Winner of the 1954 Carnegie Medal
Young Philip d’Aubigny, son of a Crusader family who have stayed on in the Holy Land after the First Crusade, finds himself caught up in the battle against Saladin for possession of the tiny Christian Kingdom of Outremer, the land ‘across the sea’.
About Ronald Welch and the Carey Novels
Ronald Welch’s Carey novels, written between 1954 and 1972, follow the fortunes of the same family from their involvement in the Crusades to their service in the First World War. Grippingly plotted and scrupulously researched, together they join up the dots of English history in a remarkably vivid and human way.
Welch was a historian who served as a Tank Corps officer in the Second World War and in 1947 became Headmaster of Okehampton Grammar School in Devon. He was, by all accounts, an inspiring teacher, and he certainly knew how to bring history alive for younger readers. You can’t finish a Welch book without having grasped such precise details as the construction of a crusader’s armour and why it was so designed, or why the longbow was crucial to the English victory at the Battle of Crécy. Most importantly they’re brilliant reads – fast-paced, colourful and imaginative, with entirely believable central characters. The Careys are a distinguished Welsh landowning family and are involved in all the great events of their times, from the plots against Elizabeth I and the Civil War to the Peninsular War, the Crimea and the Indian Mutiny.
The original editions, published by Oxford University Press and illustrated by some of the best book illustrators of their day, are now almost impossible to find and fetch prohibitive prices. We’re delighted to make these wonderful books available again, with their original illustrations, in an elegantly designed and highly collectable series.
‘The plot claps along at a splendidly brisk pace, informed by the author’s superb knowledge of place and period. The fight and battle scenes in particular are vivid and powerful. The reader is immersed in the action, complete with sights, smells and sounds and one is left with a genuine belief that the author has both gone to war and to the Holy Land . . . Knight Crusader is not a ‘girly’ book but this female reviewer loved it . . . if you want your child to fall in love with history and reading, this may be the book to do it.’ Historical Novel Society
Joining up the Dots
In the endlessly wet, cold, dark days of last January, when hibernation seemed the only possible option, I was given the perfect book to escape into – a children’s book as it happened. Reading it...
Read moreFor readers ‘who, like me, enjoy historical battles and will treasure these books . . . ’
‘The book Knight Crusader by Ronald Welch tells the story of a young Squire called Philip who (later on in the book) becomes a knight . . .’
Read moreWolf Hall for kids: Why Ronald Welch’s novels will help your children fall in love with history
Ronald Welch, a tank commander turned schoolmaster, is one of the 20th century’s most underrated children’s writers. Like Hilary Mantel, he understood that what makes a lost epoch stick in your...
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