The Steward

Edgar Wallace

This early work by Edgar Wallace was originally published in 1932. Wallace was an extremely prolific writer who wrote over 175 novels, plus numerous plays, essays and journalistic articles. During the peak of his success during the 1920s, it was said that a quarter of all books read in England were written by him. In England, in the 1920s, Wallace was said to be the second biggest seller after the Bible. Many of his novels were made into films and TV dramas. The Steward is a collection of short stories that include The left Pass, The Little Baroness, Solo and the Lady, and many more. The stories are fast-paced with some surprising twists, well written and great to read and definitely a product of their time and place.

Frank Merriwells Athletes

Burt L. Standish

The main character shows that in athletics, strength and skill win, regardless of money or family; it so happened that the poorest person at the university became a demonstration of becoming an idol for all young people. This story proves that in spite of its origin or on the income of its family. You can still achieve everything in this life. The main thing to believe in it.

Fruits of Culture. A Comedy in Four Acts

Leo Tolstoy

In the morning, men from the Kursk province arrive at the Zvezdintsevs house. Their appearance alarms the valet Fyodor Ivanovich, he tries to send uninvited guests to the courtyard, but the maid Tanya intervenes for the walkers: the peasants are her countrymen, in addition, one of them is the father of the barman Semyon, with whom the girl intends to associate fate. When Tanya finds out that the master refuses to sign an agreement on the sale of land, a cunning plan matures in her head.

Kapitan Czart. Przygody Cyrana de Bergerac

Louis Gallet

Ekscytujące przygody Cyrana de Bergerac, czyli Kapitana Czarta, rozgrywają się w dawnym Paryżu. Składa się na nie skomplikowana intryga miłosna, towarzyszące jej perypetie oraz tajemnice, których wyjawienie przesądzi o losie bohaterów. W tle bujne i kolorowe życie paryskich ulic, tłocznych, rozbrzmiewających muzyką, ubarwionych występami teatrów ulicznych.

Prester John

John Buchan

South Africa, 1900. After his father dies, nineteen-year-old David Crawfurd is sent off to South Africa to earn his living as a storekeeper in the back of beyond. A strange encounter on the journey suggests that dark deeds and treacherous intrigues are afoot all bound up with the mysterious primeval kingdom of Prester John. Laputa is a charismatic leader of an incipient native uprising, secretly preaching the incendiary creed of Africa for the Africans, and proclaiming himself heir to the mantle of Prester John, a legendary 15th-century Christian king of Ethiopia. We participate in many thrilling adventure chases in the wild country, deal with nasty villains, narrow escapes, impossible climbs up rock walks, a secret cave of massive proportions with a hidden switch to open a boulder door, stores of diamonds to fund the uprising, a valuable and ancient ruby necklace and the courageous love of a gigantic dog.

XYZ. A Detective Story

Anna Katharine Green

A brief early American detective novella written in 1883 by Anna Katharine Green that tells the story of a detective who arrives in a small town in Massachusetts in an attempt to investigate counterfeiters possibly connected to a series of mysterious letters addressed only to X Y Z. While he is questioning the postmaster, he learns of the Benson family and their super secretive lifestyle. They are rich and reclusive. The detective feels there is something amiss and switches his investigation to them the letters and counterfeiting is dropped. That eventuates in murder. He steps into the very shoes of the person being framed for the crime, with some interesting results.

Bunner Sisters

Edith Wharton

Originally published in 1916, but actually written in 1890, Bunner Sisters is a compelling, heartbreaking little novella about two sisters, who have never been apart, struggling to eek an existence as small shopkeepers on the margins of late nineteenth-century society in New York. They barely make enough money to live on. But when Ann Eliza the elder buys Evelina the younger a clock that does not work for her birthday, the sisters commence a relationship with Herbert Ramy, who operates a queer little shop, setting in motion a series of events that will prove to be everyones undoing. Edith Wharton provides a vivid description of the life of shop keepers and their friends in the poorer urban areas of New York City.

A House to Let

Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, Elizabeth Gaskell, Adelaide Ann Procter

A House to Let is a novella originally published in 1858 by Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, Elizabeth Gaskell and Adelaide Anne Procter. Each of the contributors wrote a chapter (stories within a story, and in the case of Adelaide Anne Procter, as a story in verse) and the whole was edited by Dickens, making it fit together seamlessly as a whole. This novella is a composite tale of mystery and intrigue set amid the dark streets of Victorian London. It is about a house that has remained vacant for several years which as come to the notice of an elderly woman named Sophonisba. She wants to know why the house is vacant, which is what the various chapters set out to explain, through the histories of various tenants. A House of Let is a seriously underrated novella that captures the mystery and humor of a fabulous story of bygone days.