This omnibus includes 3 of Conan Doyle's historical novels: 1) Micah Clarke (1889). A family patriarch relates all his life's adventures to his grandchildren; 2) The Refugees (1893). In Conan Doyle's own words, "I take a New Englander, a Puritan, as one type of the seventeenth century, and a New Yorker, the woodman, as another, and I precipitate these two into the court of Louis XIV, and mix them up in the European history of that time - very much as Scott threw Quentin Durward, the young Scotchman, into the French court. I have taken a lot of pains to make these two types exact studies. Then I shift the scene back to America. It will be something new in the way of an American historical novel. You see it will be the story of the two continents. The woodman will use the phrases of the wood, and the New Englander is rather Biblical." and 3) Rodney Stone (1896) is an historical novel about boxing during the Regency period, that curiously brings together Lord Nelson and the sport of boxing. Doyle had always been fond of boxing, had reveled in the history of the prize-ring, and in Rodney Stone his enthusiasm and knowledge are apparent.. As usual the action-episodes are first-rate; and as usual the historical personages are not an integral part of the story, but Doyle wanted to reconstruct an age, and so Nelson, the Prince Regent, Sheridan, Fox, Beau Brummell, and others, pop in and out of the pages for the sole purpose of creating a "period piece." Arthur Conan Doyle believed that this book was an important factor in the surge of interest in boxing after the turn of the century.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.