The Courtney Novels are a series of twenty seven novels published between 1964 and 2026 by Wilbur Smith. They chronicle the lives of the Courtney family, from the 1660s through until 1987.
The novels used to be divided into three parts; however, they can now be split into five parts; the original trilogy of novels follow the twins Sean and Garrick Courtney from the 1860s until 1925.
The second part is five books which follows Centaine de Thiry Courtney, her sons and grandchildren between 1917 and 1987.
The third part follows the Courtney family from the 1660s through until 1820, focusing on successive generations of the family. The third part can also be split into the Birds of Prey 'original' series and the extended series.
The fourth part combines the Courtney narrative with that of Smith's other family saga, The Ballantyne Novels and is set between 1880 and 1899.
The fifth part follows Leon Courtney and his daughter between 1906 and post World War II.
Books
Chronological order The chronological order of the five parts are: Third, First, Fourth, Fifth then the Second Sequence. However, this is a slight generalization, so in fact the book sequence is as follows, with the series in parentheses: Birds of Prey 1660s (Birds of Prey series - original trilogy) Golden Lion 1670s (Birds of Prey extended series) Monsoon 1690s (Birds of Prey series - original trilogy) The Tiger's Prey 1700s (Birds of Prey extended series) Blue Horizon 1730s (Birds of Prey series - original trilogy) Ghost Fire 1754 (Birds of Prey extended series) Storm Tide 1774 (Birds of Prey extended series) Nemesis 1794-1803/1806-1807 (Birds of Prey extended series) Warrior King 1820 (Birds of Prey extended series) Vengeance 1829 (Birds of Prey extended series) When the Lion Feeds 1860s-1890s (When the Lion Feeds Series) Triumph of the Sun 1880s (Triumph of the Sun series) King of Kings 1887 (Triumph of the Sun series) Fire on the Horizon 1899 (Triumph of the Sun series) The Sound of Thunder 1899-1906 (When the Lion Feeds Series) Assegai 1906-1918 (Assegai series) The Burning Shore 1917-1920 (The Burning Shore Series) A Sparrow Falls 1918-1925 (When the Lion Feeds Series) War Cry 1914-1941 (Assegai series) Power of the Sword 1931-1948 (The Burning Shore series) Courtney's War 1939-1943 (Assegai series) Crossfire 1943 (Assegai series) Flashpoint 1943 and 1946 (Assegai series) Legacy of War After WWII (Assegai series) Rage 1950s and 1960s (The Burning Shore series) Golden Fox 1969-1979 (The Burning Shore series) A Time To Die 1987 (The Burning Shore series) By Order of Publication Source:
When The Lion Feeds 1964 The Sound Of Thunder 1966 A Sparrow Falls 1977 The Burning Shore 1985 Power Of The Sword 1986 Rage 1987 A Time To Die 1989 Golden Fox 1990 Birds Of Prey 1997 Monsoon 1999 Blue Horizon 2003 The Triumph Of The Sun 2005 Assegai 2009 Golden Lion 2015 War Cry 2017 The Tiger's Prey 2017 Courtney's War 2018/09/06 Ghost Fire 2019/09/05 Cloudburst 2020/03/19 Legacy Of War 2021/04/15 Storm Tide 2022/04/14 Nemesis 2023/04/13 Warrior King 2024/05/09 Fire On The Horizon 2024/08/29 Crossfire 2025/05/22 Vengeance 2026/05/21 Flashpoint 2026/08/27
The First Sequence The first sequence beginning with When the Lion Feeds follows the life of Sean Courtney. Sean and Garrick Courtney are twins who couldn't be more different. The jealous schemes of a woman draw them apart as Southern Africa is engulfed in war against the Zulu. Sean, believed dead, returns home to find that Garrick has married his pregnant girlfriend (the child is Michael Courtney). She tells Sean she wants to be with him, but he refuses her. She then tricks Garrick into thinking Sean raped her, causing Garrick to hate his twin.
Sean places himself in self-exile and wanders the African veldt searching for fame. He meets and befriends former Canadian miner Duff. They start a gold mine together during the Witwatersrand Gold Rush at Johannesburg. Sean nearly dies in a mine collapse. Their businesses make them rich but they lose their wealth in a shady deal. Sean, Duff and African servants and gun-bearers roam the veldt, hunting big game and collecting elephant tusks. Duff is attacked by a rabid jackal and dies. Sean eventually meets a Boer family and marries the daughter. She gives birth to a boy, Dirk. She becomes ill and is confused by big-city life when they visit Johannesburg. She goes missing, her scarf found at the mouth of a gold-mine shaft tells the tale.
The Sound of Thunder is set several years after the first book. Sean and his son Dirk finally leave the veldt with a large store of elephant tusks, but discover that war is brewing between British settlers and Boers. He meets and falls in love with a woman called Ruth, and they conceive a daughter during a thunderstorm. Ruth runs away to return to her husband who is in the British army. Later, Sean also joins up. He befriends Saul, Ruth's husband, and officers a small force of British soldiers. He and his men win victories. The commander of the Boers Sean is fighting is none other than Sean's old brother-in-law, Jan Paulus Leroux. They fight but decide to leave each other alone. Saul is killed in battle. Sean, although feeling unnecessarily guilty, finds Ruth and marries her. Sean's daughter, named Storm, grows to be a pretty and much-lauded artist. Sean's son, Dirk, has become evil (due to jealousy for his father's attention, some psychological imbalance or Sean's inattentive parenting). The book ends with Sean's brother Garrick forgiving him and Dirk running away, promising to ruin the Courtneys.
A Sparrow Falls is the concluding part of Sean Courtney's life story. It begins during the First World War, when a young soldier named Mark Anders is sent out to kill a German sniper. Sean, an army officer, respects him. After the war, Mark returns home to South Africa to find his land taken and his grandfather murdered. He finds employment working for Sean. He investigates and discovers that Dirk Courtney, who has become rich and powerful through foul means, has plans to build a dam that will trap a reservoir that would cover the old Anders farm and land needed for a nature preserve. Sean impedes Dirk's plan, and Dirk swears to kill Sean. Mark falls in love with Sean and Ruth's daughter, Storm. The book describes vividly how South Africa experienced the Rand Rebellion, between Communist-inspired Great War veterans and the Establishment (embodied in the South African militia forces and mine-owners). In the book's climax, Dirk brutally kills Sean and Ruth but is then killed by Mark. Mark regains his land and becomes a national park warden and lives with Storm in relative peace and happiness, raising their child.
The Second Sequence The second sequence of Courtney novels begins with The Burning Shore. It follows Michael, the first-born, illegitimate son of Sean Courtney and his exploits as a pilot during World War I in Europe. Michael meets and falls in love with Centaine de Thiry, a Frenchwoman, and in a night of stolen passion they conceive a baby. Before Centaine discovers she is pregnant, Michael asks Centaine to marry him and takes her to meet his 'Uncle' Sean, who is biologically his father. Michael is killed on their wedding day, before the ceremony takes place, and Centaine goes to Sean for help. Consumed with grief for his unacknowledged first-born son, Sean sends Centaine and her nurse, Anna, to his brother Garrick in South Africa. However the Hospital Ship they are traveling on is torpedoed by a German submarine and Centaine is shipwrecked, alone and pregnant, on the coast of South West Africa. Only through her incredible determination to live for the sake of Michael's unborn son does Centaine survive, and eventually she is adopted by an old San (Bushmen) couple who teach her the language and the ways of the Kalahari Desert. They also take her to 'The Place of All Life', a San Holy Place, where Centaine discovers a beautiful stone. After the birth of her son who she names Michael Shasa Courtney, Centaine is tracked down by a German South African, Lothar De La Rey, a renegade outlaw who has demanded Garrick trade the safe delivery of Centaine and her child for a free pardon. Lonely and deprived of contact with her own kind, Centaine falls in love with Lothar and conceives him a child in the desert. After she discovers that Lothar murdered H'ani and O'wa, her adopted San family, Centaine turns on Lothar and insists he take the baby from the child-bed and that she never wants to see Lothar or their bastard child again. While hiding in the desert awaiting the child's birth, Centaine pegs out and lays mining claims on the 'Place of All Life', guided by the promise in the glittering stone she found years before. Upon returning to the colony, Centaine and Shasa are accepted into the Courtney family and the fact she and Michael Courtney never legally married remains a closely guarded a secret, as well as the maternity of Lothar De La Rey's son. The newly named H'ani Diamond Mine makes Centaine Courtney one of the richest women in the world.
The second sequence continues through four more books following the exploits of the Courtneys:
Power of the Sword focuses on the lives of Centaine de Thiry Courtney's sons — Shasa Courtney and Manfred De La Rey — caught up in South Africa's tumultuous history through almost two decades. The two are unaware that they are half-brothers and are on opposing sides of South Africa's white community. The story opens in the days of the depression, with Centaine Courtney fighting to keep her mine and her company afloat financially competing against the dominance of the De Beers diamond company and their set diamond selling quotas. In the process of saving her company, Centaine ruins the lives of Lothar De La Ray and her unacknowledged son Manfred. From their first meeting, the two young boys, Manfred and Shasa, recognize in each other that they have intertwined destinies. From schoolboys days their lives are glaringly different, Shasa spends his early years in the affluent British South African world of private schools, polo ponies and a luxurious family estate, Weltevreden, while Lothar spends them in the squatter camps of the unemployed and impoverished. After Lothar De La Rey executes a daring raid on Centaine's diamonds, which goes horribly wrong, Lothar is jailed and Manfred is sent to live with his Uncle Tromp Bierman, a well known and much respected Minister of the Dutch Reformed Church. With the training of his uncle Tromp, Manfred becomes a champion boxer. He becomes a firm believer in the superiority and the divine right of his people, the Afrikaner, to the Promised Land of South Africa. He joins the Ossewa Brandwag, a Nazi-Supporting Secret Society for elite so-called pure-blooded Afrikaners who have one objective - to raise the interests of the Afrikaner people above all others. Both Shasa and Manfred are included in the South African team in the 1936 Olympics in Hitler's Berlin and there Manfred discovers his true calling. He marries Heidi, a German Intelligence Officer, and becomes a formidable secret agent dubbed 'White Sword.' His mission is to assassinate the Prime Minister of South Africa, and leave the country ripe for revolution but a simple mistake destroys the plan (he killed Garrick Courtney) and the pathways of destiny for Shasa and Manfred cross once again. Meanwhile, in the mines and native labour camps across South Africa, the black workers grow dissatisfied with the conditions of their lives and unions are formed. Led by the ruthless half brothers Moses Gama and Hendrik Tabaka, as well as other revolutionaries such as Nelson Mandela and Louis Botha, The ANC (African National Congress) begins to grow in power and influence and spreads its arms across the troubled nation.