Originally published in 1861, this early work by Charles Reade is both expensive and hard to find in its first edition. It tells the story of a young scribe’s travels through Europe and deals with conflicts between family life and the church. This is a fascinating work and thoroughly recommended for anyone interested in historical English literature. Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Towards the close of the last century the Baron de Beaurepaire lived in the chateau of that name in Brittany. His family was of prodigious antiquity; seven successive barons had already flourished on this spot when a younger son of the house accompanied his neighbor the Duke of Normandy in his descent on England, and was rewarded by a grant of English land, on which he dug a mote and built a chateau, and called it Beaurepaire (the worthy Saxons turned this into Borreper without delay). Since that day more than twenty gentlemen of the same lineage had held in turn the original chateau and lands, and handed them down to their present lord.

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ABOUT the middle of the last century, at eight o\'clock in the evening, in a large but poor apartment, a man was slumbering on a rough couch. His rusty and worn suit of black was of a piece with his uncarpeted room, the deal table of home manufacture, and its slim unsnuffed candle. The man was Triplet, scene painter, actor and writer of sanguinary plays, in which what ought to be, viz., truth, plot, situation and dialogue, were not; and what ought not to be, were—scilicet, small talk, big talk, fops, ruffians, and ghosts. His three mediocrities fell so short of one talent that he was sometimes impransus.