When I entered Knott County High School at Pippa Passes, Kentucky, in September of 1964, I remember thinking that the little one room library was the finest collection of books that I had ever seen. When I began to write this post, I sent a message to my friend and former high school teacher Mary Lois Jacobs who was able to tell me that the books in the Knott County High School Library had primarily been donated by Alice Lloyd College and that there were about 2,000 books in the collection, mostly fiction. She also stated that the faculty had been disappointed in the lack of sufficient non-fiction in the collection. Prior to entering high school, the only lending library I had access to was a summer book mobile program which stopped at our country store at Dema once a week during the summer vacation from school. I had visited the Kendallville, Indiana, library a few times during some summer visits to my sister's home there but I had never been a regular user of such a fine library. Today, I know that the collection at KCHS would be considered woefully deficient in most public high schools in America. The other distinct memory I have retained from that time is that on one of the first occasions I took a lengthy, perhaps epic, novel off the shelves and asked to check it out that Cloys Thornsbury, the librarian, gave me a somewhat askance gaze and asked me something to the effect of "are you sure you can read that". I'm sure I answered "yes" and I'm also pretty sure I actually finished whatever book I checked out. Three of those first long novels I remember reading are this one, "The Silver Chalice" by Thomas B. Costain, along with his "The Black Rose", and "The Count of Monte Cristo" by Alexandre Dumas. I don't recall that Cloys asked me that question again after I had read, returned, and could discuss those three books.
Recently, in one of my frequent visits to some surplus store where I often buy used books, I strayed into a weathered copy of "The Silver Chalice", bought it, and committed myself to rereading it. I can now report that the mission has been completed. Thomas B. Costain was a Canadian born journalist and mass market writer who produced 14 novels, 8 non-fiction historical works, and 4 co-edited collections of short stories by major authors. His major novels were generally massive works with plots, counter plots, historical settings and characters, and multitudinous casts of characters. His works can be argued to have not been quite great works but they were well written, meticulously researched, and generally popular on the mass market. "The Silver Chalice" is an example of all those qualities.
The primary protagonist in this novel is a totally fictional young artist named Basil who has been sold into slavery by his uncle under Roman law upon the death of his father before he attained the age of majority. Basil's freedom is arranged by the Apostle Luke who does so because he has been chosen by the early Christian church to locate and hire an artist to create a frame to hold the cup which was used by Jesus Christ and the Apostles for the sacrament at the Last Supper. The frame is to be made of silver and the cup is to be surrounded by small busts of the Twelve Apostles. The freedom of Basil and the commission to create the frame are financed by the Biblical person Joseph of Arimathea who is the same man who is credited in the Bible with having provided his own tomb for the burial of Jesus. As the novel progresses, Basil falls in love with the granddaughter of Joseph of Arimathea and eventually marries her just minutes before her grandfather's death. But they have previously agreed that the marriage is one of convenience only because her father is not a Christian and would not agree to continue to finance the work after his father's death. The newly weds leave Jerusalem for Antioch, outside the reach of Jewish law and the Jewish high priest and his co-conspirators who seek to find and destroy the cup. Basil goes on a long journey to locate the living disciples and create their busts from actual memory after meeting them. Along the journey, Basil decides that he has not only come to realize that he loves his wife Deborra but that he also has been converted to Christianity. Just in case any of you want to read the novel and can actually locate a copy on some of the used book websites, I won't spoil the story by disclosing the conclusion. Just know that this novel is well worth reading whether or not you are religious. It moves quickly from scene to scene, from crisis to crisis. The characters are realistically rendered, both known historical persons and those who are purely fictional. It is filled with fascinating people including a Chinese prince who befriends Basil, Luke, and Deborra; an Arabic camel driver who seeks to become an important trader; a villain who is also a magician; and a manipulative, beautiful, and dangerous female assistant to that magician. Basil even spends some time in the home of the Roman emperor. If you can find it, I can't more highly recommend a historical novel. And, I was very pleased to be rewarded by those wonderful memories from my teen years by the second reading of the book.
