BIBLIOGRAPHY 1967- 1971
Thank you to biographer Dennis Duffy for providing this bibliography (including all of the original covers) of Leonard's more than 100 works.
McGillicuddy McGotham: A Three-Act Play (1967)
Chicago: Dramatic Publishing Co., 1967 [Three-act Play Adapted with Patricia Gray from the original Wibberley book]
The Road from Toomi (1967)
New York: William Morrow & Company, 1967 [Adult Fiction].
An author is sent to Africa to chronicle the transition of a fictitious African nation from colonial rule to independence. He finds himself caught up in revolution and counter-revolution until ultimately he comes to the realization that “unless you are your brother’s keeper, you will not yourself survive.”
Leonard considered this one of his personal favorites, one of his "African trilogy"—The Road from Toomi, Meeting with a Great Beast, and The Last Stand of Father Felix.
The Heavenly Quarterback: A Two-Act Play (1967)
Chicago: Dramatic Publishing Co., 1967 [Two-act Play].
St. Toth’s Catholic High School hasn’t won a football game against Martin Luther High, its Protestant crosstown rival, in thirty-five years and the coach is desperate. He prays for a miracle victory and God sends a couple of heavenly beings in answer to his prayer.
Two Angels on Duty: A One-Act Play (1967)
Chicago: Dramatic Publishing Co., 1967 [One-act Play Adapted with Mark Bucci from an Original Short Story].
On Christmas Eve little Johnny’s mother is dying and he sets out to find an angel who will perform a miracle to save her life. But who will get there first, the Angel of Mercy or the Angel of Death?
This play is appropriate for holidays such as Christmas or Easter. This play will leave your audience with happy hearts and tear-stained handkerchiefs.
“This is a sweet show of one boy’s mission not to give up hope. Even though this is a short play, the characters are wonderful for actors to explore. The audience was in tears by the end of the show.”—Review by Stephanie Hartnell, Christian High School, O’Fallon, Mo.
Encounter Near Venus (1967)
New York: Ariel Books (Farrar, Straus & Giroux), 1967 [Youth Science Fiction].
Four children accompany their uncle on a trip via spaceship to a moon of Venus called Nede. While there they learn important lessons about the eternal battle between good and evil as well as the importance and role of free will in that battle.
South Swell (1967)
New York: Ives Washburn, Inc., 1967 [Youth Fiction as Patrick O’Connor].
The story of a teen age boy struggling to find acceptance by his father and a father striving to understand his children set against a background of surfing and sailing.
Adventures of an Elephant Boy (1968)
New York: William Morrow & Company, 1968 [Adult Fiction].
The president of the Best of All Possible Nations (aka the United States) selects a humble elephant boy who lives in a quiet village along the Ganges River to visit the BAPN. On the way the boy becomes caught up in a war being fought by the BAPN against the People’s Liberation Army in an unnamed Southeast Asian country (aka South Vietnam).
Wibberley employs a satiric wit as biting as that of his fellow Irishman Johnathan Swift to expose political hypocrisy and the evils of war.
"If you enjoy political satire at its best, you must read this book! I read it first as a high school student during the Vietnam era when my friend lent it to me. The characterization of political nonsense and power still holds true today. GREAT SATIRE. GREAT BOOK!"—Amazon Review
Man of Liberty: A Life of Thomas Jefferson (1968)
New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1968 [Youth Non-fiction].
The publisher describes this as “a revised edition, in one volume, of Leonard Wibberley’s life of Jefferson, originally published in four books.”
Attar of the Ice Valley (1968)
New York: Ariel Books (Farrar, Straus & Giroux), 1968 [Youth Fiction].
Wibberley presents an Imaginative—yet believable—tale of the struggled of life at the end of the Ice Age.
A teenage Neanderthal boy named Attar must question all the beliefs he was raised with in order to find new hunting grounds and save his starving tribe. His journey tests the limits of his endurance as he braves new lands, tames a feared predator (a wolf-dog), and comes face-to-face with a volcano.
“Tightly woven, presented in deceptively simple, stark tones, (this book) shows a way of life stripped to bare essentials: a full belly, warmth, and a roof to shut out cold, wind and rain. The flab of today’s civilization hides what these things meant to those early cavemen who fought only to survive. The story centers on Attar and his struggle as a boy hardening into a man—the Ice Age, his taming of the wolf as the first dog, the accidental discovery of a spear and bola, the first exposure to ocean tides and a live volcano… The author writes about the dawn of mankind with control so expert that the reader feels himself huddling with Attar’s tribe, fearful of the unknown.”—New York Times
A Touch of Jonah (1968)
A Father Bredder Mystery, Book 7
New York: Dodd, Mead, 1968 [Father Bredder Mystery as Leonard Holton].
Father Bredder joins the crew of a yacht racing in the Transpac from California to Hawaii hoping to discover why members of the crew are dying mysteriously. He solves the mystery but not until after the ship’s captain also dies.
By then the big question is: Was it an accident or murder for revenge? Wibberley’s own sailing experience lends intense realism to the tale.
"A Touch of Jonah gives us landlubbers the next best thing to being part of that exhilarating, grueling and wonder-filled obstacle course that is the Transpac Ocean Race without our having to run its dangers. This is a superior piece of craft—the transference of the actual sensate quality of race sailing to words on paper. And Holton has done it, surprisingly enough, in the form of a mystery book, one of his Father Bredder series."—The Los Angeles Times
The Mouse on Wall Street (1969)
The Mouse that Roared Series, Book 3
New York, William Morrow & Company, 1969 [Adult Fiction].
The tiny Duchy of Grand Fenwick (15 square miles and 5000 people) has a problem, it is making more money from a wine-flavored chewing gum than it can spend.
Duchess Gloriana XII decides that the obvious solution is to lose the money in the stock money. That plan goes uproariously awry when the Duchy finds itself owning stocks worth billions of dollars and controlling the world economy.
The result is a delightful skewering of world economics by an accomplished satirist.
"Wibberley is in great form. For imaginative story-telling and funny but meaningful satire this latter-day Swift is unbeatable."—Los Angeles Times
"About the time it seems funny, the reader suddenly realizes it isn't so much fiction as truth..."—The Nashville Banner
Beyond Hawaii (1969)
New York: Ives, Washburn, 1969 [Youth Fiction as Patrick O’Connor].
In a story with clear parallels to Wibberley’s real-life experiences a man named Tom Warner purchases and salvages a sunken yacht. After the boat is restored he takes his family on a once-in-a-lifetime cruise from Hermosa Beach to Hawaii and beyond aboard the yacht.
Eusebius, The Phoenician (1969)
New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1969 [Youth Fiction as Christopher Webb].
(Published on Kindle as The Phoenician and the Lost Vikings of the Round Table)
When a legendary Viking ship, the Black Raven, returns home to Ostmond, its captain is dead, and the crew is emaciated. The only man left standing is a stranger from a faraway land named Eusebius the Phoenician.
Eusebius is taken to the Great Hall where he convinces the Viking council to give him men and ships to go on an epic quest for the Holy Grail.
★★★★ “Many surprises, starting with the author. When I picked this up at some used book store or sale, I had no idea it was by Leonard Wibberley. Next, my assumption was that anything Phoenician would be set in ancient times—wrong! This is, in fact, a tale of Vikings. Then I thought this was a straight historical fiction—nope, it leans more to the speculative alternative history with elements from myths and legends (as well as actual history). It’s quite a good book that keeps moving along.”—Goodreads Review
Hound of the Sea: The Story of a Racing Yacht (1969)
New York: Ives Washburn, 1969 [Adult Non-fiction].
“Hound of the Sea” is the English meaning of Cu Na Mara, the Irish name of a Morgan 34 yacht Leonard Wibberley sailed in two races from North America to Hawaii. In this book he details both experiences; first sailing as a non-participant in the 1967 Trans-Pacific race from Los Angeles to Honolulu, and the following year joining a race from Victoria, BC, to the Hawaiian island of Maui.
The reader becomes immersed in the intricacies and challenges of preparing and sailing a small thirty-four foot vessel across thousands of miles of open ocean.
"The writing is vigorous and witty..."—Saturday Review
A Car Called Camellia (1970)
The Black Tiger Series, Book 6
New York: Ives, Washburn, 1970 [Youth Fiction as Patrick O’Connor].
The final chapter in the six book sports-car racing series about Woody Hartford, a young racing enthusiast, and his car—the Black Tiger.
Camellia's steam-powered turbine engine—noiseless, oil-less, and practically gasless--would seem to be the cure for pollution, but like all revolutions it doesn't happen overnight. Worm McNess (the implacable Scotsman employed by Black Tiger as genius mechanic/designer) invents it. Black Tiger won't have it. Ace-driver Woody Hartford won't believe it. The Indy 500 committee almost bars it. And the competing entries will try anything to stop it.
You'll hold your breath as you read about this water-powered car—named after a flower—that has to go up against the gas-guzzlers.
★★★★★ "As the last book in the series, this one provides a satisfying conclusion and a surprise for long-time readers of the series. I was delighted to finally complete my collection of the six Black Tiger stories with this book."—Amazon Review
Journey to Untor (1970)
New York: Ariel Books (Farrar, Straus & Giroux), 1970 [Youth Science Fiction].
In this sequel to Encounter Near Venus, Uncle Bill and his six nieces and nephews—Kevin, Patricia, Christopher, Arabella, Rory and Cormac—are transported across the dimensions of space to the planet Untor. When they arrive they travel across the planet on unicorns and a donkey to meet the Delathon, an archangel who serves the Ruler.
Wibberley uses the book to philosophize about the interrelationship between space and time as well as the deeper spiritual meaning and power of love.
A Problem in Angels (1970)
A Father Bredder Mystery, Book 8
New York: Dodd, Mead, 1970 [Father Bredder Mystery as Leonard Holton].
A concert violinist suffers an apparent heart attack in the middle of a performance but the more Father Bredder learns about the matter the more he is convinced that there was nothing natural about the death. Clues including bits of glass inside a violin, mysterious messages about herald angels, and an old picture of three children help the priest follow the trail of a devious killer from Los Angeles to central Europe.
"Father Bredder's eighth secular excursion into the world of murder and mystery begins with a death at a string quartet concert. The background of violins and their makers and repairers is fascinating."—Saturday Review
"...the atmosphere is seductive... Father Bredder, who has played detective before this, is the kingpin of the narrative, and then there is a perpetual chorus composed of nuns, who bear modest witness; assorted onlookers and suspects; corpses; and, of course, the murderer, mysterious as the graves he is busily filling, one by one."—The New Yorker
Meeting with a Great Beast (1971)
New York: William Morrow & Company, 1971 [Adult Fiction].
A man diagnosed with inoperable cancer sells his belongings to fulfill a lifelong dream to go on safari in Africa and hunt an elephant. But as he tracks the great creature, a bond forms between the hunter and the hunted, transforming the man and helping face his own death.
“Beautifully, poetically wrought, this short novel echoes with a depth found in the best of fiction.”—Robert Kirsch, Los Angeles Times
“All that a reader might expect from this author is contained in this little allegory which stands with Hemingway’s Old Man and the Sea—a modern, exciting story of heroic adventure that, like Melville’s Moby Dick, contains the truths of living human selfishness and love.”—Long Beach Press-Telegram
Black Jack Rides Again: A Two-Act Play (1971)
Chicago: Dramatic Publishing Co., 1971 [Two-act Play].
Life at the Palm View Convalescent Home proves to be anything but serene or golden for the senior citizens living there. Someone is killing the residents and no one knows how many will die before the killer is found. The police may be stymied but Black Jack, one of the residents, has a plan to solve the case.
Leopard's Prey (1971)
The Treegate Series, Book 5
New York: Ariel Books (Farrar, Straus & Giroux), 1971 [Youth Historical Fiction, Manly Treegate Series].
In this first of a trilogy we see the War of 1812 and the events leading up to it through the eyes of twelve year old Manly Treegate, an orphan growing up in the home of his uncle Peter Treegate in Salem, Massachusetts.
Manly, an American citizen, is impressed against his will to serve on the British frigate Leopard in 1807. He experiences the cruelties of life in the British navy and sees action in several battles as a powder boy before falling overboard during a battle against a French warship off the coast of Haiti.
Peter is rescued by Haitian pirates and finally finds his way home to Boston.
"Spirited political discussion, seagoing strife from Norfolk to Haiti, and actual incidents of international conflict add pace and flavor to this light historical adventure on the order of the author's four previous Treegate chronicles."—Kirkus Reviews
Voyage by Bus: Seeing America by Land Yacht (1971)
New York: William Morrow & Company, 1971 [Adult Non-fiction].
Leonard Wibberley takes his family—and the reader—on a summer drive in a 27-foot motor home throughout the western United States. Along the way he provides insights into the natural features, history, and peoples of this wide open expanse of America.