Jeffrey K. Hill is a writer from Illinois. His fiction focuses on love, loss, and the varied affairs of the heart. His non-fiction focuses on American history and exceptionalism.

Marie Stuart, Queen of Hearts

Prompted by a mixture of romantic suffering, mimetic desire, and genuine affection, Pierre de Bocsozel de Chastelard becomes enamored of his liege Marie Stuart. In this regard, he is no different from most men who encounter the charismatic Queen of Scots. What sets him apart from the others is his rash and irrepressible love.

About Chastelard, the English emissary Thomas Randolph wrote, “...there were so many diverse reports, and contrary judgments what should become of him, that for long time I could come by no certainty.” This historical novel sets out to bring a new degree of certainty to the most misunderstood episode in the life of Marie, Queen of Scots.

The Beggars of Azure

A young writer called Gregory Mather becomes enchanted by a woman he knows only as D. She is employed in an ancient bookstore where patrons sometimes become lost for days, and men can be taken away with no warning, and apparently for no reason, by dark beasts. He gives up writing to publish and sell, and writes a book as an erotic gift to D. Her reaction to the book--neither impressed nor disappointed--sends Mather plummeting into a frightening world of despair and madness. Can she be tried and convicted for the crime of heartbreak? Has he kidnapped her? Slowly Mather becomes obsessed with the poet Leopardi, Brueghel’s The Fall of Icarus, and a horrible redemption from which he refuses to be saved.

The Last Decadent

Set in fin de siècle Paris, this historical novel follows the painter and photographer Alexandre Guilbert as he struggles to achieve identity without personality. The first of the Lost Generation, he lives a bohemian life, skirting the fringes of madness, living on charity and helping others, indulging every whim from cross-dressing to public nudity. His story is told through the six people who exert the strongest influence on his life: the demimonde lover Claudie de Rochambeau; a melancholic wife who has no identity without Guilbert; a fellow painter who prefers the asylum to the real world; his unscrupulous dealer, who both despises and envies Guilbert; a notorious seductress who unwittingly inspires in Guilbert the burning need for self-destruction; and the arrogant journalist who studies Guilbert’s decadence and, risking life and career, is changed forever by what he learns.

The Last Courtesan

This historical novel details the unbridled reality of Alexandre Guilbert’s demimonde lover, Claudie de Rochambeau. The abandoned illegitimate daughter of a priest and nun, Claudie is guided from the indifferent fostering of a prostitute to a life of notoriety based on a multitude of fabricated pasts. During her fourteen-year reign as the Eater of Men, she spreads a plague of illusions through turn-of-the-century Paris. Tears of devotion flood the city with death and rebirth. A parrot exhibits the talent for translating languages. A businessman’s fantasies of Claudie’s long-lost virginity force him on an aromatic journey to Indochina. A respectable judge solves the ethical dilemma of his own adulterous desires through murder. Finally, a Swedish ingenue struggles to reveal the truth of Claudie’s deceptions and, in a doomed attempt to save others, adopts for herself a fragile life of artifice. Routine seductions and unrequited loves, which were forsworn by Claudie during a six-year marriage of reluctance, suddenly return with the calculated reappearance of her sometimes fictional, sometimes factual biography, La Mangeuse d’Hommes. When the book is burned, Claudie is transformed from wife into goddess, forcing her husband to face the unwanted choice of accepting her immoral ways or leaving. Claudie’s sole concern becomes the resumption of her sovereignty as the Princess of Love, and her quest for an heir is realized in a mysterious rite of passion with an eager young seamstress.

The Triumphs

Edward and Janelle parted ten years ago. Edward since married, but when Janelle returns, he finds a tiny flame of devotion still burns in his heart. Will Janelle be temptation or salvation? This novella is a loose adaptation of Francesco Petrarch’s I Trionfi.

The Secret Marriage Vows

Tim and Michele Traynor, a young couple living in Miami, struggle against the miscommunication which threatens to destroy their family. Tim has a history of involvement with women who leave him, while Michele has always had someone to take care of her, especially when she makes a mistake. Their distinct expectations doom them to misunderstanding, which they finally must confront upon the unexpected death of their baby daughter. Together, as often as apart, they face endless monetary squabbles and fantasies of both known and secret lovers. Under the damning influence of their unconventional friends, Tim and Michele desperately cling to each other and deliberately destroy each other while yearning for an escape from their artificial lives. They each in their own way abandon their marriage, but only one draws strength from the sacrifice to achieve true happiness.

Tales of Mystery and Truth

A collection of seven tales, sprung from the novel The Beggars of Azure, that features crocodile men, books that don’t exist, portals through time, living paintings, and, of course, love. Some of the tales involve characters or detail events from the novel. Some of the tales are tangential to the mood and themes in the novel. All of them testify to the fact that reality answers to no one.

Safeguarding American Ideals

A new expanded edition of the 1921 original that describes the twelve keys to American foundational and functional exceptionalism, exploring the reasons behind each ideal; identifying the threats against each and the consequences of forsaking each; and setting forth a prescription for achieving each. These American ideals are the time-tested truths upon which the nation had been built, had prospered, and must stand if it would survive.

Keep God in American History

A new expanded edition of the original 1919 collection of quotes that remind us the blessings given to each person by God were guaranteed, for the first time in human history, by the Founding Fathers and documents of the United States of America.

Harry F. Atwood Speeches

A collection of nine speeches, ranging in subject from business to biography to the republic, presented by Harry F. Atwood as part of the Chautauqua circuit, a political candidate, and founder of the Constitution Anniversary Association.

Columbia, and Other Essays

An eclectic collection of reviews, biographies, and literary columns. The titular essay is a new, previously unpublished examination of Columbia, the mythic lady who personified America at its founding, and who still may have a role to play today.

Poems for Patriots

In the early years of American history, poetry was a popular form of patriotic expression. Featured in this collection are Katharine Lee Bates, John Dickinson, Lydia Maria Child, Edward Thomas Harden, and twenty-five others whose plain words communicated great passion. Today, these nearly forgotten poems and songs serve not only to celebrate the nation’s greatness, but also to re-engage us in the duties to our country, to remind us of the responsibilities to our children, and to honor the sacrifices made by our forefathers. They are sure to make one’s heart pound with gratitude, and encourage one’s own heroic deeds and virtuous actions.

United States Constitution
Bill of Rights
Amendments

“Every good citizen, capable of reading and understanding its meaning, is bound by duty to his country, if in his power, to possess a copy of the Constitution.” --William Hickey

This edition of the Constitution includes the Bill of Rights and the further Amendments. What it doesn’t include is commentary or interpretation, so that one is able to read and understand the meaning for oneself.

Harry Atwood, who spent much of his life proclaiming the importance of the Constitution, summarized its elements: “the Constitution provides for (1) an executive and (2) a legislative body and defines their qualifications and powers. It requires them to appoint (3) a judiciary and to recognize (4) certain inherent individual rights, and it defines the powers of the judiciary and enumerates the individual rights.” He added, “It has been the general custom of writers to divide our government into three departments, but the element of inherent individual rights is as essential to the other three departments as the fourth wheel of a standard vehicle is to the other three wheels in the domain of transportation.”

The Constitution is truly authored by We the People, as stated from the beginning. It is our document, by which we grant elected representatives certain limited duties and powers. When those representatives take an oath, it is not to the country, to Congress, or to their constituents—it is to uphold and defend the Constitution. The men whose names are signed at the bottom of the document are recorded merely as witness to its establishment.

At an address given in 1913, Henry D. Estabrook paid this tribute:

“O marvelous Constitution! Magic parchment, transforming word, maker, monitor, guardian of mankind! Thou hast gathered to thy impartial bosom the peoples of the earth, Columbia, and called them equal. Thou hast conferred upon them imperial sovereignty, revoking all titles but that of man. Native and exotic, rich and poor, good and bad, old and young, the lazy and the industrious, those who love and those who hate, the mean and lowly, the high and mighty, the wise and the foolish, the prudent and the imprudent, the cautious and the hasty, the honest and the dishonest, those who pray and those who curse—these are ‘We, the people of the United States’.”