Best 1904 Adventures (4)

By: Joshua Glenn
February 8, 2019

One in a series of 10 posts identifying Josh Glenn’s favorite 1904 adventure novels. Happy 115th anniversary!

Winston Churchill’s frontier adventure The Crossing.

When he hears that his father, a frontiersman, has been killed, twelve-year-old David Richie runs away from a comfortable life in Charleston — and heads for the wilds of Kentucky. The book’s title refers to the great movement of European settlers from east to west, across the American continent; our young protagonist’s journey, which takes place during the Revolutionary War, is emblematic of that epic migration. David makes it through the Cumberland gap — the key passageway, for pioneers, through the lower central Appalachians — only to discover that the British are encouraging Indian raids against Kentucky settlers. So he enlists as a drummer boy under George Rogers Clark — a real-life character, leader of the Kentucky militia — in a campaign to weaken British influence in the Northwest Territory. In the second part of the book, a grown-up David, who is now studying law, is reunited with his foster family… and must rescue his childhood companion, Nick, from a madcap scheme by some Kentuckians to capture New Orleans, from Spain, for the newly formed United States. Daniel Boone, John Sevier, Andrew Jackson, and other now-iconic Americans all show up.

Fun facts: Winston Churchill was an American novelist, from Missouri; he was not related to the British statesman. The Crossing is considered his best novel. Churchill’s earier novel, Richard Carvel (1899), was a massive best-seller.

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Best 1904 Adventures (4)

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