The Foster Brothers

New York: The John Day Company. Near Fine in Near Fine dj. (c.1954). First Edition. Hardcover. [very nice copy, tight and clean, slight bumping to base of spine; jacket shows light wear at extremities, one tiny closed tear at bottom corner of front panel]. "A novel of life in eleventh-century England as it really was." "To Vikings of the eleventh century, the prospect of English plunder seemed preferable to the Spartan life of their homeland. And so in the year 1002 two young men, Arnvid and Gunnar, set forth from Iceland to seek their fortunes in the weak and divided cluster of petty kingdoms and Danish colonies that was England a half century before the Norman conquest. Arnvid's and Gunnar's common upbringing has only served to make them rivals. Now, under the stress of combat and the hardship of a medieval campaign, Gunnar's ambition and Arnvid's vacillation clash in a contest which their mutual ove for the coldly beautiful Astrid brings to a tragic climax." .