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"AN EPIC OF THE WEST."
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The Girl at the Halfway House.
A Romance of the Plains. By E. HOUGH, author of "The Story of theCowboy." 12mo. Cloth, $1.50.
The author of "The Girl at the Halfway House," Mr. E. Hough, gained general recognition by his remarkable book, "The Story of the Cowboy," published by D. Appleton and Company in this country, and also published in England.
"The Girl at the Halfway House" has been called an American epic by critics who have read the manuscript. The author illustrates the strange life of the great westward movement which became so marked in this country after the civil war. A dramatic picture of a battlefield, which has been compared to scenes in "The Red Badge of Courage," opens the story. After this "Day of War," in which the hero and heroine first meet, there comes "The Day of the Buffalo." The reader follows the course of the hero and his friend, a picturesque old army veteran, to the frontier, then found on the Western plains. The author, than whom no one can speak with fuller knowledge, pictures the cowboy on his native range, the wild life of the buffalo hunters, the coming of the white-topped emigrant wagons, and the strange days of the early land booms. Into this new world comes the heroine, whose family finally settles near at hand, illustrating the curious phases of the formation of a prairie home. The third part of the story, called "The Day of the Cattle," sketches the wild days when the range cattle covered the plains and the cowboys owned the towns. The fourth part of the story is called "The Day of the Plow," and in this we find that the buffalo has passed from the adopted country of hero and heroine, and the era of towns and land booms has begun.
Nothing has been written on the opening of the West to excel this romance in epic quality, and its historic interest, as well as its freshness, vividness, and absorbing interest, should appeal to every American reader.
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A NEW HISTORICAL ROMANCE.
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Betsy Ross.
_A Romance of the Flag_. By CHAUNCEY C. HOTCHKISS, author of "InDefiance of the King," etc. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50.
"Betsy Ross" is a historical romance based upon the story of the maker of the first official American flag. Mrs. Ross was a charming young widow of but little more than twenty-three when she was commissioned to make the flag from a design submitted to her by Washington. Her husband had been killed by an accident at the Philadelphia arsenal within a few months after his marriage.
The romance which the author has woven around the origin of our flag will quicken the pulse of every reader by the wealth of striking characters and dramatic incidents, and the absorbing interest of the plot. History has furnished a motive which has been curiously neglected in fiction, and the picturesque figures of the time, sea-rangers and Quakers, redcoats and Continental soldiers, and even Washington himself, have to do with the development of a strange and thrilling story wherein Betsy Ross takes the leading part. The ancient tavern, the home of the Philadelphia merchant, the flag-maker's little shop, and the quaint and charming life of the time, are shown as the background of a series of swift incidents which hold the reader's attention. "Betsy Ross" is a book to be read, and the reader will recommend it.
The Betsy Ross of history was a singularly bright and winsome woman, and intensely patriotic. Mr. Hotchkiss's story has been confined to the romantic days of her early womanhood. The house in which the flag was completed, and in and about which most of the action of the novel takes place, still stands on Arch Street, Philadelphia, and the attempt to preserve it as one of the shrines connected with American history is meeting with deserved success. Mrs. Ross (afterward Mrs. Claypoole) died at the great age of ninety-three, and her remains lie in Mount Moriah Cemetery.
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D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK.
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