Swear by Apollo by Shirley Barker (1958)

Swear by Apollo
by Shirley Barker
Publisher:  Random House
Copyright:  1958
Book Club Edition

A dramatic novel about a young American doctor in eighteenth-century Scotland.

Shirley Barker's colorful gift for storytelling has never been more evident than in Swear by Apollo, a novel about a young American physician in eighteenth-century Scotland and the Hebrides.  It was after the death of his young wife Sally Anne that Randall Woodbury decided to take his father's advice and go to Edinburgh for further medical study.  Not many months after he arrived, he began to suspect that the celebrated doctors at the University could teach him little that was new or practical.  He was ready to book passage back to America.

Then he met Comyn Rhinn, Laird of the Isle of Rona; Comyn offered him the post of physician on the island, and the opportunity to try his skill against the dread smallpox -- and Randall accepted.  Besides, the beauty and character of the Laird's daughter Margery almost made him forget the loss of Sally Anne.  Even though Kenneth Crary, Rona's hot-tempered schoolmaster, considered Margery his betrothed, she looked with favor on Randall.  There was another woman on the island, however, who wanted Randall for her own.  Ellen Deveron, daughter of the seer Andra, loved Kenneth Crary, but Ellen was as ambitious and unscrupulous as Kenneth himself; she saw in Randall a means of escape from the drab life of the island.

The web Ellen weaves to win Randall raises the curtain on an arresting drama that might have ended in tragedy but for the strange powers of Andra.  For a second time (the first had been before his arrival), Andra saw Randall in a vision -- and what she saw determined the future course of his life.

The struggle between science and magic (represented by Randall and Andra) -- and their eventual reconciliation -- lends further stature to the story of the tangled loves of the four young people.  Shirley Barker has written in Swear by Apollo one of her finest historical novels.

Condition:  Used.  Hardcover.  Dust cover is discolored and shows wear, creasing and tears in the edges.  Dust cover spine has tape on it.  Pages are tanning from age.  Previous owner's name and date are written on the front endpaper.  There's an envelope pasted to the front endpaper as a way to keep track of her books.  Binding is in the beginning stages of splitting, but pages are in tact.

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