Tim Severin Books In Order

Corsair

1677, on a late summer’s evening, two ships lurk off the coast of southwest Ireland. They are Barbary Corsairs from North Africa slave catchers. As soon as it is dark, their landing parties row ashore to raid a small fishing village on the hunt for fresh prey. In the village, 17 year old Hector Lynch wakes to the sound of a pistol shot. Moments later, he and his sister Elizabeth are taken prisoner. From then on, Hector s life plunges into a turbulent and lawless world that is full of surprises.

Odinn’s Child

In 1001, the young child, Thorgils Leiffson, son of Leif the Lucky and Thorgunna, arrives on the shores of Greenland to be brought up by a young woman Gudrid. Thorgils is a rootless character of quicksilver intelligence and adaptability. He has inherited his mother’s ability of second sight, and his mentors teach him the ancient ways and warn him of the invasion of the White Christ into the land of the Old Gods. Guided by a restless quest for adventure and the wanderlust of his favored god, Odinn, Thorgils fortunes will take him into worlds of unimaginable danger and discovery.

Sworn Brother

Steeped in bloody battles and brooding Norse mythology, this epic saga follows the exploits of Viking adventurer Thorgils Leiffson. A fine, page turning trio of tales that sweeps the reader back in time.

London, 1019: a few months have passed since Thorgils escaped the clutches of the Irish Church, only to find himself at the center of a capricious love affair with Aelfgifu wife of Knut the Great, ruler of England, and one of the most powerful men of the Viking empire. As this passionate relationship between the two unlikely lovers begins to unfold, it forebodes uncontrollable consequences…
When Thorgils is finally on the run again, he meets Grettir, an outlaw feared for his volatility, and the two become travel companions and Sworn Brothers. At the gates of Byzantium, Thorgils loyalty is put to the ultimate test…

King’s Man

Steeped in bloody battles and brooding Norse mythology, this epic saga follows the exploits of Viking adventurer Thorgils Leiffson. A fine, page turning trio of tales that sweeps the reader back in time.

Constantinople, 1035: Thorgils has become a member of the Varangian lifeguard, where he witnesses the glories of the richest city on earth. Under the leadership of warrior chief Harald Hardradi, he embarks upon a campaign launched to recover Sicily from the Saracens. After years of traveling, Thorgils retreats to Sweden, but he is eventually summoned again to assist in coordinating William the Conqueror’s invasion of England. In September 1066, a Norse fleet of three hundred ships sails towards England and the battle begins. It is a prophetic dream that makes Thorgils warn the troops of the impending disaster at Stamford Bridge, but even he cannot turn aside what fate has decreed the end of the Viking world.

Explorers of the Mississippi

The Mississippi River has intrigued the footloose for centuries. Here, for the first time in paperback, are briskly told biographies of the chief protagonists in the drama, with Old Man River as the constant and invincible antagonist. From conquistadors to nineteenth century gentlemen explorers, Severin depicts the disasters and adventures of familiar, but often misunderstood, figures in American history, as well as the chicanery of others, less well known, who used the river for their own purposes. ‘A first rate piece of work, rich in period and personality. Severin considers the true elucidators of the river Joliet, Marquette, La Salle, and Henry de Tonti plus a smattering of frauds and dilettantes, among whom he includes Lieutenant Zebulon Pike.’ New Yorker ‘ Traveling side by side with each of his intrepid voyagers, Severin will make every armchair Huck Finn yearn to sign up for the next trip.’ New York Times Book Review Historian Timothy Severin has made a career of retracing and writing about epic voyages. His myriad adventures include canoeing the Mississippi River from beginning to end, sailing in St. Brendan the Navigator’s path across the Atlantic Ocean, and journeying on horseback in Mongolia in search of Gheghis Khan’s heritage. He lives in Ireland

The Brendan Voyage

Could an Irish monk in the sixth century have sailed across the Atlantic, thus beating Columbus to the New World by almost a thousand years? Relying on the medieval text of Saint Brendan, Severin painstakingly researches and builds a boat identical to the small leather curragh that carried Brendan on his epic voyage. He finds a centuries old tannery, where he buys the ox hides; he locates skilled saddle makers the only people who know how to stitch the inch think hides together; he seeks out one of the last pieces of Irish grown timber strong enough to make the mainmast. But his courage and resourcefulness are truly tested on the open seas, including one heart pounding episode when he repairs a dangerous tear in the leather hull by hanging over the side his head frequently submerged by the freezing waves to restitch the leather with an awl and thread. This perfect blend of high adventure and historical relevance for a fantastic read.

The Sindbad Voyage

Severin first came to the world’s attention in 1976 with his historic Brendan Voyage. In 1980, he decided to take on a legend once more, recreating the Seven Voyages of Sinbad from Oman to China, testing the mythical Tales of the Arabian Nights in a ship made from Malabar timbers.

Crusader

Nearly 900 years ago, Duke Godfrey de Bouillon set out on the First Crusade and in our own time, author Tim Severin retraced his steps. The destination: Jerusalem, city of gold. For more than eight years, Severin followed the historic trail, riding through northern Europe’s green countryside and into the heat of the Near East. In the process, he covered more than 2,500 miles by horse, past ruined Crusader settlements and ancient battlefields, over arduous mountain pas*ses, and across Anatolian steppes. A dazzling synthesis of adventure, practical history, and exploration, told by one of our finest and most respected travel writers illustrated with his own photographs.

In Search of Genghis Khan

Following the collapse of nearly seventy years of Communist rule, veteran writer and traveler Tim Severin went to Mongolia ‘to see how much of the tradtional way of life survived.’ He discovered a country in an uncertain state of transition and struggling with its newfound identity. Part travelogue and part historical recreation of the legendary journey of the barbaric Mongol warrior Genghis Khan, Severin employs his trademark wit and insight to offer a rare glimpse of a region seldom seen by Westerners and attempts to retrace the great Khan’s westward sweep of conquest.

The China Voyage: Across The Pacific By Bamboo Raft

The award winning author of The Brendan Voyage makes a bold Pacific journey to test a scholar’s theory that Asian navigators were the first to discover North America as early as 218 B.C., when the great sea captain Hsu Fu set sail in search of the elixir of immortality. Full color inserts.

The Spice Islands Voyage: The Quest for Alfred Wallace, The Man Who Shared Darwin’s Discovery of Evolution

This remarkable account of Tim Severin’s voyage to the Indonesian Archipelago in search of the island paradise that naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace had explored 140 years before him offers both the thrills of exotic adventure and the marvels of scientific discovery. In a replica of the boat that Wallace himself sailed to the Spice Islands and with Wallace’s The Malay Archipelago as his guide, Severin travels to remote shores that still harbor such rare but fast disappearing creatures as red birds of paradise, flying foxes, and bird winged butterflies. Not only does he discover the now endangered flora and fauna that Wallace recorded in his expeditions, he also pays due homage to his intrepid predecessor, the man who provided Darwin with the ideas and principles that changed forever the way we view nature and with him co authored the theory of evolution.

In Search of Robinson Crusoe / Seeking Robinson Crusoe

Insightful travel writing, riveting narrative history, and clever scholarly discoveries make this a remarkably rich and varied book. Tim Severin has once again demonstrated a superb ability to bring together literature and adventure in an engrossing narrative.

In Search of Moby Dick

Adventure writer and explorer Tim Severin follows in the wake of Melville and his legendary creation, Moby Dick, in search of the Great White Whale Among travel and adventure writers, Tim Severin occupies a unique place in that, as Jan Morris says, he ‘uniquely combines in himself the gifts of the adventurer, the historian, and the litterateur.’ Over the years, Severin has sailed in a leather boat across the Atlantic, traveled on horseback with the nomads of Mongolia, and sailed the Pacific on a bamboo raft in an effort to re create the storied voyages and travels of Brendan, Jason, Ulysses, and Genghis Khan. He then spun these rich adventures into literary gold, writing such classics as The Brendan Voyage. Now Severin applies his boundless skills to a quintessentially American subject Moby Dick in an attempt to retrace the origins of Herman Melville’s legendary literary creation. In In Search of Moby Dick Severin sets about determining the likelihood of the existence of one of our most iconic modern myths the Great White Whale. To do so he travels to Nuku Hiva in the Marquesas Archipelago where the twenty one year old Melville deserted his whaling ship in 1842 and began to cobble together the legends, tall tales, sea lore, and firsthand accounts garnered from the whalers he encountered, filtering all this material through his own fertile imagination to create his monumental novel. It is here that Severin begins to perceive the lush weave of fact and fiction, actual experience and extravagant yarn, that is Moby Dick, and the complex richness of Melville’s tapestry becomes even clearer as Severin sails on throughout the South Pacific.