Local author, Edwin Woolsey, publishes fifth book

Local author, Edwin Woolsey, is excited to announce the fifth book in his Chronicler series, "Broad New Horizons," a novelized account of his extended family's arrival in the New World's Dutch New Netherland prior to the thirteen English colonies of America.

The task the author originally envisioned was a chronicle of his history from the origin of the family's surname to his grandfather and father's generation, a period spanning 1,200 years between the Saxon settlements of Roman Britain to America's Great Depression. Initially, Edwin questioned whether such an outlandish idea was realistic. Yet, he thought by including 200 years of world history and five generations in each of six books, maybe the task was possible. Thus, after his first publication, one by one, he prepared for the next until the series was finally complete and his dream was finished.

More than merely writing for others, Woolsey intended to use each novel as a vehicle to personally travel through time and space. He meant to go to the places where his forebears likely lived. To the best of his ability, the author wanted to smell, taste, see, hear and touch the exact world they experienced. Edwin hoped to know their joy and utter sadness as life changed, for good or for bad. Woolsey's characters mirrored family members that he grew up with, as well as anonymously representing himself in the plot.

So, from the family's first Saxon forebear Wulfsige to Missouri's Ivy Albert Woolsey, Jr., the author eventually reached his goal.

The Chronicler series begins with the Saxon settlement of England where the Woolsey family surname was established in the first book "Wolves of War." The second book "Ivernia's Quest" explores a possible Irish branch of the family during the Third Crusade with Richard the Lionheart. Book three "Nova Anglia" relates the adventuresome exodus of a large group of disenfranchised Saxon refugees to Roman Byzantium and Crimea following the Norman conquest of England in 1066. The fourth book "Ashes, Ashes, We All Fall Down" is a novelized account of his extended family's struggles in medieval England during the days of Europe's Black Death – the bubonic plague. Number five "Broad New Horizons" portrays his family's colonial settlement in Dutch America. His sixth book, "Beyond the Father of Waters" relates the Woolsey family history from Illinois to Missouri during the American Civil War to the Great Depression.

Each book is available through a variety of online distributors, including Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.com., simply by Googling the author's name - Edwin L. Woolsey.  His books can be purchased in this area at Book Nook in West Plains.   His books can also be read at local community libraries in both Mountain View and Willow Springs.