Mayne Reid

The Forest Exiles Mayne Reid

Publisher Marketing: Boy reader, I am told that you are not tired of my company. Is this true? "Quite true, dear Captain, -quite true!" That is your reply. You speak sincerely? I believe you do. In return, believe me, when I tell you I am not tired of yours; and the best proof I can give is, that I have come once more to seek you. I have come to solicit the pleasure of your company, -not to an evening party, nor to a ball, nor to the Grand Opera, nor to the Crystal Palace, nor yet to the Zoological Gardens of Regent's Park, -no, but to the great zoological garden of Nature. I have come to ask you to accompany me on another "campaign,"-another "grand journey" through the fields of Science and Adventure. Will you go? "Most willingly-with you, dear Captain, anywhere." Come with me, then. Again we turn our faces westward; again we cross the blue and billowy Atlantic; again we seek the shores of the noble continent of America. "What! to America again?" Ha! that is a large continent, and you need not fear that I am going to take you over old ground. No, fear not that! New scenes await us; a new fauna, a new flora, -I might almost say, a new earth and a new sky! You shall have variety, I promise you, -a perfect contrast to the scenes of our last journey. Contributor Bio:  Reid, Mayne Thomas Mayne Reid (1818 - 1883), was a Scots-Irish American novelist. "Captain" Reid wrote many adventure novels akin to those written by Frederick Marryat and Robert Louis Stevenson. He was a great admirer of Lord Byron. These novels contain action that takes place primarily in untamed settings: the American West, Mexico, South Africa, the Himalayas, and Jamaica. Biography Reid was born in Ballyroney, a small hamlet near Katesbridge, County Down, in the north of Ireland, the son of Rev. Thomas Mayne Reid Sr., who was a senior clerk of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland. His father wanted him to become a Presbyterian minister, so in September 1834 he enrolled at the Royal Belfast Academical Institution. Although he stayed for four years, he could not motivate himself enough to complete his studies and receive a degree. He headed back home to Ballyroney to teach school. In December 1839 he boarded the Dumfriesshire bound for New Orleans, Louisiana, arriving in January 1840. Shortly afterward he found a job as a clerk for corn factor, or trader in the corn market. He stayed in New Orleans for six months. It is said that he left his position for refusing to whip slaves. (Reid later used Louisiana as the setting of one of his best-selling books, an anti-slavery novel entitled The Quadroon.)