This is the third book in the series of famous travellers' voyages, where fact and fiction are cleverly woven together. The details of the voyages of Columbus are accurate; interest and excitement for boys and girls are added by adventures of a young English boy, Peter Aubrey, who is one of the ship's company. Peter had gone with his uncle Diego de Medina-Barrios to visit his dead father's Spanish estates; on the voyage his uncle's servant had tried to kill him, but had killed the ship's boy instead. Peter took the boy's place, and to escape his uncle joined the company sailing with Columbus. He is left on an island in the West Indies, but after some years of adversity and adventure manages to return to England and resume control of his estates that had been taken over by his uncle and cousin.

"Here is sound history and great adventure; the details are accurate, and Columbus, although rightly kept in the background, emerges as a great and memorable figure." -- Times Literary Supplement

From the dust jacket of the George G. Harrap edition