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Title: Oliver Wiswell by Kenneth Lewis Roberts ISBN: 0-89272-468-4 Publisher: Down East Books Pub. Date: May, 1999 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.36 (14 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Excellent, Enjoyable, American Revolution Account
Comment: Story of the American Revolution from the Tory point of view. Very unsettling to those who believe our founding fathers were perfect politicians. Read about Ben Franklin's interesting affairs, about how John Hancock wanted the revolution as Harvard was about to indict him for embezzling funds. Learn how the British in America really did not want to win the war as it would make their political English counterparts look good. Very true accounts - Roberts is one of the best historians. His fictional characters are funny, real, and make for a good history lesson.
Rating: 5
Summary: a tremendous historical novel
Comment: Wow. I wish I could give this book six stars. I wish I could demote every five-star rating I've given to a book or a CD or a DVD so that I could give OLIVER WISWELL a unique five-star rating, thus marking its place as one of the best books I've ever read, period. Reading this book was an epiphany. Having an undergraduate history minor, and having taken courses in historiography, I was used to the idea of reading history while keeping in mind that it was written by the victors and by people with their own agendas; but never has that principle been so real, and so vivid, as in the reading of this book. In all my years of school I never learned so much about the Revolutionary War, never cared so much about the war, and never read a book that made me want to visit New Brunswick, Canada.
The novel begins in April 1775, when the protagonist is ejected from his home by American rebels, and ends in 1783, when the war has ended and he and other Loyalists leave their home country to establish roots in Canada. In between, the author manages to have Oliver plausibly meeting some of the most interesting characters involved (General Howe, John Vardill, John Cruger, etc) and at the scene of many of the war's most interesting events (the Battle of Bunker (Breed's) Hill, the rebels' surrender of New York, the intrigue-ridden courts of Paris and London, the trek to Kentucky by fleeing Tories along Boone's Wilderness Trail, the siege of Ninety Six and Benedict Arnold's campaign in the south, and the Loyalists' post-war settlement in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Gibralter, Bermuda and the Bahamas). Furthermore, we become involved in the personal lives of several main characters: the young Mr. Wiswell, his resourceful and loyal friend Tom Buell, Sally Leighton -- the rebel girl Oliver leaves behind, and the irascible Mrs. Belcher Byles. In the course of the novel we come to have genuine affection for these characters.
I hated for this book to end. I teared up through the last ten pages, more fully comprehending the pain and torment of America's first civil war and more fully appreciating the suffering and loss of people on both sides of this horrible ordeal.
If you are willing to read 800+ pages you will be rewarded not only by a remarkable personal story, but you will undoubtedly know more about the Revolutionary War than you dreamed possible. Kenneth Roberts was a remarkable author.
Rating: 2
Summary: Oliver Wiswell
Comment: This book was perhaps one of the most boring I've ever read. The only redeeming quality of this book was that it's a great source of accurate information regarding both sides of the revolutionary war that you would not get from reading a textbook. However, the novel reads like a textbook, following a predictable series of historic facts. The love story in this book is hardly enough to keep someone interested. The side stories are bothersome and unnecessary. This book could have been compressed from the lengthy 783 pages, into a much more managable 300 pages. The wasted adjectives, similes, and series's make me wonder if Roberts had been paid by the word. I wouldn't read this book unless you were required to.
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Title: Arundel by Kenneth Roberts, N. C. Wyeth ISBN: 0892723645 Publisher: Down East Books Pub. Date: July, 1995 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: Rabble in Arms by Kenneth Roberts ISBN: 0892723866 Publisher: Down East Books Pub. Date: July, 1996 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
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Title: Northwest Passage by Kenneth Roberts ISBN: 0892725427 Publisher: Down East Books Pub. Date: November, 2001 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: The Lively Lady by Kenneth Lewis Roberts ISBN: 0892724250 Publisher: Down East Books Pub. Date: September, 1997 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: Captain Caution by Kenneth Lewis Roberts ISBN: 0892724676 Publisher: Down East Books Pub. Date: May, 1999 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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