Biographical stories
Explicitly or implicitly biographical
Style: Good
Attitude: Some Care Needed → Unobjectionable
Arthur Ransome is a young English journalist based in Russia during the Great War who is used by both sides to carry information and messages to and fro.
Well-crafted semi-biography of Arthur Ransome's life in Russia around the time of the Revolution. Accepted marital infidelity. Some description of the sexual excesses of Rasputin and others. Love for a country not one's own. Courage in crossing war-torn countries in difficult conditions.
Biographical, Historical, Romantic, War
Style: Good
Attitude: Positive
At the age of 4 Flora Gould (Gorrie) leaves Taiwan, where she was born to Canadian missionaries, to return with her family to Canada where she stays with her brothers and sisters until she is close to marrying.
Biographical, Family, Historical
Style: Good
Attitude: Positive
First of the autobiographical series about a Yorkshire vet's day-to- day happenings, ups and downs.
Animal, Biographical, Humorous
Style: Good
Attitude: Edifying
Juan is born into slavery in Seville, Spain in the early 1600s, and after the death of his mother when he is just five years old he becomes the pageboy of a wealthy Spanish lady, Emilia.
Based on what is known of the life and household of the Spanish painter Diego Velazquez, this is a sensitive fictional account of the life of Juan de Pareja, a black Spaniard and slave-cum-friend of the painter. Friendship, loyalty, mercy and generosity are beautifully illustrated, and issues of slavery and cruelty are explored with a modern understanding of their evil, but in a way that is not unbelievable in the story's context.
Biographical, Historical
Style: Good
Attitude: Positive
20th-century Eloise is told the story of Joan of Arc by an angel after she is bitterly disappointed not to have been chosen to play Joan in the town's celebrations, as she was not born in Orleans.
Sympathetic retailing of the story of a warrior saint.
Biographical, Historical, War
Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc
Style: Good
Attitude: Edifying
Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc is the remarkable story of the saint's life as told by the fictional Sieur Louis de Conté (whose initials match the author's), Joan's page and secretary, in the form of a memoir written in the twilight of life.
Biographical, Historical