Books in the Northern Lights series

Albrecht Dü rer (1471-1528) enjoyed European-wide fame during his lifetime. Dü rer was not only a brilliant painter, but also a pioneering printmaker, experimental draughtsman, book publisher, first German art theoretician and amateur poet. His art was avidly collected, repeatedly copied in diverse media, and often forged. Then, with his death, the posthumous Dü rers were born. This book addresses his afterlife or, more correctly, afterlives. Beginning with the heartfelt eulogies of his friends and the creation of contemporary portraits of the Nuremberg master, Dü rer's person, his likenesses, and his art have been celebrated for over five hundred years. Our contemporary Dü rer is the subject of intense scholarly discussions on the one hand and of social and commercial popularization on the other hand.

Linking histories of women, relationships to the natural environment, material culture and art, Andrea Pappas presents a new, multi-dimensional view of eighteenth-century American culture from a unique perspective. This book investigates how and why women pictured the landscape in their needlework. It explores the ways their embroidered landscapes address the tumultuous environmental history of the period; how their depictions of nature differ from those made by men; and what women's choices of motifs can tell us about their lives and their relationships to nature. Embroidering the Landscape situates these pastoral and georgic needleworks (c. 1740-1775) at the intersection of environmental and social histories, interpreting them through ecocritical and social lenses. Pappas' investigation draws out connections between women's depicted landscapes and environmental and cultural history at a time when nature itself was a charged arena for changes in agriculture, husbandry, gardening, and the emerging discourses of botany and natural history. Her insights change our understanding of the relationship between culture and the environment in this period and raise new questions about the unrecognized extent of women's engagement with nature and natural science.

Mist and fog engender fascination and mystery, enticing with their wispy veils and vapourous moods, and they are the stuff of dreams and visions. 'The mists of time' and 'in a fog' are common expressions that substantiate the long association of mist and fog with the passage of time, the vagaries of memory and feelings of uncertainty. Mist and fog obscure, conceal and when they dissipate, reveal. Vapourous atmosphere in art and life masks evil and can elicit presentiments of death. It also has been used in art to convey the splendours of the spiritual world and the terrors of the supernatural. The metaphorical meanings that have accrued to mist and fog, encouraged by their indeterminate and transitory nature, and the emotions to which they give rise, are variously evident in the work of major artists and their contemporaries. This book focusses on mist and fog from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth centuries in the places they most proliferated. Examples of literature that employ mist and fog as metaphor and in allegory from antiquity to Joseph Conrad serve to amplify many of the paintings discussed.

This is the first book to address the long art history of dynastic marriage exchange between Denmark and Britain between 1600 and 1900. It explores an intersection of three themes trending in early modern studies: portraiture, gender and the court as a centre of cultural exchange. This work re-evaluates the construction and staging of gender in Northern consort portraiture over a span of three hundred years, examining the development of the scientific and social paradigms inflecting consort portraiture and representation, with a view to excavating portrait images' agency at the early modern moment of their conception and making. The consort's liminal position between royal houses, territories, languages and sometimes religion, has often been equated with political weakness, but this new work argues that this position endowed the consort with a unique space for innovation in the representation of elite identity. As such, consort imagery drew upon gender as a generative resource of motifs and ideas. Each chapter is informed by new archival research and introduces the reader to little known, yet astonishing works of art. Collectively, they seek to trace a shift in practices of identity formation over time; the transition from an emphasis on rank to an increasingly binary emphasis on gender.

Fidelia Bridges (1834-1923) painted pictures that critics praised for their ability to exude the fragrance of field flowers and glow with the plumage of birds. Raised in Salem and long residing in Connecticut, she maintained a studio in New York City, where she exhibited her art for over forty years at the National Academy, American Watercolor Society and other prestigious venues. Transforming flower painting from a domestic outlet for female amateurs to a marketable commodity for professionals, she never wavered in her conviction that women had the right to shape independent careers on their own terms. She delineated both cultivated flowers and clumps of weeds with an intensity of focus unmatched by any other artist of her era. Often, she combined plants with local birds to convey a sophisticated understanding of their environmental interaction that encouraged others to appreciate and conserve nature. She made an extended European tour in the 1860s and regular trips to Great Britain in later years but preferred home nature. Assembling a cross-section of her stunning oil paintings, watercolours, chromolithographs and illustrated volumes for the first time, and analysing them against letters, diaries and periodical reviews, Fidelia Bridges combines a recovery of the artist‿s biography with close readings of her artworks. Living an outwardly conventional life, she embraced the bicycle and later the automobile as vehicles of female liberation, cultivated her garden with the skill of a horticulturalist, and left a lasting pictorial legacy to be found in US public museums and private collections nationwide.

Woodland Imagery in Northern Art reconnects us with the woodland scenery that abounds in Western painting, from Albrecht Durer's intense studies of verdant trees, to the works of many other Northern European artists who captured 'the truth of vegetation' in their work. These incidents of remarkable scenery in the visual arts have received little attention in the history of art, until now. Prosperetti brings together a set of essays which are devoted to the poetics of the woodlands in the work of the great masters, including Claude Lorrain, Jan van Eyck, Jacob van Ruisdael, Peter Paul Rubens, Rembrandt and Leonardo da Vinci, amongst others. Through an examination of aesthetics and eco-poetics, this book draws attention to the idea of lyrical naturalism as a conceptual bridge that unites the power of poetry with the allurement of the natural world. Engagingly written and beautifully illustrated throughout, Woodland Imagery in Northern Art strives to stimulate the return of the woodlands to the places where they belong - in people's minds and close to home.

In the spring of 1885, Luba Engstrom meets Nicholas Matroona, a strong, brooding Native from the island of Unalaska. Against her parents' wishes, she elopes, believing love will be enough to bridge the gap between the civilized world of Juneau and the primitive culture of Nicholas's small village. After all, before Luba was born, her mother lived on a wild Alaskan island until she was forced to leave when a tsunami destroyed her people.But from the moment Luba arrives at Nicholas's home, she struggles to adapt and learn the village ways. Will the conflict between her husband's belief in ancient gods and her faith in Jesus Christ the Redeemer destroy Luba and Nicholas's relationship? Return to the Misty Shore-the third book in the Northern Lights series.

This fully revised, 20th Anniversary Edition of In the Land of White Nights is the second book in the Northern Lights series by award-winning, best-selling author Bonnie Leon.Anna or rivers of gold—which will captivate his heart?The lure of the nineteenth-century gold rush calls to Erik, a civil-war veteran. He and Anna, his Aleutian bride, set sail for a new life together in Sitka. Anna stands strong against the adversities of the new land with its unfamiliar culture and fearsome challenges. She fights the prejudice of others, while growing her newfound faith in the white man’s God.When forced to move farther north and begin again, Anna refuses to give up, allowing nothing to stand in the way of her family’s happiness. They discover joy as well as heartache in the Alaskan wilderness. But will Erik’s love of gold put all they’ve worked so hard for in jeopardy?4 Stars from RT Book Reviews!"This was first published in the 1990s and has been revised and updated to reflect current trends. It is the second in the Northern Lights series and is a beautifully written book including descriptive details of Alaska in the 1860s without overwhelming the plot. There have been changes that have made it better and more exciting. Bonnie Leon is a talented author who has brought back to life one of her best series and improved upon it."Anna, Erik, and their children have built a home and have started their new life on the frontier of Alaska. They are both aware there will be whispers and harsh words, because Anna is an Aleutian Indian and she is married to a white man. Anna wants her children to have an education and to be able to take care of themselves when they are adults. Erik does not understand why this is important to Anna. Anna keeps her faith strong and reaches out to people to show and teach them that God loves them and that she forgives them for their treatment of her and her family. Can the family make a living in the wilderness with all the hatred and racism surrounding them?" 

KAATJE JANSSEN--Desperate to know if her missing husband still lives, Kaatje hires the rugged, yet tenderhearted James Walker to guide her through the perils of the Alaskan wilderness. What she finally discovers, however, is far from what she expected--and could well place her in the greatest danger of her life.ELSA RAMSTAD--As captain of the Majestic and mother of Kristian and Eve, Elsa has sought to ease the ache of her lonely heart. Forever changed by loss, she accepts her fate of solitude. But when an old friend rekindles the spark of romance within her, will she allow the flames of love to burn again? TORA ANDERS--Her foolish youth behind her, Tora looks forward to her wedding and a fresh start in life as the wife of her beloved, Trent Storm. But first she must confront, face-to-face, the terrible demons of her past--and her struggle to forgive the man who radically altered her future. KARL MARTENSEN--Though he is widely admired, Captain Karl Martensen feels no depth of emotion for any of the women with whom his life becomes uncomfortably entangled. He has only tender memories of the love he once lost--a love that, by the grace of God, he just may find again.From the fierce Alaskan wilderness to the gaiety of San Francisco society; the familiar peaks of Bergen, Norway, to the dark, churning waters of Cape Horn; witness the glorious conclusion of the Northern Lights family saga as four long-time friends journey out of the shadow of their darkest days into the bright future awaiting them in the land of the Midnight Sun.

From the richly forested banks of the Washington Territory; to the burgeoning city of San Francisco; and across the turbulent, danger-filled waves of the open sea–you will experience an epic saga of perseverance and pain, faith and calling in Deep Harbor. Determined to live “the good life,” no matter the price, Tora Anders weaves a web of lies that could cost her everything she cares for–including a successful future and the man she loves–but lead her to what her soul most desperately needs. Her sister, Elsa Ramstad, has everything her heart desires: a loving husband, a family she adores, and a fulfilling life at sea. Then tragedy strikes. Now, drawing upon her faith and all the strength she can muster, Elsa must once again discover the woman she is and who she chooses to be.Four years after her husband’s disappearance, Kaatje Janssen struggles to raise two young daughters and tend her farm. But when help comes from the most unlikely source, Kaatje faces both uncertainty about the future and a deep secret from her past. And after years of grappling with his feelings for Elsa and the mistakes he has made, Karl is caught in a life of loneliness and emptiness. Can he finally accept the reality of what he once lost and open himself up to the possibility of what could be? Separated by physical distance and emotional boundaries, these four bound by friendship and family find each other once again and discover that some ties can never be broken in Deep Harbor, Book Two in The Northern Lights series.

Elsa Anders''s dream of marrying Peder Ramstad is about to come true. But as this independent, strong-willed woman discovers her own creative gifts--a love for travel, painting, and the sea--can she find happiness with a captain who insists upon leaving her safely on shore?Leaving their home in Norway behind, Elsa and Peder embark on a voyage to a new life in America with their closest friends, including: Kaatje Jansen, a woman seeking a new beginning for the sake of her marriage and for the child growing within her; Elsa''s sister Tora, a sly young vixen who knows exactly what she wants--and exactly how to get it; and Karl Martensen, a man torn between his friendship for Peder and a forbidden, secret love for Elsa that threatens to ruin them all.From the gentle hills of Bergen, Norway, to the rocky coast of Camden, Maine, and across the crashing, danger-filled waves of the open sea, experience an epic saga of perseverance, passion, faith, and fidelity in the Northern Lights series.