Fifty-Nine in '84

by Edward Achorn

2010 · Harper Collins

Fifty-nine in '84 is award–winning journalist Edward Achorn's riveting history of late nineteenth century baseball and the era's most legendary pitcher. In 1884, Providence Grays pitcher Charles "Old Hoss" Radbourn won an astounding fifty-nine games—more than anyone in major-league history ever had before, or has since. He then went on to win all three games of baseball's first World Series. Fifty-nine in '84 tells the dramatic story not only of that amazing feat of grit but also of big-league baseball two decades after the Civil War—a brutal, bloody sport played barehanded, the profession of uneducated, hard-drinking men who thought little of cheating outrageously or maiming an opponent to win. Wonderfully entertaining, Fifty-nine in '84 is an indelible portrait of a legendary player and a fascinating, little-known era of the national pastime. "A beautifully written, meticulously researched story about a bygone baseball era that even die-hard fans will find foreign, and about a pitcher who might have been the greatest of all time." —Joseph J. Ellis, Pulitzer Prize–winning historian "First-class narrative history that can stand with everything Steven Ambrose wrote. . . . Achorn's description of the utter insanity that was barehanded baseball is vivid and alive." — Boston Globe

The Dark Art

by Edward Follis, Douglas Century

2014 · Scribe Publications

A highly decorated DEA agent recounts his incredible undercover career and reveals the shocking links between narcotics trafficking and terrorism. What exactly is undercover? From a law-enforcement perspective, it’s the art of skilfully eliciting incriminating statements. From a personal and psychological standpoint, it’s the dark art of gaining trust — and then manipulating that trust. Edward Follis mastered the chess game —the dark art —over the course of his distinguished 27 years with the Drug Enforcement Administration, where he was one of the driving forces behind the agency’s radical shift from a limited local focus to a global arena. Follis bought eightballs of coke in a red Corvette, negotiated multimillion-dollar deals on board private aircraft, and developed covert relationships with men who were not only international drug traffickers, but — in some cases — operatives for Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Mexican federation of cartels. Spanning five continents and filled with harrowing stories about the world’s most ruthless drug lords and terrorist networks, this memoir reads like a thriller. Yet every word is true, and every story is documented. The first and only insider’s account of the confluence between narco-trafficking and terrorist organisations, The Dark Art is an electrifying page-turner.

The Pinetum Britannicum

by Edward Ravencroft

1884

Originally issued in parts by Peter Lawson & Son, Edinburgh.