Young Gervaise Tresham leaves England and the turmoil of the Wars of the Roses to become a Knight of St. John. Starting as a page of the Grand Master, Gervaise quickly attains knighthood and defends Europe and Christendom against the anarchy of piracy in the Mediterranean at that time and the expansion of the Turkish empire. Sir Tresham is there to defend the fortress at Rhodes during the first siege of that city by Soleiman.
Edward Sylvester Ellis was born in 1840. He attended the state normal school in New Jersey, became a teacher in Trenton, and later went on to become a school principal and superintendent of schools. In 1860 he published his most successful book, Seth Jones, or the Captive of the Frontier. Eventually he gave up his career in education to concentrate on writing.
In 1874 and 1875 he served as editor of Public Opinion, a Trenton daily. From 1878 to 1881 he was editor of Golden Days and in 1891 was editor of Holiday. Both were magazines for children.
Edward Ellis specialized in boys stories, inspirational biography, and history for both children and adults. Because he wrote under several pseudonyms, it is virtually impossible to know just exactly how many books Mr. Ellis wrote.
Edward Ellis died in 1916 at the age of 76.