A. J. CRONIN SERIES:

The Green Years

The Green Years

A. J. Cronin

Nonfiction / Literature & Fiction

The Green Years is a 1944 novel by A. J. Cronin which traces the formative years of an Irish orphan, Robert Shannon, who is sent to live with his draconian maternal grandparents in Scotland. An introspective child, Robert forms an attachment to his roguish great-grandfather, who draws the youngster out of his shell with his raucous ways.
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The Minstrel Boy

The Minstrel Boy

A. J. Cronin

Nonfiction / Literature & Fiction

Da anni il pubblico aspettava un romanzo <> di A.J. Cronin: ed ecco Ma il cielo non risponde, dove l’autore stesso si fa personaggio, testimone e commentatore morale della lacerante, spasmodica, contraddittoria vicenda umana di Desmonde Fitzgerald, il bellissimo giovane, l’uomo di Dio, il cantore, l’essere umano risucchiato in un insondabile baratro erotico, l’avventuriero, l’innocente, l’attore… Lungo un arco di tempo che va dai primi del secolo a oggi, in una varietà d’ambiente che include la Dublino degli anni intorno alla prima guerra mondiale, la Hollywood dell’età dell’oro del cinema, un Oriente favoloso e enigmaticamente lussurioso, s’intesse la vicenda parallela di due vite che tendono a farsi <>, cariche si significati universali, di tensione esistenziale, di <>. Due vite su cu incombe l’ombra torbida e misteriosamente fascinosa di un grande personaggio femminile: Claire, frivola, irresistibile, alcolizzata, travolta da un bisogno irrefrenabile di perdizione: una figura di donna assolutamente indimenticabile… Ma il cielo non risponde è una grande interrogazione e una grande riuscita romanzesca.
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Beyond This Place

Beyond This Place

A. J. Cronin

Nonfiction / Literature & Fiction

Paul Mathry, a student about to graduate and embark upon a teaching career, finds out that his father was convicted for murder, a secret that his mother had hidden from him since his childhood. Driven by an intense desire to see his father, Paul sets out to visit him in prison, only to find out that visitors are never allowed there. From there, he meets the primary witnesses in the case that convicted his father, not all of whom are supportive to Paul's cause. He encounters several dead ends but he persists, with the help of a store girl named Lena and a news reporter. His persistent campaign finally bears fruit. Rees Mathry, Paul's father, goes on appeal and is vindicated. The novel ends with Paul's father, a hardened, cynical man, seeing a fleeting hope for self-renewal and a purposeful life.
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The Citadel

The Citadel

A. J. Cronin

Nonfiction / Literature & Fiction

"Cronin's distinguished achievement....No one could have written as fine, honest, and moving a study of a young doctor as The Citadel without possessing great literary taste and skill." --*The Atlantic Monthly A groundbreaking novel of its time and a National Book Award winner. The Citadel follows the life of Andrew Manson, a young and idealistic Scottish doctor, as he navigates the challenges of practicing medicine across interwar Wales and England. Based on Cronin's own experiences as a physician, The Citadel boldly confronts traditional medical ethics, and has been noted as one of the inspirations for the formation of the National Health Service. The Citadel* has been adapted into several successful film, radio, and television productions around the world, including the Oscar-nominated 1938 film starring Ralph Donat, Rosalind Russell, Ralph Richardson, and Rex Harrison.
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Gracie Lindsay

Gracie Lindsay

A. J. Cronin

Nonfiction / Literature & Fiction

Story about a woman who has a complex past who comes back to her hometown to start over and rekindle the love she had for her childhood sweetheart. But the small town society doesn't leave her alone and the past comes back to haunt her.
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The Spanish Gardener

The Spanish Gardener

A. J. Cronin

Nonfiction / Literature & Fiction

When Mr Harrington Brande moves himself and his precious young son Nicholas to a grand house in the deserted Spanish town of San Jorge he is planning on a fresh start for the two of them. And only the two of them. For Mr Harrington Brande is a proud man and a jealous man. His beloved wife has recently fled his stifling love and now Brande has transferred all of his adoration onto Nicholas. He monitors his son's every move and is obsessed with ensuring that the bond between them is stronger than ever. But history begins to repeat itself when Nicholas befriends the gardener José. José is like no one Nicholas has ever met before and he instantly holds him in high regard. Brande does not take too kindly to having to vie for his son's attention with the Spanish gardener, and becomes increasingly suspicious of his rival. Encouraged by his butler, Garcia, Brande becomes convinced that José is not the person he pretends to be. Blinded by love...
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A Pocketful of Rye

A Pocketful of Rye

A. J. Cronin

Nonfiction / Literature & Fiction

The poignant sequel to "A Song of Sixpence." The clinic stood high on an Alpine slope. Lush meadows, studded with autumn crocus, sloped steeply down. Across the valley, above the pinewoods, the high peaks were already dusted with snow. Like a toy railway, the line to Davos twisted and turned up along the mountain side. Laurence Carroll breathed in the pure, clear air. A wonderful place, a not-too-demanding job as resident doctor to the convalescent children flown out from England; it was a million miles from his Scottish childhood, the struggles to qualify and the grinding, poverty-stricken years as a young GP in the Welsh mining valleys. He was relaxed. Happy. But, soon to arrive at Zurich, a woman he had once known well, now a widowed mother, was to bring with her all the turmoil and anguish of his early years, flooding back into his casually ordered life.
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The Lady With Carnations

The Lady With Carnations

A. J. Cronin

Nonfiction / Literature & Fiction

Lady with Carnations is not only the traditional name of a famous Holbein miniature which unexpectedly comes into a London salesroom in the mid-thirties: it is also the soubriquet by which some of her close friends think of the antique-dealer who buys it. Katharine Lorimer, by hard work, flair and courage, has worked her way to the top of a trade that traditionally belongs to men. Yet, having acquired the Holbein despite fierce competition, she feels not triumph but a terrible anxiety and desolation. The antique business is going through the doldrums, and she herself is reaching the limit of her resources. Worse still, she feels appallingly alone in the world. Reserved and fastidious, she keeps a certain distance from even her dearest friends, and the person she loves most, her niece Nancy, is bound up in her own ambitions to become a famous actress. Katharine has bought the miniature as a gigantic gamble, hoping to sell it to a wealthy American collector, and she sets off for New York with Nancy and her niece’s fiancé. What happens to them all there, and how their lives are altered, makes an engrossing tale, a delightful love story, showing at its best Dr Cronin’s gifts as a novelist. Every Cronin ‘fan’, every reader who enjoys a novel with the old-fashioned virtues of a well-worked-out plot, sympathetic characters, and humanity, will find it absorbing. In the magnificent narrative tradition of The Citadel, The Stars Look Down and Cronin’s other classic novels, Lady With Carnations is a great book by a much-loved author.**
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The Innkeeper's Wife (Bello)

The Innkeeper's Wife (Bello)

A. J. Cronin

Nonfiction / Literature & Fiction

From the author of The Stars Look Down and The Citadel, and the creator of Dr Finlay's Casebook A J Cronin was commissioned by The American Weekly to write a Christmas story for the December 21st issue in 1958. His vision for the story is described in his letter of acceptance: “It came to me very strongly that to achieve the highest and most profoundly touching results I should go back to the first Christmas of all and create a vivid reconstruction of the effects of the birth of the Child upon certain characters, notably the wife of the innkeeper where no room was found for Mary and Joseph. The title of the story would be The Innkeper’s Wife, for she, as I imagine her, is the central human character—a good and tender-hearted woman, childless herself, and bullied by an assertive and miserly husband.” Here now is the alternative story of Christmas, narrated with great skill, by the author of The Citadel, Hatter’s Castle and The Stars Look Down**
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A Song of Sixpence

A Song of Sixpence

A. J. Cronin

Nonfiction / Literature & Fiction

In the heat of late afternoon, a young boy waits at the station for his father. A plume of steam, white against the purple-heathered hills, marks the train. Beyond, blooming along the shoreline, the flowers of high summer, as a tall-funnelled paddle steamer beats and froths down the wide Clyde estuary . . . A narrative in the great Cronin tradition, this is the stirring chronicle of Laurence Carroll as he grows from childhood to adult years in Scotland. The tale of his struggles - early illness, a widowed mother, poverty, the uncles who try to help him, and the women who have such an unhappy effect upon him, is told with warm humour and with that intense and sympathetic realism for which A J Cronin is known. In the magnificent narrative tradition of The Citadel, The Stars Look Down and Cronin's other classic novels, A Song of Sixpence is a great book by a much-loved author.
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The Northern Light

The Northern Light

A. J. Cronin

Nonfiction / Literature & Fiction

Henry Page, owner of The Northern Light, the oldest and most respected newspaper in Tynecastle, is offered a vast sum to turn over control to a mass-circulation group based in London. He refuses - despite entreaties by his wife to accept - and so begins his fight with the Chronicle, an almost defunct newspaper in the same area which is given new life by London-thinking and London men. Against Henry Page, a journalist who believes in honest presentation of news without bringing in sensationalism, the Chronicle pulls every dirty trick in the trade. And Henry, brought eventually almost to his knees, stoically holds on to his principles and The Northern Light. It is only when he has won the battle that tragedy robs him of the most important thing in his life. In the magnificent narrative tradition of The Citadel, The Stars Look Down and Cronin's other classic novels, The Northern Light is a great book by a much-loved author.
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The Judas Tree

The Judas Tree

A. J. Cronin

Nonfiction / Literature & Fiction

In a story of wide and fascinating detail A. J. Cronin tells of Dr. David Morey who tries to atone for his desertion of the woman he loved. Beguiled by the prospect of riches he goes on to marry Dottie, a spoiled but beautiful neurotic who brings him almost constant misery, until a chance remark makes him seek retribution in memories of the past and a return to his native Scotland. In the magnificent narrative tradition of "The Citadel," "The Stars Look Down" and Cronin's other classic novels, "The Judas Tree" is a great book by a much-loved author.
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Dr Finlay's Casebook

Dr Finlay's Casebook

A. J. Cronin

Nonfiction / Literature & Fiction

"Dr Finlay's Casebook" is a delightful collection of episodic stories of Dr Finlay and his life in the fictional Scottish village of Tannochbrae during the inter-war years and based on A.J. Cronin's own experiences as a doctor. The BBC went on to dramatise these stories on both television and radio during the 1960s and '70s, with the television adaption drawing weekly audiences of 12 million viewers. The characters were revived by ITV from 1993-96 and were adapted again for BBC radio in 2001 and 2002. This omnibus edition of "Doctor Finlay of Tannochbrae and Adventures of a Black Bag" revive Cronin's masterpiece for a contemporary audience - stories which are tragic, funny and wry and which a celebration of Cronin's tremendous talent.
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Hatter's Castle

Hatter's Castle

A. J. Cronin

Nonfiction / Literature & Fiction

Hatter's Castle (1931) is the first novel of author A. J. Cronin. The story is set in 1879, in the fictional town of Levenford, on the Firth of Clyde. The plot revolves around many characters and has many subplots, all of which relate to the life of the hatter, James Brodie, whose narcissism and cruelty gradually destroy his family and life.
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