G.A. Henty: another of those writers who wrote a whole pile of books. Henty wrote 122 books throughout his career, most were historical novels for boys but he did write a few other books: some non-fiction, novels for adults, and many short stories. He also was the editor for a boys' magazine.
Surprisingly only one of Henty's books has been adapted for the screen.
Throughout all of his books, it is very clear that this man loves history and his attention to historical detail is marvelous. He can put you right in the time with his very descriptive writing and his battles are very well written. I think this is because of the time he spent as a War Correspondent during the Crimean war.
His characters are mostly very engaging and there are lots of good themes in his stories. Also his Christianity is very evident in all of his works.

But his works are not all wonderful. As much fun as Henty can be I find that most of his stories are all relatively the same story set in a different time period. This sometimes becomes very monotonous. Plus his main characters seem to all be the same person and none are very deep.
Also I dislike his over romanticizing of some things in history that were actually quite bad. And sometimes he skims over some historical person's wrong doings to make them look better.
But still, Henty is a very skilled writer and few of his stories have any dull spots and he is still enjoyable to read. Plus you will probably learn some things about history you never knew before and maybe it will make you want to look into history some more.
And that is the best thing about Henty in my opinion. The fact that his works will make you want to learn new things.

I've read his Cat of Bubastes book and it had enormous insight to the cultures, nations, and times it included. If you like historical fiction G.A. Henty is very good. He is an older writer, his books come from the 18th or 17th century I think. Bard should correct me if I'm wrong.

Very nicely written.

Have you considered writing book reviews for the HW Blog?

The Cat of Bubastes was one of my least favorites actually, and rather different than his others.

He wrote during the second half of 19th century.




Well not really I don't even know much about the blog at all. I haven't even read any of them

It is REALLY slow in the middle but the beginning and the latter part of the book is good from what I can remember.

I have read only one of his books, but my sisters have read more, and they said the same thing about them. "The main character," they said, "is always a 15-year-old boy named Harry."
Of course they were exaggerating somewhat.

I loved "In the Reign of Terror".

I like G. A Henty mostly. Sometimes I find his writing hard to get into. I like St Bartholomew's Eve and In the Reign of Terror.