Broadview Gift Packages contain thematically linked editions that are perfect for gift-giving—or for stocking your own library. Broadview staff have drawn together compelling combinations of some of our all-time favourites—and we’ve also included some works that we hope will become treasured new discoveries. They are delivered wrapped in brown paper and tied with twine: an elegant gift for anyone who loves books.
This gift package includes four tales of adventure: a selection of riveting stories placed alongside carefully selected contextual material to help address the wider, more complex questions these narratives pose.
The package includes four Broadview Editions:
The Autobiography of Ashley Bowen (1728-1813): The first American sailor known to write his own autobiography, Ashley Bowen remains a valuable storyteller who can speak to today’s readers about the maritime world in the age of sail. Ashley Bowen began his seafaring career at the age of eleven. After leaving the sea, Bowen spent the rest of his days as a ship-rigger in Marblehead, Massachusetts. A witness to significant historical events, including the British conquest of Canada and the American Revolution, Ashley Bowen confounds today’s audience with his eighteenth-century interpretation of events—an interpretation informed by his deeply religious beliefs and his suspicion of Yankee patriotism.
Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island (1883) has become a part of popular folklore. John Sutherland discusses the novel’s place in Stevenson’s biography and oeuvre in his learned and lively critical introduction to this new edition. Exploring the novel’s genesis in Stevenson’s “plundering” of other writers, his writer’s block, and the surprisingly disturbing and complex nature of what was meant to be a children’s story, Sutherland argues for the enduring vitality and appeal of Stevenson’s first novel.
H. Rider Haggard’s She (1886-87) is an imperial romance that follows its English heroes from the quiet rooms of Cambridge to the uncharted interior of Africa in search of a legendary lost city with an ageless white queen. The two men find their way to the ancient city of Kôr, where the beautiful and mysterious Ayesha, “She-who-must-be-obeyed,” rules. Despite her cruelty, both men become fascinated by Ayesha, who leads them on a harrowing journey to bathe in the underground “River of Life.” A thrilling “history of adventure,” She also reveals the complexity of Victorian attitudes towards race, gender, exploration, and empire.
Kim (1901) tells the story of Kimball O’Hara, an orphaned Irish boy growing up in late nineteenth-century India, and his quest for identity as he strives to reconcile his Western inheritance with the Indian life he has always known. This edition sets the novel in the context of the historical period and addresses Kipling’s ambivalent relationship with India, the Empire’s treatment of the “other” classes and races who worked to maintain the British presence in India, and the place of Kim in Kipling’s career as a writer.
Please note that additional discounts and/or Broadview coupon codes may not be applied to package orders.
