The Outlaw of Torn

A younger son of Henry III is stolen as a small child by a fencing master with a grudge against the king, and raised as a swordsman who does not know his own name — and grows up to lead an outlaw band against the barons in the war of Simon de Montfort. Burroughs failed at ranching, gold dredging and selling pencil sharpeners before deciding at thirty-five that he could write better than what he was reading; this was his second novel, written the same year as Tarzan. Fifty-six plates of moonlight, siege and cavalry by painters including Edvard Munch and Paul Sandby carry the medieval warfare and night wandering of the tale.