Fiction
by Eloisle Lownsbery
Jean D'Orbais was born under the shadow of Reims Cathedral. From his earliest childhood he sees it growing in beauty through the efforts of the master craftsmen who are at work on it. When he is ten years old, he is apprenticed to a goldsmith, and begins his education in the arts. The story of his career, his escapades, his ambitions, and his final success, is enthralling. But it is not Jean alone who interests us. Through his eyes the child sees the bustling town of Reims in the fourteenth century, with its crafts and guilds, its merchants and its beggars, its nobles and its soldiers. He hears too of the Maid of Orleans, and her fight for France.
Miss Lownsbery combines historic truth and accuracy with an interesting and living story. No textbook would give a child so vivid a picture as this does, and few other stories will so completely capture their imagination.
Hardcover, size 8.25" x 5.75",
by Howard Pyle
Written and illustrated in 1903, at the height of children’s literature, these books have inspired generations to greatness of thought and the acquisition of true virtue. The first book in this four volume series for children focuses on the tale of the future King Arthur and how he came to win his famous sword and to create his round table.
Give your children a vision of a world in which virtue and beauty matters and these truths will stay with them for their entire lives!
Paperback, size 10" x 7", 313 pages
Part VI
by Fr Owen Francis Dudley
In the fictional novel Fr Dudley provides us with a character study of Gordon Tremayne.
Fr. Dudley writes in the notes of this book “we are apt, rather smugly I think, to place certain characters beyond redemption. My choice of Gordon Tremayne has been deliberate, for the reason that humanly he seemed unredeemable. In the event he proved otherwise - owing to the monk acting on the principle of the potentially reclaimable deep down. The Gordon Tremaynes of this world are not uncommon, whose cruelties cry to heaven for vengeance, and yet remain untouched by law. Beyond human reach they may be, but not beyond reach of the Divine.”
Hardcover, size 7.75" x 5.25", 333 pages
by Msgr Robert Hugh Benson
Come Rack, Come Rope is one of Robert Hugh Benson’s best-known novels. Based on true events and individuals in the time of the Elizabethan persecution of Catholics in England, it centers on Robin and Marjorie, who give up their love for another and hope of marriage in order to minister to their persecuted neighbours.
Masterfully weaving the historical source material with his own creative additions, Benson presents an unflinchingly truthful portrayal of the terror of those times along with an achingly beautiful depiction of true faith.
Paperback, size 8.5" x 5.5", 330 pages
By Rev. Henry S. Spalding SJ
After spending four years boarding with the Blakestone family during his medical studies, Dr. Murt is thrilled to finally return the favour by inviting young Walter to come and stay with him in Nebraska for a few months. Walter learns to hunt ducks and geese, trap muskrats, and most of all, he gains a new appreciation for the beauty of nature and its ways. But even in this idyllic setting, something is not quite right. What plagues the Dobbs family, and can Dr. Murt help dispel this shadow with Walter’s help?
Suggested Age Range:9-12
Suggested Age Range:13-15
Paperback, 5.5" x 8.5", 174 pages
by G.K. Chesterton
When two men decide to fight for their respective beliefs, they discover to their astonishment that an unbelieving world won’t let them, and they find themselves partners and fugitives from the law in this steampunk satire.
Penned by G.K. Chesterton in 1909, this whimsical and biting novel eerily foreshadows a world in which “tolerance” is the only god and all those who believe ideas are worth dying for are forced to stand together to defend freedom of speech and belief.
Paperback, 272 pages
Part III
by Fr Owen Francis Dudley
Although it is a stand-alone work, it has four of the characters from The Shadow on the Earth. Fr. Dudley endeavours to meet the modern attack upon man and his moral nature launched by those who would degrade him to the level of an animal. Julian Verrers in this tale is neither a literary affectation nor an exaggeration. He is a spokesman delivering faithfully the ideas of certain materialistic scientists, philosophers and leaders of thought.
Temptations of materialism were never stronger than they are today, yet here they are embodied in a novel reprinted from the 1945 edition!
Hardcover, size 7.75" x 5.25", 314 pages
by Br. Charles Madden OFM, Conv.
56 years of marriage and 11 children. The Maddens of Baltimore will surprise you, comfort you, make you laugh until you cry, and make you cry until you laugh again! From games of “pitch” to petty thievery, from over-zealous confessions to exacerbating obedience, there is truly never a dull moment!
But these true stories about a real family, as told by the youngest brother, are much more than just a collection of humor. Together, they weave a tapestry about family life—the way it should be lived and enjoyed. The virtues and the vices, the laughter and the frustration, the happiness and the mourning, the prosperity and the poverty: the family is the first school of love.
Paperback, size 8.25" x 5.25", 111 pages
by Msgr Robert Hugh Benson
Robert Hugh Benson (1871 - 1914) was the youngest son of the Archbishop of Canterbury. After college Benson was ordained as a priest in the Church of England. While on a trip to the Middle East, Benson began doubting the Church of England and eventually joined the Community of the Resurrection. In 1903 he became a Roman Catholic. In 1904 he was ordained as a priest.
This book is an account of a trip to the healing area known as Lourdes. The author describes his first sight of Lourdes "The first sign of sanctity that we saw, as we came out at the end of a street, was the mass of churches built on the rising ground above the river. Imagine first a great oval of open ground, perhaps two hundred by three hundred yards in area, crowded now with groups as busy as ants, partly embraced by two long white curving arms of masonry rising steadily to their junction; at the point on this side where the ends should meet if they were prolonged, stands a white stone image of Our Lady upon a pedestal, crowned, and half surrounded from beneath by some kind of metallic garland arching upward. At the farther end the two curves of masonry of which I have spoken, rising all the way by steps, meet upon a terrace. This terrace is, so to speak, the centre of gravity of the whole."
Paperback, size 9.5" x 7.5", 60 pages
by Msgr Robert Hugh Benson
By What Authority? is Robert Hugh Benson's (1871-1914) first published historical novel. In it he portrays the story of the English Reformation in Elizabethan times from the Catholic point of view. This he achieved without the use of the stereotypes that characterized virtually all such productions in his day to the detriment of both sides of the question.
Travel across the English countryside hunting for priests; then find yourself in the Queen's court. During the Protestant Reformation, Catholics suffered terribly - families were divided; people jailed; priests were hunted down and killed; neighbour turned against neighbour. But through it all, the few priests that remained were able to sustain and convert many. The tale told in this book is one of suspense, deceit, loyalty, martyrdom, truth and conversion.
Paperback, size 8.5" x 5.5", 560 pages
by Msgr Robert Hugh Benson
A novel in which an apostate priest (on his deathbed) slips into a coma and is given the grace to see the world in a different light; a world in which Christ reigns Supreme. Through this revelation, he discovers the abundant errors of Modernism - the very errors that had led him from the Catholic Faith. A stunning blueprint for the Social Kingship of Christ. A must read for our times.
Paperback, size 8.5" x 5.5", 268 pages
Problems of Human Happiness
Part IV
by Fr Owen Francis Dudley
In this book, Fr. Dudley endeavors to present an antithesis to that modern cowardice which manifests itself in the vogue for the vague and non-committal; the convenient dilettantism which questions everything, holds nothing, and funks the hard fact of truth. Reprint from 1946 edition.
Hardcover, size 7.75" x 5.25", 343 pages
by Msgr Robert Hugh Benson
This edition features a foreword by Benson scholar Michael D. Greaney.
Paperback, size 8.5" x 5.5", 340 pages
The Holy Blissful Martyr
by Msgr Robert Hugh Benson
This edition features an in-depth foreword by Benson scholar Michael D. Greaney
Paperback, size 8.5" x 5.5", 132 pages
by Msgr Robert Hugh Benson
The second of Robert Hugh Benson's "mainstream" novels, None Other Gods may be the author's least appreciated effort. Compared to Benson's more sensational works such as Lord of the World and Come Rack! Come Rope!, this novel reflects gentler, if more profound satire. None Other Gods relates the story of Frank Guiseley, a young man who drops out of college and tries to force God to instruct him personally on what God wants him to do. People of all faiths can appreciate the growing frustration and bafflement Frank experiences until he finally stops trying to make God listen to him, and starts listening to God.
Paperback, size 8.5" x 5.5", 312 pages
by Msgr Robert Hugh Benson
Mixing such seemingly incongruous elements as social satire, near-slapstick, and obsession with death, A Winnowing, first published in 1910, is the first of Robert Hugh Benson's "mainstream novels." An undeservedly overlooked work today, the novel flays Edwardian society in terms that bring to mind the comedy of P. G. Wodehouse, and the black humor of Evelyn Waugh. The influence of A Winnowing is evident in Evelyn Waugh's take on the funeral industry in Southern California (The Loved One: An Anglo-American Tragedy).
This edition features a foreword by Benson scholar Michael D. Greaney.
Paperback, size 8.5" x 5.5", 224 pages
by Msgr Robert Hugh Benson
The word of the Lord comes to the hermit Richard Raynal, calling him to deliver a single message of dire importance to the king. Forsaking his idyllic solitude, Richard journeys to Westminster to convey the contents of his mystical vision to the king and then prepare him for his passion and death. His errand is seen as highly suspect by the king’s men, who subject the saintly solitary to brutal and devious torments of body, mind, and soul in hope of arresting his mission. To the bitter end, Richard must remain steadfast in his trust in God and his fealty to the king.
Cleverly fashioned (in keeping with the literary tricks of the time) as a translation of a newly discovered manuscript, The History of Richard Raynal, Solitary, was Benson’s personal favorite of his many books. In the words of Evelyn Waugh, the story was “the expression of his earliest dream—the recluse with the single, vital message.” Even to this day, “it still has the charm of that fresh enthusiasm.”
Paperback, size 8" x 5", 180 pages
The Mass of Brother Michel
by Michael Kent
The Mass of Brother Michel, set in the tranquil countryside of southern France during the Reformation, is the story of a young man who “has it all”—until a fateful series of events leads him to a monastery. As Huguenot violence mounts, the characters of the story are pushed to extremes of hatred and love. The reader is swept along by a narrative as twisting and turbulent as a mountain stream, which culminates in a sovereign sacrifice as unforgettable as it was unforeseen. This is a story that shows with utter vividness the power of romantic love to cripple and deform, the power of suffering to undermine illusions and induce the labor of self-discovery, the power of prayer to reassemble the shards of the shattered image of God in the soul, and the power of the priest as the divine Physician’s privileged instrument.
At the center of the novel is the awesome mystery, scandal, consolation, and provocation of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. To it some of the characters are irresistibly drawn; against it, others are violently arrayed. Here is a passionately told tale of their inner struggle and outward confrontation. No reader will fail to be astonished at its outcome and touched by its inspiring and miraculous climax.
Paperback, size 8" x 5", 286 pages
Also available in Hardcover on request (additional cost)
The Possession and Exorcism of Five Contemporary Americans
by Malachi Martin
One On One With Satan. A chilling and highly convincing account of possession and exorcism in modern America, hailed by NBC Radio as "one of the most stirring books on the contemporary scene."
Paperback, size 8" x 5.3", 512 pages
By Eric P. Kelly
“I swear on my honor as a Pole, as a servant of the King of the Polish people, that I will faithfully and unto the death, if there be need, sound upon the trumpet the Heynal in honor of Our Lady each hour in the tower of the church which bears Her Name.”
From the tower of Krakow’s Church of Our Lady Mary, a trumpet sounds each hour, in faithful fulfillment of this solemn oath. More than a timekeeper, the trumpeter is also a vigilant guardian, watching for enemies, riots, and fires—anything that might threaten the safety of the city.
In 1461, young Joseph Charnetski comes to Krakow with his father and mother. In their keeping is the Great Tarnov Crystal. Bogdan Grozny, a Tartar chieftain, is determined to seize this treasure for himself. Nor is he alone: a ruthless alchemist also seeks the stone, believing it to be the key to the secrets of life.
Learning from his father the story and the skills of the trumpeter of Krakow, Joseph prepares for the moment when he might bear the sentinel’s duty. When that moment comes, Joseph must risk danger and even death to deliver his family and the city from the dark messengers of evil and the raging fires of destruction.
A story of excitement and mystery, beautifully decorated by Janina Domanska, Eric P. Kelly’s The Trumpeter of Krakow makes crystal clear the truth that where courage, honour, and sacrifice are found, there too is adventure.
Hardcover, 9.25" x 6.25", 240 pages