The Onedin Line a slanging match between Elizabeth and Sarah, who each disparage the circumstances of the other's wedding day until Leonora intervenes to restore peace. Cyril Abraham had planned to write a whole series of novels about the Onedin Line, but he died in 1979 after completing the fifth book, "The White Ships". The story was eventually to have seen James and Elizabeth as two wizened old autocrats, both determined not to relinquish their hold on the shipping business. James would have died as a very old man, leaving the family divided over control of the company. Cyril Abraham had intended the
The Ballantyne Novels The Ballantyne Novels The Ballantyne Novels are a series of four novels published between 1980 and 1984 by Wilbur Smith. They chronicle the lives of the Ballantyne family, from the 1860s through until 1980’s. against a background of the history of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). A fifth novel published in 2005 seeks to combine the Ballantyne narrative with that of Smith's other family saga, The Courtney Novels. The books are in the following series In 1860 the slave trade is still flourishing in southern Africa. Fuller Ballantyne, a famous missionary and explorer, has disappeared in the wild areas of the sub-continent.