The Velvet Doublet

This book has been read, no wear to covers, very minor markinngs first inner page by previous owner. Spine intact, no creases. """This is a story of a man called Lepe. It is the story of a lifetime spent on the sea in the most dazzling years in all the history of navigation and discovery. It is the story of dark days spent under the shadow of the Spanish Inquisition; of bright hours of roistering and shining moments of love. But Lepe's story cannot be told without telling of another man -- a brave, arrogant, and determined visionary. That man is Christopher Columbus. The time is late in the fifteenth century, when the scimitar of Islam was across North Africa and the Moors still held Granada. Constantinople had fallen to the Turks, and Cathay, with its spices, its gold, and its aloes, lay like a locked treasure chest behind the embattled minarets of the East. Denied these riches, Europe waited for bread while the Holy-Orders fought for men's souls. The long bleak night was upon Europe, and a few men -- only a few -- turned their backs on the East and looked westward toward the Ocean Sea and the Unknown. Come with Lepe and his friends -- the hunchback called The Rabbit and Areos, the brawny muleteer -- to the seaports of the Mediterranean as they sail with the sagacious Pinzon. Follow them to Palos as they stand on the decks of a little vessel, the Pinta, that August morning and set sail on the great adventure. And watch while mutiny roars through the three tiny ships and the stubborn Columbus sails on, undaunted. And thrill with them when first Lepe sights the cliffs of San Salvador . . . only to be denied, by the temperamental Columbus, the coveted prize promised to the first man to see the New World . . . the Velvet Doublet. But their story doesn't end here. There is excitement and intrigue, rich good fortune and bitter tragedy, whirlwind passion and uncanny tricks of fate in store for you as you read Lepe's exciting account of the years when Columbus built an ocean bridge to the New World."" Good Reads" """James Howell Street (October 15, 1903 – September 28, 1954) was a U.S. journalist, minister, and writer of Southern historical novels. Street was born in Lumberton, Mississippi, in 1903. As a teenager, he began working as a journalist for newspapers in Laurel and Hattiesburg, Mississippi. At the age of 20, Street, born a Roman Catholic, decided to become a Baptist minister, attending Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and Howard College. Unsatisfied with his pastoral work after ministering stints in Missouri, Mississippi, and Alabama, Street returned to journalism in 1926. After briefly holding a position with the Pensacola, Florida Journal, Street joined the staff of the Associated Press. The AP position took him to New York, where he began freelance writing fiction. Hired away from the AP by the New York World-Telegram in 1937, Street sold a short story (""A Letter to the Editor"") to Cosmopolitan magazine, which caught the eye of film producer David Selznick, who turned it into a hit film, Nothing Sacred. The Broadway musical, Hazel Flagg, was based on his short story, as well as the Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis-film Living It Up. His success allowed him to write full-time, and throughout the 1940s he worked on a five-novel series of historical fiction about the progress of the Dabney family through the 19th century. The Dabney pentology--Oh, Promised Land, Tap Roots, By Valor and Arms, Tomorrow We Reap, and Mingo Dabney--explored classic Southern issues of race and honor, and strongly characterized Street's struggle to reconcile his Southern heritage with his feelings about racial injustice. The series was a critical and popular success, with several of the books being made into feature films. Street modeled characters in his Dabney family saga on Sam Dale, Newt Knight and Greenwood LeFlore. Street also published two popular novels about boys and dogs, The Biscuit Eater and Good-bye, My Lady, both were turned into movies, and a set of semi-autobiographical novels about a Baptist minister, The Gauntlet and The High Calling, both were bought by Hollywood but never produced. Street's short stories and articles appeared regularly in Cosmopolitan, The Saturday Evening Post, Collier's and Holiday. Street died of a heart attack, in Chapel Hill, N.C., on September 28, 1954, at the age of 50."" Good Reads"