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Owls' House
Leather Binding on Spine and Corners with Golden Leaf Printing on round Spine (extra customization on request like complete leather, Golden Screen printing in Front, Color Leather, Colored book etc.) Reprinted in 2022 with the help of original edition published long back [1924]. This book is printed in black & white, sewing binding for longer life, Printed on high quality Paper, re-sized as per Current standards, professionally processed without changing its contents. As these are old books, we processed each page manually and make them readable but in some cases some pages which are blur or missing or black spots. If it is multi volume set, then it is only single volume, if you wish to order a specific or all the volumes you may contact us. We expect that you will understand our compulsion in these books. We found this book important for the readers who want to know more about our old treasure so we brought it back to the shelves. Hope you will like it and give your comments and suggestions. - English, Pages 408. EXTRA 10 DAYS APART FROM THE NORMAL SHIPPING PERIOD WILL BE REQUIRED FOR LEATHER BOUND BOOKS. COMPLETE LEATHER WILL COST YOU EXTRA US$ 25 APART FROM THE LEATHER BOUND BOOKS. {FOLIO EDITION IS ALSO AVAILABLE.} Complete The Owls' house, 1924 Garstin, Crosbie, -
Paperback
First published October 1, 1923
About the author
Crosbie Garstin
21 books3 followersCrosbie Garstin (7 May 1887 – disappeared 19 April 1930) was a poet, soldier, traveler, and novelist who died young. At an early age he left his native Cornwall to work in the gold fields and lumber camps of northern Canada and later as a ranger in British East Africa. He returned at the start of the Great War and took a commission in the cavalry. His writings, mainly poetry and memoirs of the front lines, began to appear after the war. His claim to literary fame came between the years 1923 and 1926 with the publication of his Penhales novels — "The Owls House", "High Noon", and "West Wind" — a trilogy of swashbuckling adventures that roamed the 18th century from Cornwall to the Caribbean.
With the success of his popular novels, Garstin bought a house in a valley southwest of Penzance, and there continued to write. In 1930, however, at the age of 42, a boat he was rowing overturned, and Crosbie Garstin was lost, presumed dead.
With the success of his popular novels, Garstin bought a house in a valley southwest of Penzance, and there continued to write. In 1930, however, at the age of 42, a boat he was rowing overturned, and Crosbie Garstin was lost, presumed dead.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
February 7, 2016
Crosbie Garstin was a Cornishman who lived a remarkable life.
He was born in Newlyn – my father’s home town – the son of an artist, late in the reign of Queen Victoria, he travelled the world, he fought in the Great War, and then he returned to Cornwall and published poetry and prose, before dying in a boating accident when he was just forty-tree years old.
His fiction is deeply rooted in his own experiences, and this book – the first of a trilogy – draws on both his adventures and his love of his Cornish home.
The story opens 1752, when John Penhale had just been told of an ultimatum in the will of his Aunt Selina: “Marry within the year or lose your inheritance.” John was the last of the Penhales, and had inherited the farm that tree generations before him had built up; and his aunt was proud of her family heritage and wanted that family to thrive and prosper.
He didn’t want to lose his aunt’s farm, further up the county, but he was reluctant to marry. John’s face was horrible scarred; the result of an accident with a shotgun. An attempt at matchmaking by his aunt some years earlier had ended in tragedy and he had retreated from the world, throwing himself into the management of his farm.
Fate took a hand before John had time to think about what he should do.
On his way home he had to fight off an attack by a highwayman; and when he reached home he found that he had been followed by a gypsy girl, who told him that as he had enabled her to escape from her cruel master she had come to serve him.
He tried to send her away but she wouldn’t go.
Teresa, who’d had the hardest of lives, saw the farm as a land of plenty and she loved living and working there. John’s scars didn’t bother her at all; she came from a world were men fought for dominance; that they had scars was a fact of life.
John loved her vitality, and the joy that she found in farm life.
Teresa found a chest of clothes in the attic, and she loved to dress up.
“He stepped nearer, peered round an oak, and saw a sight which made him stagger and swear himself bewitched. There was a marvellous lady dancing in the circlet, and as she danced she sang, twanging an accompaniment on a a little guitar.
She was dressed in a straight-laced bodice, stitched with silver and low cut, leaving her shoulders bare; flowing daffodil sleeves caught up at the elbows, and a cream-coloured skirt sprigged with blue flowers and propped out at the hips with monstrous farthingales. On her head she wore a lace fan-tail, but her feet were bare. She swept round and round in a circle, very slow and stately, swaying, turning, curtseying to the solemn audience of tress.
If not a sprite, where did she come from?
There was not her like in the parish ….”
That was the encounter that made all the difference. John and Teresa were married, they found themselves very well suited, and she bore him two sons.
I was swept away by their story; it was so very richly told and so very engaging. And Crosbie Garstin captured my part of Cornwall – the people, the places, the speech patterns, the way of life, everything – absolutely brilliantly. I couldn’t doubt for a moment that he loved his world, his story and the telling of it.
Now, you may have noticed similarities between this and the beginning of a more famous series of novels set in Cornwall. Yes, there are noticeable similarities, and I don’t doubt for a moment that Winston Graham read and was inspired by Crosbie Garstin, but this is a very different story.
I had been looking forward to following their story, but I found that this wasn’t their story.
It was the story of Ortho, the elder of their two sons.
John died suddenly; struck down in his prime.
Teresa was shattered. In time she found comfort in playing the grand lady, going to market and shopping, entertaining her admirers in the local hostelries. She didn’t realise how they saw her, and it was heart-breaking to watch the coarsening of one who had been such a vibrant young woman with so much promise.
Meanwhile her sons ran wild. Only their love of their home and the world around it stopped them going off the rails too.
Ortho fell in with gypsy horse traders, and with local smugglers.
His brother, Eli, had a very different temperament. He was more thoughtful, and when his brother went out to look for practical solutions to their problems he looked for answers in books. They worked together well, managing their mother and managing the farm.
Ortho wanted more though. He wanted adventure. He wanted to see the world.
He got his wish. He fled from a raid on local smugglers and he fell into the hands of corsairs and was taken to be sold into slavery.
He had such adventures – as a slave, as a soldier, as a spy, as a sailor – before he made his way home again.
That story was very bit as vivid, every bit as real, as the story back in Cornwall.
It was a wonderful, swash-buckling story, but it is not without problems. some of the secondary character are a little stereo-typed and there are a few comments – about race and about women – that are probably a fair reflection of attitudes of the time but will touch nerves today.
There isn’t so much that it should deter you from reading the book, but you should be aware.
Incidentally, the main street in my town that Teresa often visits is called Market Jew Street and it derives its name from the Cornish “Marghas Yow” which means Thursday Market. Nothing do with Jewish people ….
(There is a ‘cleaned-up’ reissue available, but I read an older edition from the library.)
Teresa was heart-broken to lose her son. Ortho was her golden boy, and the steady, sensible Eli bored her. She really couldn’t see why everyone around her thought so well of him; she couldn’t see that he was keeping the farm going and that she would be lost without him.
When Ortho came home she was jubilant, and when she saw a chance to keep him close and send Eli away she took it.
But there were consequences to her actions that she didn’t foresee.
That set things up beautifully for the second part of the trilogy.
I have it on hand.
He was born in Newlyn – my father’s home town – the son of an artist, late in the reign of Queen Victoria, he travelled the world, he fought in the Great War, and then he returned to Cornwall and published poetry and prose, before dying in a boating accident when he was just forty-tree years old.
His fiction is deeply rooted in his own experiences, and this book – the first of a trilogy – draws on both his adventures and his love of his Cornish home.
The story opens 1752, when John Penhale had just been told of an ultimatum in the will of his Aunt Selina: “Marry within the year or lose your inheritance.” John was the last of the Penhales, and had inherited the farm that tree generations before him had built up; and his aunt was proud of her family heritage and wanted that family to thrive and prosper.
He didn’t want to lose his aunt’s farm, further up the county, but he was reluctant to marry. John’s face was horrible scarred; the result of an accident with a shotgun. An attempt at matchmaking by his aunt some years earlier had ended in tragedy and he had retreated from the world, throwing himself into the management of his farm.
Fate took a hand before John had time to think about what he should do.
On his way home he had to fight off an attack by a highwayman; and when he reached home he found that he had been followed by a gypsy girl, who told him that as he had enabled her to escape from her cruel master she had come to serve him.
He tried to send her away but she wouldn’t go.
Teresa, who’d had the hardest of lives, saw the farm as a land of plenty and she loved living and working there. John’s scars didn’t bother her at all; she came from a world were men fought for dominance; that they had scars was a fact of life.
John loved her vitality, and the joy that she found in farm life.
Teresa found a chest of clothes in the attic, and she loved to dress up.
“He stepped nearer, peered round an oak, and saw a sight which made him stagger and swear himself bewitched. There was a marvellous lady dancing in the circlet, and as she danced she sang, twanging an accompaniment on a a little guitar.
She was dressed in a straight-laced bodice, stitched with silver and low cut, leaving her shoulders bare; flowing daffodil sleeves caught up at the elbows, and a cream-coloured skirt sprigged with blue flowers and propped out at the hips with monstrous farthingales. On her head she wore a lace fan-tail, but her feet were bare. She swept round and round in a circle, very slow and stately, swaying, turning, curtseying to the solemn audience of tress.
If not a sprite, where did she come from?
There was not her like in the parish ….”
That was the encounter that made all the difference. John and Teresa were married, they found themselves very well suited, and she bore him two sons.
I was swept away by their story; it was so very richly told and so very engaging. And Crosbie Garstin captured my part of Cornwall – the people, the places, the speech patterns, the way of life, everything – absolutely brilliantly. I couldn’t doubt for a moment that he loved his world, his story and the telling of it.
Now, you may have noticed similarities between this and the beginning of a more famous series of novels set in Cornwall. Yes, there are noticeable similarities, and I don’t doubt for a moment that Winston Graham read and was inspired by Crosbie Garstin, but this is a very different story.
I had been looking forward to following their story, but I found that this wasn’t their story.
It was the story of Ortho, the elder of their two sons.
John died suddenly; struck down in his prime.
Teresa was shattered. In time she found comfort in playing the grand lady, going to market and shopping, entertaining her admirers in the local hostelries. She didn’t realise how they saw her, and it was heart-breaking to watch the coarsening of one who had been such a vibrant young woman with so much promise.
Meanwhile her sons ran wild. Only their love of their home and the world around it stopped them going off the rails too.
Ortho fell in with gypsy horse traders, and with local smugglers.
His brother, Eli, had a very different temperament. He was more thoughtful, and when his brother went out to look for practical solutions to their problems he looked for answers in books. They worked together well, managing their mother and managing the farm.
Ortho wanted more though. He wanted adventure. He wanted to see the world.
He got his wish. He fled from a raid on local smugglers and he fell into the hands of corsairs and was taken to be sold into slavery.
He had such adventures – as a slave, as a soldier, as a spy, as a sailor – before he made his way home again.
That story was very bit as vivid, every bit as real, as the story back in Cornwall.
It was a wonderful, swash-buckling story, but it is not without problems. some of the secondary character are a little stereo-typed and there are a few comments – about race and about women – that are probably a fair reflection of attitudes of the time but will touch nerves today.
There isn’t so much that it should deter you from reading the book, but you should be aware.
Incidentally, the main street in my town that Teresa often visits is called Market Jew Street and it derives its name from the Cornish “Marghas Yow” which means Thursday Market. Nothing do with Jewish people ….
(There is a ‘cleaned-up’ reissue available, but I read an older edition from the library.)
Teresa was heart-broken to lose her son. Ortho was her golden boy, and the steady, sensible Eli bored her. She really couldn’t see why everyone around her thought so well of him; she couldn’t see that he was keeping the farm going and that she would be lost without him.
When Ortho came home she was jubilant, and when she saw a chance to keep him close and send Eli away she took it.
But there were consequences to her actions that she didn’t foresee.
That set things up beautifully for the second part of the trilogy.
I have it on hand.
June 20, 2023
Family saga and adventure are combined in this historical novel set in two distinct locations - 18th century Cornwall and Morocco. First published in 1925, the book reflects the popular style of adventure novels of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It has a well written and engaging text that flows along with almost continuous action, spiced with a few romantic interludes. It also has a large cast of colorful and fairly interesting characters - though some readers may find them a bit too stereotypical and one-dimensional. I found this an easy and enjoyable read. Am looking forward to reading the second volume in the trilogy, "High Noon".
May 3, 2024
[2015] Everybody has heard of the 'Poldark' books by Winston Graham - the first written in the 1940s. They were read and enjoyed by a small loyal following until the 1970s when it was televised in two series by the BBC. After that Poldark became mainstream and interest in the story of a Cornish yeoman - back from the war and married to the servant girl - took off. An ITV version and in 2014 another hugely popular TV remake and the romanticised image of eighteenth century Cornwall produced a tourist surge - followed as in the 1970s and 80s by the upturn of inward migration - which, it could be argued, transformed the face of Cornwall.
Who knows if Winston Graham ever read the Penhale trilogy, written by Crosby Garstin in the 1920s? Whether he did or didn't - the coincidences are striking - West Cornwall farmer marries a gypsy girl and has two boys - the older lad 'Ortho' becomes involved in smuggling and in an attempt to avoid capture falls into the hands of Barbary pirates and is taken to North Africa for several years - he is competitive with his brother for the hand of local girl. It is a well written story with a easy strong story which really engages. Shorter chapters and well described characters. The positives are the obvious observational descriptions of Cornish dialect conversations and the sense of character; particularly the wrestling which is exceptionally well done. On the negative side (probably only a problem for the Cornish themselves and remember both Winston Graham and Crosbie Garstin were English) the places are all juggled about. Their farm is near Lamorna, but seems to be in St Gwithian parish - which in reality is nowhere near by. Also they have business in Helston which is a long way off.
Generally a really good read and as it says on the blurb If you like Poldark you'll love Penhale.
Who knows if Winston Graham ever read the Penhale trilogy, written by Crosby Garstin in the 1920s? Whether he did or didn't - the coincidences are striking - West Cornwall farmer marries a gypsy girl and has two boys - the older lad 'Ortho' becomes involved in smuggling and in an attempt to avoid capture falls into the hands of Barbary pirates and is taken to North Africa for several years - he is competitive with his brother for the hand of local girl. It is a well written story with a easy strong story which really engages. Shorter chapters and well described characters. The positives are the obvious observational descriptions of Cornish dialect conversations and the sense of character; particularly the wrestling which is exceptionally well done. On the negative side (probably only a problem for the Cornish themselves and remember both Winston Graham and Crosbie Garstin were English) the places are all juggled about. Their farm is near Lamorna, but seems to be in St Gwithian parish - which in reality is nowhere near by. Also they have business in Helston which is a long way off.
Generally a really good read and as it says on the blurb If you like Poldark you'll love Penhale.
Read
December 7, 2020“Horse-coper, smuggler, slave in Barbary, captain of Arab lances, navy seaman, [and] blackbirder,” are just a handful of titles which describe Ortho Penhale, the protagonist of Cornish author Crosbie Garstin's excellent Penhale trilogy. I don't think any author has made me want to visit a place the way Garstin had me wanting to visit Bosula, the Owl's House in the West Penwith area of Cornwall, which acquires notoriety in the 18th century as a center of piracy and smuggling of contraband booze, and where Ortho begins adventures which take him to the Caribbean, Morocco, and Spain, through daring smuggling runs, escapes from captivity, and exciting sea battles. The character also has some fascinating parallels with the life of the author, who apparently drowned at the age of 42 even though his body was never found.
Full review here: https://wp.me/p8d1Up-1OQ
Full review here: https://wp.me/p8d1Up-1OQ
January 12, 2021
A fast paced historical family saga set initially in Cornwall. There is plenty of action and adventure in the local area slightly reminiscent of Thomas Hardy, Winston Graham and Daphne du Maurier. The action partly moves abroad after a nautical adventure . A great story that had me gripped from the start. The edition currently available has been edited with revisions, it would be great to read the original text.
April 11, 2013
I did finish and loved this book and the rest of the series. A swashbuckling yarn based in Cornwall. THe author also has an interesting history
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews