The Haunted Man and the Ghost\'s Bargain

Charles Dickens

The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain - a novella by Charles Dickens, an English writer who is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era.   Redlaw is a teacher of chemistry who often broods over wrongs done him and grief from his past. He is haunted by a spirit, who is not so much a ghost as Redlaw's phantom twin and is "an awful likeness of himself...with his features, and his bright eyes, and his grizzled hair, and dressed in the gloomy shadow of his dress..." This spectre appears and proposes to Redlaw that he can allow him to "forget the sorrow, wrong, and trouble you have known...to cancel their remembrance..." Redlaw is hesitant at first, but finally agrees.  

The Haunted Man and the Ghosts Bargain

Charles Dickens

The Haunted Man and the Ghosts Bargain is an 1848 ghost story by Charles Dickens. It is the final novella in Dickens series of five Christmas Books, the first and best known of which is A Christmas Carol. For Victorians these ghost stories began to be associated with Christmas time, and the end of the year. In this story, Dickens narrates the hair-raising experiences of a teacher of chemistry Redlaw. As the protagonist dwells on his past sorrows and mistakes, a phantom visits him. It offers him a bizarre escape from painful recollections of yesteryear by offering to eradicate his memory. Where he once felt interest, compassion, and sympathy, he is filled with selfishness and ingratitude, and this affliction spreads to everyone the man has contact with. The only one not affected by this is Milly. In this, like Mr. Scrooge in A Christmas Carol, the man learns some important life lessons and is given another chance at life and being a better person.

The Headsman. The Abbaye des Vignerons

James Fenimore Cooper

The events of the novel take place not on the American continent, but in the very heart of Europe. Almost all the characters in the novel are forced in extreme circumstances to reveal themselves in a new light: some, with all their desire, cannot disguise their meanness, greed, inner readiness for betrayal, others show the highest nobility and purity of human qualities.

The Headswoman

Kenneth Grahame

The Headswoman is an unusual little tale about the power a woman can wield. A funny, witty, intelligent story about an executioner. Along the way, Grahame takes shots at lawyers and small town officials, among others. Thoroughly delightful and well worth reading.

The Hearts Highway. A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century

Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

This is a historical novel written in the 1900s but set in 1680s Jamestown, Virginia. The plot revolves around the anger of the colonists over the Navigation Act, which robbed them of their profits from the tobacco crop. At the center of this little rebellion is the romance between Harry Wingfield, a gentleman tutor, and Mary Cavendish, a headstrong eighteen-year-old.

The Herapath Property

Joseph Smith Fletcher

Jacob Herapat, wealthy real estate developer and Member of Parliament. found dead. With a gun at my side. But, it seems, an hour later the coachman brings him home. And what according to his will, what surprises she will open. Several people, including the police, are trying to solve the mystery.

The Heritage of the Desert

Zane Grey

The novel begins in the desert of southern Utah. It is the 1870s. John Hare is a young cowboy who was rescued from sure death by a Mormon rancher by the name of August Naab. Naab puts him to work with an adopted daughter, Mescal, who tends his herd of sheep. Out in the open air, Hare not only recovers his health; he falls for Mescal in a big way. The greatest danger Hare faces though, is over Mescal, a half-Navajo shepherdess who is already promised in marriage to Naabs first-born son. The Mormon religion, however, demands that the girl shall become the second wife of one of the Mormons. Well, thats the problem of this great story.

The Heritage of the Sioux

B.M. Bower

Pioneering Western writer Bertha Muzzy Bower gained critical acclaim by bringing a unique female perspective to her tales of ranch life. In The Heritage of the Sioux, Bower brings a similarly empathic perspective to her fictionalized account of one of the most storied Native American tribes. It is widely considered to be one of the top 100 greatest books of all time. This great novel will surely attract a whole new generation of readers. The Heritage Of The Sioux by B.M. Bower was a much loved American author who wrote novels, fictional short stories, and screenplays about the American Old West. A great addition to any collection.

The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories

Edith Wharton

Seven short stories from the prolific Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist Edith Wharton. With a wide variety of protagonists a cloistered monk to a struggling artist to a Governor to a New England lawyers wife she is flexing her writing muscles and trying on personas. Includes The Last Asset, In Trust, The Pretext, The Verdict, The Pot-Boiler, and The Best Man. In the title story, the reader learns that the hermit, as a young boy, witnessed the killing of his parents and sister during an attack on his town. As a result of his trauma, he has retreated into isolation until he meets a wild woman who comes to live nearby. Highly recommended when you want something short but stimulating between longer reads!

The Hero of the People. A Historical Romance of Love, Liberty and Loyalty

Alexandre Dumas

An adventure is something that happens outside the course of ordinary life. We cant go on an adventure all the time, but an adventure story will take you right to that adventure. With no time to scout for a library, now these books are at our fingertips. The Hero of the People is the fifth book in the fictional series on the French Revolution by the famous French author Alexandre Dumas. Alexandre Dumas is known for penning many masterpieces of historical fiction, including The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers. The story takes place following the book Taking the Basile and is followed by The Royal Life Guard. The tale, set in the waning days of the French Revolution, tweaks Dumas classic formula by adding a little more romance to the equation. With action, adventure, intrigue, and blossoming love, this story truly has something for every reader.

The Hesitation of Miss Anderson

Sara Jeannette Duncan

Duncan Sara Jeannette has written 22 works of fiction, many with international themes. The main characters have certain freedoms living among the limits of the Empire. The resulting stories combine a sophistication of manner and movement that is reminiscent of Henry James.

The Hidden Children

Robert W. Chambers

The author reveals many of the smallest details about the life of revolutionary volunteers, the land, the hardships of camp life, numerous tribes of indigenous aborigines and their relationship with each other and with whites. The West is a relative place in relation to time.

The Hidden Enemy

T.C. Bridges

Peter slowly rose to the top. He was in a blue twill suit, his brown shoes were old but well polished, and his soft gray hat looked like a hundred others. If someone tried to watch him, they would take him for a city clerk, enjoying a quiet walk to get that little fresh air that moved on this sinister hot night.

The Hidden Secrets: Late Byzantium in the Western and Polish Context

Małgorzata Dąbrowska

Professor Małgorzata Dąbrowska, a distinguished scholar dealing with the history of Byzantium in the Middle Ages, belongs to the few Byzantinists who have become internationally acclaimed. A considerable part of her output concerns Polish-Byzantine relations which are hardly known to foreign scholars because of the language barrier, and yet they attract the interest of scholars all over the world as a new aspect of Byzantine studies. The publication of English and French works by Małgorzata Dąbrowska will thus facilitate better understanding between the Latin and Orthodox milieux in the European world. The author’s style is absolutely superb, regardless of the fact whether her texts are written in Polish or in other languages. This adds another quality to her oeuvre. From the review by Professor Maciej Salamon   Professor Małgorzata Dąbrowska holds a special place among the Polish Byzantinists as an outstanding specialist in the history of late Byzantium and its relations with Europe (including Poland, which is, undoubtedly, worth attention). The current collection of articles can be seen as a detailed sequel to the author’s monographs Byzantium, France and the Holy See in the Second Half of the 13th Century and The Latin Ladies on the Bosporos. Byzantine­Latin Marriages in the Imperial Family of the Palaiologoi (13th-15th Centuries). Both titles reflect faithfully the author’s favourite and interrelated subjects of study, namely the relations between Byzantium and western Europe, especially the matrimonial policy, which is handled in a detailed and innovative way. From the review by Professor Jerzy Strzelczyk

The Hillman

E. Phillips Oppenheim

John Strangeways lives the life of a country Gentleman farmer with his puritan brother in the hills of Cumberland. Far from the world of cities and noise he lived the clean, healthy, out-of-door life. When actress Louise Maurels car breaks down near their farm, she is forced to seek refuge with the misogynist brothers. Love ensues. Life no longer was quite the same to him, and in a short time he followed her to London. The coming of an unsophisticated though well educated, handsome young man into the semi-Bohemian circle brings about dramatic situations which the author knows well how to handle. Some wonderful minor characters aid the story also.

The Hills of the Dead

Robert E. Howard

In a world ruled by piracy, stalked by vampires, peopled by cities of the inhuman, he stood tall amid the terrors of the Dark Continent. Kane, a man of savage and unconquerable courage, strode deep into the jungles, forever slashing his diamond-edged rapier as evil guided the creatures of the night toward him. Wicked whispers of death touched him. Haunted horrors of the world beyond life reached for him. But Kane never halted his march, for he would never rest until the final, epic duel between light and dark was waged...and won.