About
About the Brother Cadfael Series
The Brother Cadfael Series is a sequence of twenty pieces of fiction written by Edith Pargeter, under the pen name of Ellis Peters. They are all mysteries and they are set in and around a monastery in medieval Shrewsbury, England, near the border with Wales. Cadfael is a monk at the Benedictine Abbey of Saint Peter and Saint Paul. He works as a herbalist and healer. He is the person solving the mysteries.
A brief biography of Ellis Peters
Edith Mary Pargeter was born on September 28th, 1913 in Horsehay in Shropshire where she lived all her life. After studying at Oxford, she worked in a chemist at Dawley between 1933 and 1940. During this period, in 1936, she wrote her first two novels. In 1940, she engaged in Women's Royal Navy service and in 1944, was awarded the British Empire medal.
During the war, she published two other novels, Ordinary people (1941) and She Goes To War (1942). After the war, she publishes several other novels, but it is in 1951 that she writes for the first time a detective novel (Fallen into the pit>). In this novel, appears the Felse sergeant, who will return in other investigations. Various novels separate its first novel-police officer from the second in 1959, the Mask of death, which she publishes under the pseudonym of Ellis Peters. The recognition arrives with its fourth novel, Death and the Joyful which gives to her the Edgar Poe of the best novel decreed by Mystery Writers of America.
It is in 1977, that it creates the character of Cadfael, a Welsh monk, herbalist in an abbey. He appears in Traffic of relics and will continue his adventures during twenty enthralling novels. Brother Cadafel makes penitence, written in 1994, will be the last novel of Edith Pargeter. She left us on October 14, 1995, at the 82 years age.
Who's Brother Cadfael?
The serie of books Brother Cadfael is wonderful. Amazingly good for a mediaval intrigue. Brother Cadfael is no an ordinary welsh monk. He is at first an herbologist who can' t stand injustice and consequently often inquires crimes in the abbaye of Shrewsbury.
But more interesting, Brother Cadfael had a a tumultuous life before ... Knight at the Cruisades, fisherman in the Mediterranean sea, lover of few women, father of an unknown son ... And that monk is the main character of Ellis Peter's books.
The books are amazing stories where murders and mysteries are to be solved. The stories are well built and carried out. The characters are really interesting, sometimes a glimps of their past comes out, they have a human dimension and moreover, everything is described as it were, as rude, as ugly and hard life was. Simple delicious to read ,)
The Brother Cadfael Series
The Novels
- 1977 : A Morbid Taste for Bones (year 1137 AD)
- 1979 : One Corpse Too Many (year 1138 AD)
- 1980 : Monk's Hood (year 1138 AD)
- 1981 : Saint Peter's Fair (year 1139 AD)
- 1981 : The Leper of Saint Giles (year 1139 AD)
- 1982 : The Virgin in the Ice (year 1139 AD)
- 1983 : The Sanctuary Sparrow (year 1140 AD)
- 1983 : The Devil's Novice (year 1140 AD)
- 1984 : Dead Man's Ransom (year 1141 AD)
- 1984 : The Pilgrim of Hate (year 1141 AD)
- 1985 : An Excellent Mystery (year 1141 AD)
- 1986 : The Raven in the Foregate (year 1141 AD)
- 1986 : The Rose Rent (year 1142 AD)
- 1988 : The Hermit of Eyton Forest (year 1142 AD)
- 1988 : The Confession of Brother Haluin (year 1142 AD)
- 1990 : The Heretic's Apprentice (year 1143 AD)
- 1990 : The Potter's Field (year 1143 AD)
- 1991 : The Summer of the Danes (year 1144 AD)
- 1992 : The Holy Thief (year 1144 AD)
- 1994 : Brother Cadfael's Penance (year 1145 AD)
The Short Stories
- 1998 : A Rare Benedictine :
- « A Light on the Road to Woodstock » (year 1120 AD)
- « The Price of Light » (year 1135 AD)
- « Eye Witness » (year 1139 ?)
Links
Wikipedia entry
Metatron kindly allowed me to adopt this fanlisting.
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