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The Trail of the Sword — cover
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Aeneas Press edition Edwardian

The Trail of the Sword

by Gilbert Parker 1862–1932

The book, and the century it came out of.

New France and New York in the 1690s: an English boy and a French officer, Frontenac’s Canada, the Iroquois, and a feud carried across thirty years and two colonies. Parker was Canadian-born, settled in England, sat in Parliament for eighteen years and was knighted; the Canada here is the real one — snowshoes, mission stations, the long war for the fur trade. Illustrated with 60 full-page plates — paintings by Bricher, Bierstadt and Lane among them.

Once, many years ago, in a kind of despair, you were impelled to say that I would “never be anything but a rascally lawyer.”
The first sentence of The Trail of the Sword
A note on this edition

The Trail of the Sword, by Gilbert Parker, complete and unabridged. Spelling and punctuation follow present-day American usage; the sentences, the paragraphs and the voice are the author’s, word for word.

It was written in another era and may carry attitudes a reader today will find dated. They are kept for the sake of the work and do not reflect the views of this house.

The edition
Format
Ebook
Extent
about 160 pages
Reading time
about 3 hours
Illustrations
Full-page plates, credited
Text
Complete, unabridged
Language
en
This edition
2026
ISBN
9785501070646
The plates

60 paintings are bound into this edition

Six of them are shown here, taken from the volume itself. Each is reproduced full page and named with its painter and year.

Grand Manan, Alfred Thompson Bricher
Grand Manan Alfred Thompson Bricher 1890
Two Ruffed Grouse in Underbrush, Rubens Peale
Two Ruffed Grouse in Underbrush Rubens Peale 1864
A Waterfall, Erik Bodom
A Waterfall Erik Bodom 1879
The Gust of Wind, Gustave Courbet
The Gust of Wind Gustave Courbet 1865
Winter in the Country: A Cold Morning, Q5540446
Winter in the Country: A Cold Morning Q5540446 1861
Twilight, George Loring Brown
Twilight George Loring Brown 1877
The setting

A page from this edition

Not a mock-up: this page is taken from the finished volume. The ornament above the chapter belongs to its shelf and to no other, the opening letter is set as a drop capital, and the plate below carries the name of the painter and the year.

A page of The Trail of the Sword as set for this edition
The opening of a chapter
A page of The Trail of the Sword as set for this edition
A page where a plate falls

Both photographed from the finished volume.

Colophon

The Trail of the Sword, issued in this edition by Aeneas Press in 2026 on the Adventure & the Sea shelf. Newly set, with the ornament of its series above each chapter and a drop capital on the opening page. Illustrated with full-page plates, each named with its painter.

Published as an ebook and not issued in print by this house; it carries one ISBN, 9785501070646, and is supplied worldwide. This edition — its setting, its ornament, its cover art, and the selection and attribution of its plates — © 2026 Aeneas Press.

Before you buy

Questions readers ask

Is this the whole of The Trail of the Sword?
Yes — complete and unabridged. Nothing is cut, condensed or paraphrased. This is the book, not a summary of it.
What exactly did you change?
The spelling and the punctuation follow present-day American usage. Gilbert Parker's sentences are untouched — same words, same order, same rhythm.
Are the pictures really in the book?
Yes. The edition carries full-page plates bound into the text, each one named with its painter and the year it was made. Six of them are shown on this page.
How long is it?
About 160 pages, which is roughly about 3 hours of reading.
What do I actually get?
An illustrated ebook with its own ISBN, sold worldwide. One file, yours to keep, readable on any device.
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The Trail of the Sword
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