To Have and To Hold

The First Ever Romantic Bestseller! First published in 1900, Mary Johnston's To Have and to Hold was the first romance to certfified the top bestseller when Publisher's Weekly inagurated its first bestseller lists. A true romantic classic, this enthrallihng novel begins in 1600s England. Lady Jocelyn Leigh, the king's ward, running away from a hated lover, conceals herself among a shipload of convict women sent to become brides in the New World. Forced to choose a husband on her arrival, she accepts the bluff, honest Captain Ralph Percy, a forthright soldier she sees as the least of many evils. The two misunderstand each other's motives from the start, and feeling herself vulnerable and friendless in the strange new world she has come to, Jocelyn is afraid to show her new husband the tenderness she feels, while the proud silent Captain scorns to take what she will not give freely. When the man she rejected arrives in pursuit, events involving war with Spain and Colonial politics tear Jocelyn and Percy apart just as they begin to discover their true feelings for each other. Before either can hope to see the other again, they must face the dangers of the savage wilderness and make allies among the New World's natives. Here is a romance "told with a sweetness of spirit, a tenderness of fancy, a poetical insight that are rare indeed in the 'novel of adventure,' and much to be prized" (Review of Reviews), and as a "rich concentration of evocative detail and magically compelling historic atmosphere" (Commonweal).