Better Dead

J.M. Barrie

Scottish-born author and playwright Sir James Matthew Barrie, 1st Baronet, OM (9 May 1860 19 June 1937) first established himself in the public eye as a writer of childrens books and humorous plays. He is best remembered for creating Peter Pan, the boy who refused to grow up, whom he based on his friends, the Llewelyn Davies boys. According to historians of Barries life and work, Better Dead is one of his earliest pieces, it is a novel about the challenges of finding ones place in the world. It combines sly humor with a compelling plot with elements of mystery and romance. The main character Andrew is a young Scotsman who heads to London after university because the job prospects are so poor back home. He finds himself as a probationary member of a secret society which engages in the murder of those in society it deems would be, as the title suggests, Better Dead.

A Crime on Canvas

Fred M. White

Frederick Merrick White has written many novels or short stories, many related to London. Modest stories in his spirit. A Clue in Wax is a simple, kind story. The story that even in a dark London place a bright life can occur.

Мать (Matka)

Максим Горький, Maksim Gorki

Роман 201eМать"- одно из лучших произведений М.Горького. История о яростной борьбе революционеров-подпольщиков против самовластия. Основная героиня романа 2013 пожилая русская женщина, примкнувшая к революционерам вслед за своим сыном.

Les Esclaves de Paris

Émile Gaboriau

Quand Paris a devenu la proie dun immense chantage? Une redoutable association de trois malfaiteurs fait trembler la capitale. Les passions humaines si banales que sont lamour, lambition et largent transforment les gens en personnes tres dépendant. Paris manque de quelquun, qui peut assembler toutes les pieces du puzzle arrter la formidable machination. Qui sera en mesure de sauver la capitale?

The Phoenix on the Sword

Robert E. Howard

Over shadowy spires and gleaming towers lay the ghostly darkness and silence that runs before dawn. Into a dim alley, one of a veritable labyrinth of mysterious winding ways, four masked figures came hurriedly from a door which a dusky hand furtively opened. They spoke not but went swiftly into the gloom, cloaks wrapped closely about them; as silently as the ghosts of murdered men they disappeared in the darkness.

The Glorious Pool

Thorne Smith

Perhaps the best example of Thorne Smiths acutely sharp social humor played out against a backdrop of the Prohibition. 60 year old Rex Pebble inadvertently discovers that the fountain of youth happens to be in his back yard swimming pool. A magical statue of a nymph by the name of Baggage, an ornamental pool decoration, has playfully endowed the Pebble swimming pool with the power to reverse the aging process. From there Rex, his wife and his mistress of twenty years, Spray Summers have one exciting, completely hysterical adventure after another. Wild hook-and-ladder rides, police chases, flowing cocktails and different levels of undress will keep the reader thoroughly entertained. Thorne Smith brings to life the possibility of the fountain of youth. The Glorious Pool, published in 1935 after Thorne Smiths death was completed by his wife, Celia.

Glinda of Oz

L. Frank Baum

As this last Oz story from L. Frank Baum opens, Dorothy Gale and Ozma have been dispatched by Glinda on a peacekeeping mission. Dorothy and Ozma discover that a war is brewing in a distant and unexplored part of Oz, between two mysterious races, the Flatheads and the Skeezers, both of whom have come under the power of cruel dictators. They have never heard of either of these people but they worry that people might be harmed in a war. The girls set out to try to prevent the fighting, not knowing what dangers await them. This begins a quick but grand adventure for the two friends, which will eventually involve all of her other friends, and quite an assortment of strange but wonderful beings they are; the Scarecrow, Tin Man and Cowardly Lion, but also Tik Tok, Jack Pumpkinhead, and so many others. A rousing tale of suspense, magic, and adventure, Glinda of Oz is the fourteenth and final Oz book and its a grand conclusion to Baums chronicles of Americas favorite fairyland.

The Face in the Night

Edgar Wallace

The Face in the Night was written in the year 1924 by Edgar Wallace. Leaving her chicken farm and moving to London to seek her sister, Audrey Bedford is caught passing the Queen of Finlands stolen necklace, and allows herself to be sent to prison for a year rather than implicate her guilty sibling. Once released, she takes a position as scribe to the mysterious Mr. Malpas, who lurks in his electrically-automated apartment and only allows himself to be seen from across a darkened room. When Malpas neighbor, the Australian Mr. Marshalt is murdered in the lair, Audrey is enmeshed in a tangle of lost diamonds, a long-burning feud, the fate of her father, and the affections of Captain Dick Shannon, Chief Inspector of Scotland Yard.

Barcikowscy

Maria Rodziewiczówna

Niezwykła opowieść o walce o zachowanie polskości i wiary w zaborze rosyjskim. Dwaj bracia Barcikowscy stają wobec opresyjnego systemu. Wacław zostaje wysłany przez matkę i babkę na nauki do gimnazjum w Petersburgu. Po zakończeniu edukacji pnie się po szczeblach urzędniczej kariery, z piękną jak madonna z ikony Rosjanką u boku. Tymczasem drugi z braci, Filip nie tak zdolny, może też i nie tak bardzo kochany zostaje na gospodarstwie. Ale to on nie skala nazwiska, nie zaprzepaści wiary. Osiągnie prawdziwe szczęście, spokój duszy, miłość dzieci i żony oraz szacunek sąsiadów. I w ostatecznym rozrachunku, to on będzie zwycięzcą.

A Chicago Princess

Robert Barr

The Chicago Princess is a historical novel with a romantic line, written by Robert Barr. Robert Barr (1849-1912) was a British-Canadian short story writer and novelist, who published the first Holmes parody, The Adventures of Sherlaw Kombs in 1892. A novel The Chicago Princess first published in 1904. After working several years in foreign affairs, and after winning and then losing a fortune, Rupert Tremorne is stranded in Nagasaki, at the end of his wits and in some debt. His only chance is to take the post as private secretary to the Millionaire Mr. Hemster, and to sail on with him on his yacht. Sailing around Asia is big adventure for anyone, but it is a special one for Tremorne, because besides Mr. Hemster and his staff, there are the beautiful Miss Gertrude Hemster and her companion Hilda Stretton on board. And suddenly, Tremorne has his hands full with those two ladies.

The Broken Trail

Harold Bindloss

Construction master Cassidy was popular with the people around him. Although he was a strict employer, everyone was pleased with his work. He did a lot of difficult railway work in western Canada. But how will his character affect his reputation and performance?

Tik-Tok of Oz

L. Frank Baum

Lyman Frank Baum penned fourteen novels in his famous Oz chronology. For the second time a little girl from the United States comes to Oz. The story begins in a faraway corner of Oz, in the small country of Oogaboo. There, Queen Ann Soforth musters an unlikely army and sets off to conquer the rest of Oz. Meanwhile, a girl Betsy Bobbin from Oklahoma and her companion, Hank the mule, are shipwrecked in the Nonestic Ocean. The two drift to shore in the Rose Kingdom, a magical land of talking roses, on a fragment of wreckage. There they meet the Shaggy Man, who is on a quest to rescue his brother from the clutches of the evil Nome King. Betsy, Hank, and the Rose Princess join the Shaggy Man on his journey, and before long they meet up with Polychrome, the Rainbows Daughter; Tik-Tok; and Queen Ann with her army. Join Tik-Tok and friends on an exciting, imaginative journey through the thrilling world of Oz, complete with hairbreadth escapes, wild puns, and mystifying magic. An enduring favorite!

Northanger Abbey

Jane Austen

The storys heroine is Catherine Morland, an innocent seventeen-year-old woman from a country parsonage. While spending a few weeks in Bath with a family friend, Catherine meets and falls in love with Henry Tilney, who invites her to visit his family estate, Northanger Abbey. Once there, Catherine, a great reader of Gothic thrillers, lets the shadowy atmosphere of the old mansion fill her mind with terrible suspicions. Northanger Abbey is often referred to as Jane Austens Gothic parody.

Boon

Herbert George Wells

Wellss satire on literature, Boon was originally published under the pseudonym Reginald Bliss; a follow-up to the Fabian-savaging The New Machiavelli. It purports, however, to be by the fictional character Reginald Bliss, and for some time after publication Wells denied authorship. Boon is best known for its part in Wellss debate on the nature of literature with Henry James, who is caricatured in the book. But in Boon Wells also mocks himself, calling into question and ridiculing a notion he held dear that of humanitys collective consciousness. Among these pieces is the infamous parody of the late style of Henry James, all the more effective for being so distinctive a target. Describing James as the culmination of the superficial type, it is not surprising that the indiscreet, ill-advised content of Boon, as Wells describes it in his Introduction, put a serious strain on the relationship between the two authors.

Diabeł. Powieść z czasów Stanisława Augusta

Józef Ignacy Kraszewski

Ignacy Kraszewski opisuje dzieje Michała Ordyńskiego, młodego magnata z Polesia, który przybywa do stolicy i podbija warszawskie salony. Życie w wielkim mieście zmienia jednak bohatera i wpływa destrukcyjnie na jego postawę. Walkę o niego podejmują dwie wrogie siły uosobione w postaci młodej kobiety i tajemniczego markiza o rysach twarzy znanych z portretu... diabła.

Lost Face

Jack London

Jack London, as part of his Nordic Tales series, raises a problem that is difficult to articulate clearly. This is a situation when a person is faced with the inevitability of a terrible painful death. A choice arises before him, which is worse: to accept a painful end, clinging to life until the last breath, or to die voluntarily. The peculiarity of the story is that the main character is a citizen of the Russian Empire, a participant in the Polish uprising, exiled by the tsar to Siberia.