In 1581 the old Templar chapel at Shalford in Berkshire gave up its secret to the hidden Key. Eighty years later the relic found its way from England to the new Province of Maryland packed among the belongings of the Gentleman Adventurer, George Yate. Before he even set foot on his new lands his companions began dying. Were they victims of the rebels who were attacking the government George served? Or common thieves and villains? Or agents of mysterious powers willing to kill anyone to regain control of The Key? The Gentleman Adventurer is a five star rated historical thriller, a first class mystery, and the true love story of two of America's early Colonists.

No traveler to date has matched the intrepid 19th-century gentleman for his bravery, derring-do, and ability to make a perfect cup of tea in the most malarial of climes. But the sun has set on the golden age of exploration, and the records of these fearless, mustachioed adventurers have vanished from the shelves. In their place have appeared timorous travel guides written by authors who could hardly locate Rhodesia on a classroom globe let alone comment on the proper etiquette of an Italian duel. Now, with the publication of Vic Darkwood's How to Make Friends and Oppress People, at long last today's aspiring adventurers can avail themselves of the best of classic travel advice on such invaluable topics as: -Using Anthills as Ovens -Hunting Elephants and Hippos with a Javelin -Sleeping on a Billiard Table as a Means of Avoiding Vermin -Digging a Well with a Pointy Stick Fully illustrated with over 150 drawings and woodcuts, this inestimable collection of wisdom drawn from actual 19th- and early 20th-century guidebooks will prove essential to any traveler looking to enjoy his excursion abroad or hoping to avoid death at the hands of inhospitable natives.

When the British Government asked Harry Delamere to courier a secret document from Constantinople to Paris on the Orient Express, it seemed such a simple way to cover a couple of months' rent and some outstanding bills; pleasant, even. But somebody knows a lot more than he does, nobody trusts him, and pretty much everybody's trying to kill him.All the glamour of the Orient Express, melodrama, excitement, sinister foreign gentlemen, exotic foreign ladies, bandits, revolutionaries, assassins, other exotic foreign ladies, interruptions to the regular timetable, disguises, explosions, outrages, breath-taking escapes from death and an unfortunate incident in a Viennese lavatory.Yes indeed, ladies and gentlemen, following the highly-regarded entertainment of 'Death and the Dreadnought' (the one with the burlesque dancer and the duck pâté sandwich, though not at the same time) it's another extract from the memoirs of Sir Henry Delamere, and another he could have well done without.

In 1930 a sixteen-year-old boy left England to become one of the last of the ‘gentlemen adventurers’ – the fur traders of the Hudson’s Bay Company. In the Arctic he found adventure, love and loss as he came to grips with Eskimo life. Beautifully written, inspiring and funny, this is a boy’s own story that captures a world that is lost forever.

At 16, Maurice impulsively signed up with the Hudson's Bay Company and was sent to an isolated trading post in the Canadian Arctic, where he immersed himself in the Inuit people's culture and way of life. Through deadly epidemics and the struggle to survive, the young man from England came of age.

#1 SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE BESTSELLER • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE “A picaresque, swashbuckling adventure.”—The Washington Post Book World They’re an odd pair, to be sure: pale, rail-thin, black-clad Zelikman, a moody, itinerant physician fond of jaunty headgear, and ex-soldier Amram, a gray-haired giant of a man as quick with a razor-tongued witticism as with a sharpened battle-ax. Brothers under the skin, comrades in arms, they make their rootless way through the Caucasus Mountains, circa a.d. 950, living as they please and surviving however they can—as blades and thieves for hire and as practiced bamboozlers, cheerfully separating the gullible from their money. But when they are dragooned into service as escorts and defenders to a prince of the Khazar Empire, they soon find themselves the half-willing generals in a full-scale revolution—on a road paved with warriors and whores, evil emperors and extraordinary elephants, secrets, swordplay, and such stuff as the grandest adventures are made of. Praise for Gentlemen of the Road “Within a few pages I was happily tangled in [Chabon’s] net of finely filigreed language, seduced by an old-school-style swashbuckling quest . . . laced with surprises and humor.”—San Francisco Chronicle “[Chabon] is probably the premiere prose stylist—the Updike—of his generation.”—Time “The action is intricate and exuberant. . . . It’s hard to resist its gathering momentum, not to mention the sheer headlong pleasure of Chabon’s language.”—The New York Times Book Review “[A] wild, wild adventure . . . abounds with lush language . . . This book roars to be read aloud.”—Chicago Sun-Times