Louise Dickinson Rich pictures the early explorers of the New World as a lively and human lot — true individuals, each with his own characters, but all burning with the desire to see what lay over the horizon.

Here are the Viking Bjarni Herjulfson, blundering into the New World because of a fog; Columbus, his mind obsessed with finding a westward route to Japan; Balboa, searching for gold and finding instead the greatest ocean in the world; Cortés, his cruel heart set on Indian treasure; Pizarro, conqueror of the Incas; de Soto, discoverer of the great river in which he was finally buried; Coronado, unwitting donor of horses to the American West; Magellan, whose bulldog determination resulted in the first circumnavigation of the globe; and the French — Cartier, Champlain, Joliet, Father Marquette, and La Salle — shaping a giant empire in the wilderness.

These and more — the explorers who lived our history — come alive in this fascinating account of their adventures.

From the dust jacket of The First Book of Kings