The Velvet Doublet

Garden City: Doubleday, 1953. Hardcover_boards. Used - Near Fine/VeryGood. 5.75"x8.5". 317pp. BCE. Tan hard boards w/maroon letters to spine. Jacket design by Richard Cardiff. Map of Spain and Mediterranean Sea as paste downs. Deckled edge. Author photo on back of DJ by Editta Sherman. Burgundy top stained. Spine straight, binding tight, pages slight tone. Not x-library, unclipped, & unmarked. Light soiling and foxing to cover, in Brodart mylar. 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 me...

Source: Publisher.