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Summary
Summary
This profile of Jonathan Chapman appeared in Harper's Magazine of November 1871. It was one of the earliest, if not the first, gathering of all of the facts known about the man called Johnny Appleseed. From his own admission we have learned that he started life near Boston in 1774.The first independent record of him notes his arrival in 1801, in what is now Licking County, Ohio, with a horseload of appleseeds. He also brought with him his ardent belief in the teachings of Emmanuel Swedenborg, and he spent the rest of his life spreading the gospel of this Christian mystic with an imaginative lending library plan. His mission had him continuously traversing western Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana planting and caring for his beloved apple trees. Johnny Appleseed died in 1847 near Fort Wayne.There is a monument to his memory in South Park, Mansfield, Ohio.
Author Notes
Jeffrey Archer was born on April 15, 1940, in London, England. After graduating from Brasenose College, Oxford, he founded his own company named Arrow Enterprises and promptly amassed a fortune. In 1969, he was elected to the House of Commons. A conservative Member of Parliament, he was, at the age of 29, the youngest member at that time. While in Parliament, he invested in a corporation and lost his fortune because of embezzlement. Devastated and facing financial ruin, he recounted his experiences in his book, Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less. The success of this book launched his writing career.
His other works include Kane and Abel, Honor among Thieves, Shall We Tell the President?, A Quiver Full of Arrows, The Prodigal Daughter, and The Sins of the Father. He is also the author of The Clifton Chronicles series. He writes plays including Beyond Reasonable Doubt and The Accused. He was sentenced to four years imprisonment because of perjury and conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, and was released in July 2003. He published three volumes of his Prison Diary: Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven. In 2014, his title Be Careful What You Wish For made The New York Times Bestseller List. In 2015 his title Mightier than the Sword made the same bestsller list.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
School Library Journal Review
YA-It is spring, 1993. Saddam Hussein, in his ongoing desire to humiliate the U.S., arranges for the theft of the Declaration of Independence from the National Archives. His aim is to destroy the document in front of CNN cameras on July 4th for all the world to see, and so destroy the credibility of his arch-enemy. This is the basis of Archer's fast-paced novel. His cast of characters is right out of today's headlines: President Bill Clinton and Saddam Hussein; American CIA agents and agents from Israel's Mossad; the Mafia; and an Irish expert forger. The setting of the novel is equally broad, practically encompassing the globe. The highly improbable plot may strain credibility, but the author more than makes up for this by creating an entertaining adventure.- Pamela B. Rearden, Centreville Regional Library, Fairfax County, VA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Newly minted CIA and Mossad agents work to undo damage wrought by a Mafia/Iraqi conspiracy in English author Archer's ( As the Crow Flies ; Kane and Abel ) witty, action-filled--if improbable--thriller. Some readers, we suppose, might find quite plausible the idea that the mob has arranged for a ringer to impersonate President Clinton during his first months in office. But here the actor who plays Clinton assumes the role only long enough to swipe the Declaration of Independence. The chase is on as mobsters spirit the manuscript-turned-macguffin off to Iraq, where Saddam has plans to barbeque it for the Fourth of July, live on CNN. Meanwhile, Yale Law professor Scott Bradley goes undercover for the CIA, tracking lovely young Mossad operative Hannah Kopec, likewise on assignment in Paris. It's only a matter of time before the two agents are caught up in each other's arms and, of course, in the race to recapture the Declaration. Beyond the thrills and surprises that Archer's masterful narrative provides, readers will remain aware of the extreme unlikelihood that a scam such as Saddam's could succeed, and that two such neophytes would be thrown in to stop it. This deficit in verisimilitude doesn't detract too much from the novel's entertainment value, however, and some will be amused that Archer himself good-naturedly joins in the criticism by ironically making the accuracy of the spelling of ``Brittish'' (sic) in the Declaration and its copies central to his plot. 50,000 first printing; major ad/promo; author tour. (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
It's Amateur Night on the international intrigue stage, as perennial bestseller Archer (As the Crow Flies, etc.) shows Saddam Hussein's henchmen grooming an actor to take the place of the President so that they can--push the button that starts WW III? Plant a bomb that will destroy both chambers of Congress? No, steal the Declaration of Independence! Actually, the actor, one Lloyd Adams, is much less important than his support staff: Tony Cavalli, the unscrupulous, well-connected lawyer whose off-the-books ``Skills'' department takes on the assignment of switching the Declaration for a copy that will remain in the Archives until Saddam publicly burns the original on July 4, bringing Bill Clinton to his knees; T. Hamilton McKenzie, the Nobelist in plastic surgery (!) whose daughter is kidnapped to encourage him to rearrange Adams's face; William O'Reilly (``Dollar Bill''), nonpareil forger who copies the Declaration exactly and throws in a few near- copies for good measure; Johnny Sciasatore, distinguished director whose fake movie motorcade of the President helps get the imposter into the Archives; and a contract killer in Laura Ashley dresses who goes around mopping up the rest of the staff. The Skills crew gets the goods, of course, and then the ``Mission: Impossible'' scenario is reversed, as Scott Bradley, a Yale Law prof and CIA hanger-on, joins rookie Mossad agent Hannah Kopec (who already thinks she's killed Scott when his earlier cover as Mossad contact ``Simon Rosenthal'' was blown: don't ask) and a giant, custom-made safe named Madame Bertha to sneak the Declaration back out of Baghdad. With all those copies and all those agents plotting at cross-purposes, you just know there are going to be multiple switches and surprises, but instead of generating suspense, they just add to the general air of genial preposterousness. Undeniably entertaining, if you can get into the spirit of farcical and inconsequential melodrama. Maps of the Washington motorcade route and the Mideast--just in case you have any questions. (First printing of 500,000)
Booklist Review
Just in time for the beach, the Archer mix-and-match best-seller machine has churned out an international thriller that will no doubt be described as "fresh from this morning's headlines." This time out the key characters are a Yale constitutional law professor who moonlights as a CIA consultant but yearns for field experience, a Russian-born Israeli model who signs on as a Mossad trainee when her family is decimated by a Gulf War Scud missile, an Iraqi diplomat assigned to the United Nations, a Mafia don and his lawyer son who run a unique temporary agency. The minor characters include the quintessential stage Irishman: an aging alcoholic who, when sober, is a master forger. With cameos by Saddam, Bill, and Warren Christopher, and with a multinational cast of spooks and sadists, bankers and bureaucrats, Archer concocts an unlikely but not absolutely inconceivable high-stakes shell game motivated by vengeance, greed, conspiracy, and betrayal. It is the shallowness rather than the depth of Archer's characterization that makes the men and women who populate his novels seem familiar: we've met these folks before, not in "real life," but in other best-sellers and TV movies. Still, predictable as it is, Honor among Thieves pushes all the right buttons; expect heavy demand from readers who like paint-by-number fiction. (Reviewed June 1993)0060179457Mary Carroll
