The Blithedale Romance

Nathaniel Hawthorne

A group of people is a powerful mixture of competing ambitions, and its idealism finds little satisfaction in agriculture. Instead of changing the world, Blithedale community members individually follow selfish paths that ultimately lead to tragedy. Hawthornes tale simultaneously mourns and saturates a rural idyll, not unlike the history of America in the 19th century as a whole.

The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard

Arthur Conan Doyle

The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard is a volume collecting 8 short stories about a courier and cavalryman in the personal service of Napoleon Bonaparte. The stories in The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard are all told in the first person by an aged Gerard looking back on his military endeavours in the early 1800s when there was no man prouder to serve the Emperor Napoleon. Etienne Gerard is a dashing, chivalrous, and stalwart French officer who becomes involved various suspenseful and often comical political intrigues. He battles outlaws, Englishmen and Cossacks and always maintains a his honor and his style. However, despite his ludicrous self-adoration, Gerard is a hugely likeable figure owing to the fact that he does display the commendable traits of loyalty and bravery that he cannot disguise.

The Whisperer in Darkness

H.P. Lovecraft

The Whisperer in Darkness brings together the original Cthulhu Mythos stories of the legendary horror writer H.P. Lovecraft. An Arkham university professor is contacted by a farmer living in a remote part of Vermont, who claims to have evidence of aliens living in the hills and mining a mysterious metal. When local newspapers report strange things seen floating in rivers during a historic Vermont flood, Wilmarth becomes embroiled in a controversy about the reality and significance of the sightings, though he sides with the skeptics. After visiting, the professor becomes alarmed at the mysterious change in the behavior of the farmer, including his assertion that the aliens can extract a human brain and keep it alive in jar for eternity. Wilmarth uncovers old legends about monsters living in the uninhabited hills who abduct people who venture or settle too close to their territory.

The Seed of Empire

Fred M. White

Fred M. White wrote a story on a historical basis. Belgium is just a pawn in a game of chess, in which Germany has played continuously for the last 40 years. And now England was waiting. Black Monday was overtaken. Germany violated its solemn promise to Belgium, and England was at war with Germany, and the greatest conflict in the history of the world began.

The Blanket of the Dark

John Buchan

Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown is a time-tested adage that suits Peter Pentecost, a young monk and legitimate claimant to Englands Throne. But he is not alone as others are vying for power too. Soon a plot is hatched against the present King Henry VIII and Peter is sucked into the intrigue... Buchans description of the ruthless king is compelling. His knowledge of the time of Henrys reign and his love of the Oxfordshire countryside are apparent. This historical novel set in the time of Henry VIII vividly depicting both high life and low in the society of that time. A grand, sweeping historical drama. Set in Mediaeval England during a tense time as a the country waits for the new king to be crowned. A enthralling, richly detailed story of intrigue and passion.

Seven For A Secret. A Love Story

Mary Webb

Seven For A Secret is the story of a young girl who turns into a compassionate, passionate, loving woman, who is visible through the eyes of a shepherd poet who loves her. Gillian is nineteen when the romance opens, and she is a romantic star who wants to flirt with men to fall in love with her. Gillian, in many ways, still behaves like a child, and she is selfish, narcissistic, and stupid with others in her life. A kind and simple shepherd named Robert, working with her father, often becomes the goal of her coquetry.

The House Without a Key

Earl Derr Biggers

Charlie Chan, the first Chinese detective in literature, is modeled after Chang Apana, a real-life police detective in Honolulu. A family originally from Boston, the Winterslips, has some members living in Hawaii. You can almost feel the gentle trade winds of Hawaii during the 1920s in this classic novel by Earl Derr Biggers. One of the wealthy Winterslips living in Hawaii is murdered. A younger member of the family, John Quincy Winterslip, has been sent to Boston to check up on his Aunt Minerva and persuade her to return to Boston. He arrives in Honolulu and gets involved in the investigation and is determined to see it through to the end, before he returns to the mainland. Romantic and full of atmosphere, this is a most enjoyable read that was our first introduction to Charlie Chan.

Blood of the Gods

Robert E. Howard

I have known many gods. He who denies them is as blind as he who trusts them too deeply. I seek not beyond death. It may be the blackness averred by the Nemedian skeptics, or Croms realm of ice and cloud, or the snowy plains and vaulted halls of the Nordheimers Valhalla. I know not, nor do I care. Let me live deep while I live; let me know the rich juices of red meat and stinging wine on my palate, the hot embrace of white arms, the mad exultation of battle when the blue blades flame and crimson, and I am content. Let teachers and philosophers brood over questions of reality and illusion. I know this: if life is illusion, then I am no less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, and am content.

LAlouette du casque, Victoria, la mere des camps

Eugene Sue

Le roman, dont lintért est également lié ce que Sue appelle, afin de fonder sa démonstration, est basé sur un systeme didées approuvé par la Révolution française. Au cur du roman se trouve un conflit historique. Les événements ont lieu au 20eme siecle pendant la Révolution française. Ce livre est pour les amateurs dhistoire.

Black Heart and White Heart and Other Stories

H. Rider Haggard

Henry Rider Haggard loves to focus on adventure stories in Africa. In this story, he paid attention to love, magic and faith. At the heart of the story is the father who lost his daughter, due to the attack of the barbarians. The author well emphasizes the fact that faith can defeat savagery in this world and save from death.

Z głuszy

Maria Rodziewiczówna

Zbiór opowiadań Marii Rodziewiczówny głęboko osadzonych w krajobrazie Polesia. Pełno tu mitologicznych opisów, ludowych opowieści, bajań i gawęd. Zbiór zawiera utwory: Noc, Ul, Z tamtej strony, Czarna woda, Młyn Archipa, Na starej choinie, Wpisany do heroldii, Zachód, Pro memoria, Piaski, Szwed, Rozdroże, Posłaniec, Zagony i Czajki.

The DArblay Mystery

R. Austin Freeman

In this novel, Dr. Thorndyke builds a card house of wild speculations to solve a perplexing murder case, astonishing all observers, including the police. The victim is Julius D Arblay, an artist highly skilled at the rare French art of making wax-work figures and portrait masks. DArblay has a beautiful daughter, which leads to a romance with a young Dr. Grey who discovers the fathers body and brings the case to Dr. Thorndykes attention. Before the end of the story, the young doctor and his love will each have survived two murder attempts by an increasingly frantic killer. There are lots of great scenes: stalking scenes, vicious attacks on Dr. Gray and Marion with various weapons, a sinister scene in a dense yellow London fog, a humorous exhumation of a dead man of dubious identity, and very funny vignettes with a tippler of an old doctor advising Gray on how to handle troublesome patients. Thorndykes lovable lab assistant Polton has a starring role in this novel.

The Poison Belt

Arthur Conan Doyle

The Poison Belt, a novella by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is remarkable in that we, with the central characters, are permitted to witness what seems to be a global apocalypse, while enduring only minimal emotional fall out. Professor Challenger urgently summons his fellow explorers (Professor Summerlee, Lord John Roxton, and reporter E.D. Malone) to a meeting. Oddly, he requires each to bring an oxygen cylinder with him. The mysterious substance suddenly becomes a deadly threat as the Earth passes through a belt in the ether, a belt of poisonous ether. To Professor Challenger it is clear that no animal or human life can possibly survive this encounter. Shutting themselves tightly up in Challengers house, they start to consider what may be done. But as their countrymen start to drop, will their oxygen last long enough to determine and implement a solution?

Der Brand der Cheopspyramide

Hans Dominik

Elias Montgomery. Kaum ein Bewohner der zivilisierten Welt, der ihn nicht kannte. Schon bei seinen Lebzeiten ein Sagenkreis um ihn. Elias Montgomery, der große Erfinder, dem es gelungen, das Problem der Atomenergie zu lösen. Die Atomenergie, jene riesenhafte, über alle Vorstellungen gewaltige Energiequelle, schon seit Jahrzehnten das höchste Ziel der Erfinder in allen Kulturstaaten der Welt. Aber der englische Erfinder Elias Montgomery stirbt. Drei islamische Reiche bedrohen Europa. Die einzige Hoffnung ist eine Erfindung des Magnaten und Erfinders Montgomery. Diese soll endlich die Atomenergie entfesseln können. Doch die Anleitung nahm der Erfinder mit ins Grab. Seine Erfindung, die durch Atomzertrümmerung ungeheure Energien gezielt freizusetzen vermag, wird auf Anlass des maurischen Kalifen Abdurrhaman, der bereits Spanien eingenommen hat, geraubt. Jetzt will er ganz Europa und droht, es ansonsten in eine brennende Hölle zu verwandeln. Bereits 1925, zwanzig Jahre vor Hiroshima, wagte der Autor einen visionären Ausblick auf die Gewalt, die politischen Auswirkungen und den Schrecken der Atomwaffen.

The Ship of Ishtar

A. Merritt

The goddess of love and beauty was adrift on an enchanted ocean in a magic world. The myriad forces of satanic evil plagued the vessel of the red-haired, passionate goddess. Only one man, John Kenton, the American adventurer, WWI vet and archaeologist, could save Ishtars priestess from the black magic which divides her world from ours. Written in 1924, The Ship of Ishtar is a universally hailed classic of the fantasy novel by A. Merritt and is, on surface at least, an obvious early product of Pulps Golden Age. Merritt was influential upon the science fiction and fantasy world primarily through the imaginative power he displayed in the creation of desirable alternative worlds and realities.

Lady Susan

Jane Austen

Beautiful, flirtatious, and recently widowed, Lady Susan Vernon seeks an advantageous second marriage for herself, while attempting to push her daughter into a dismal match. A magnificently crafted novel of Regency manners and mores that will delight Austen enthusiasts with its wit and elegant expression.

The Czars Spy. The Mystery of a Silent Love

William Le Queux

Strange is a good way to sum up the story. The refusal of our hero to get more help is, frankly, quite confusing, and hes darn lucky to survive. The ending is bad you just let the villain go? Really? Yeah, he gets his just desserts, but still, not a fan of that sort of conclusion by accident. Regardless, I do love the idea of falling love by photograph. If you like a strange, complicated mystery, give it a try.

Circumstantial Evidence and Other Stories

Edgar Wallace

Richard Horatio Edgar Wallace (1875-1932) was an English crime writer, journalist, novelist, screenwriter, and playwright, who wrote 175 novels, 24 plays, and numerous articles in newspapers and journals. One of the most prolific writers of the twentieth century, Edgar Wallace was an immensely popular author, who created exciting thrillers spiced with tales of treacherous crooks and hard-boiled detectives. He was known for the The Four Just Men, the Ringer, and for creating the Green Archer character during his lifetime. Over 160 films have been made of his novels, more than any other author. In the 1920s, one of Wallaces publishers claimed that a quarter of all books read in England were written by him. This volume contains 11 short detective and romance stories with surprises and twists. Courtroom drama from the master of crime and creator of King Kong!

Old Surehand (Tom I). Old Surehand. Tom I

Karol May

Książki Karola Maya przyciągają czytelników ekscytującymi przygodami rozgrywającymi się w dzikich i malowniczych sceneriach Dzikiego Zachodu. Old Surehand to seria opowieści, której głównym bohaterem jest ów tajemniczy myśliwy. W rozwiązaniu jego rodzinnej tajemnicy pomagają mu Old Shatterhand i Winnetou. Cała trójka przeżywa przy tym wiele emocjonujących i mrożących krew w żyłach przygód, wielokrotnie ocierając się o śmierć w starciach z Indianami i niedźwiedziami grizzly.

The Secret of the League. The Story of a Social War

Ernest Bramah

The secret of the league is a dystopian novel written by Ernest Bramah in 1907. It was first published as What might have been: the story of a social war, but later was republished in 1909 as The secret of the league. The Secret of the League is kind of an underground oddity of a novel. Its a prophetic-warning novel, science fiction before that term was coined, largely sociopolitical but also with some charming technical extrapolations. The story centers around one mans daring and ingenious plan, enacted through a mysterious alliance called the Unity League, to stop the workings of the nations elected government in order to restore some measure of lost freedom and greatness, even at the risk of civil war. Its plot is developed rather patchily, and like most warning novels, was overtaken by real events and didnt come true. The Secret of the League was written, when the growth of the labour movement was beginning to terrify the middle class, who wrongly imagined that they were menaced from below rather than from above.

Curious Happenings to the Rooke Legatees

E. Phillips Oppenheim

Five people were seated around a table in the private office of a well-known solicitor in Lincolns Inn. Their expressions and general attitude were sufficiently disturbed to suggest that their gathering was of no ordinary moment. A grey-haired, untidy looking woman in seedy black was tapping the mahogany table in front of her with long, ill-cared for nails, and breathing quickly. A fat, red-cheeked man, with a waistcoat the lower buttons of which failed to connect, with blue watery eyes and a loose, but good-humoured, mouth, was whistling softly to himself.

The Picture of Dorian Gray

Oscar Wilde

Possessing eternal youth and beauty produces exactly the same effect as sentencing a man to life without the possibility of parole. Both have nothing to lose and morals disappear before the desire for immediate self-gratification in all things. And so it is with Dorian Gray. Its a moral story so eventually his evil catches up with him and he dies, as does the criminal. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde is a fascinating novel in which a beautiful young man, under the poisonous influence of an older dandy, makes a bargain with the devil, according to which he stays young and charming while his portrait becomes a reflection of his conscience. Wildes novel is about youth and beauty versus experience; morality and the triumph of the senses over reason; sin and accountability; society, its hypocrisy and the depths of the human condition.

Dan Barrys Daughter

Max Brand

Hes an outlaw on the run. Harry Gloster is an accused murderer who, though innocent, is forced to hide. Harry is a heartbeat ahead of the posse. But neither twisted justice nor a gallows rope can stretch across the Rio Grande. Hell-bent for Mexico, Gloster meets up with Joan Daniels and shes a dream come true. Now hes got a choice. Kiss the sweetest thing hes ever seen goodbye... or stay and risk a lynching. One of many recommended westerns by this prolific author. Frederick Schiller Faust (May 29, 1892 May 12, 1944) was an American author known primarily for his thoughtful and literary westerns under the pen name Max Brand.

LAssommoir

Émile Zola

LAssommoir le roman le plus important de lécrivain. Cest ici, dans cette création unique et brutale, quEmil Zola a le mieux illustré tous ses points de vue sur la littérature. Il nallait pas se sentir désolé pour ses héros, pour décrire leur vie quotidienne sans fin dans la richesse et le luxe. A linverse, lécrivain a cherché a montrer a travers des personnages fictifs a quel point des besoins stupides, limités et insignifiants détruisaient le cour des habitants du monde réel.