnie is a clerk (student) at medieval Oxford. The illegitimate son of the Norman nobleman Rauf of Bulaire, Earl of Lessford, he has been raised as a Saxon by his mother the Lady Hild and maternal grandfather Alfgar, a belted knight whose lands were confiscated after the Battle of Evesham and given to his bitter enemy, the drunkard lord of Tressling. Walter is in love with Tressling's beautiful daughter Engaine but is below her station. After participating in a student riot (led by new acquaintance Tristram Griffen, son of a fletcher and a chamber-deacon student himself) to rescue two fellow students from being hanged by the local watch, Walter attends a lecture by Friar Roger Bacon and is inspired to journey to the far-away semi-mythical land of Cathay. Walter and Tristram elude a hunt for them as leaders of the riot but Walter learns that his father has been killed by an arrow through the heart. The Countess of Bulaire, known as "the Norman woman" and the cause of Walter's illegitimacy when she married Rauf (thereby breaking his chivalric vow to Hild), has taken revenge by hanging six commoners without a trial while imprisoning their families.
...
Wikipedia