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In: Historical Novels·Novels·American Literature
Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #25441.
The Reckoning is a historical romance set amid the American Revolution, the fourth installment in Robert W. Chambers’s series that dramatizes the fate of New York’s great landed families. The novel opens with a detailed preface that outlines the author’s intent to weave fact and fiction, focusing on the Johnson, Butler, Schuyler, and Van Rensselaer clans as they confront the turmoil of war. From the outset, Chambers situates the reader in a world of espionage, militia movements, and the siege of New York, introducing a narrator who has spent years as a covert correspondent for the Continental Army. The opening chapter, “The Spy,” finds him reflecting on his secret work, his youthful origins on the frontier, and the ever‑present danger of betrayal, establishing a plot that intertwines personal intrigue with the larger conflict.
Written in the lush, melodramatic prose of the early twentieth‑century turn‑of‑the‑century American novel, the voice is both lyrical and earnest, echoing the Romantic tradition while grounding itself in meticulous historical detail. Readers who enjoy richly described settings, intricate family dynamics, and a blend of adventure with period politics will find The Reckoning rewarding. It appeals especially to fans of historical fiction who appreciate a narrative that treats the Revolutionary era as a backdrop for personal drama rather than a strict chronicle.
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The first romance of the series, Cardigan, was followed by the second, The Maid-at-Arms. The third in order is not completed. The fourth is the present volume.
As Cardigan pretended to portray life on the baronial estate of Sir William Johnson, the first uneasiness concerning the coming trouble, the first discordant note struck in the harmonious councils of the Long House, so, in The Maid-at-Arms, which followed in order, the author attempted to paint a patroon family disturbed by the approaching rumble of battle. That romance dealt with the first serious split in the Iroquois Confederacy; it showed the Long House shattered though not fallen; the demoralization and final flight of the great landed families who remained loyal to the British Crown; and it struck the key-note to the future attitude of the Iroquois toward the patriots of the frontier--revenge for their losses at the battle of Oriskany--and ended with the march of the militia and Continental troops on Saratoga.
The third romance, as yet incomplete and unpublished, deals with the war-path and those who followed it, led by the landed gentry of Tryon County, and ends with the first solid blow delivered at the Long House, and the terrible punishment of the Great Confederacy.
The present romance, the fourth in chronological order, picks up the thread at that point.
The author is not conscious of having taken any liberties with history in preparing a framework of facts for a mantle of romance.
ROBERT W. CHAMBERS.
NEW YORK, May 26, 1904.
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