Barnaby Rudge. A Tale of the Riots of Eighty

Charles Dickens

Based around the Gordon riots of 1780 as seen through the eyes of the simple but good-hearted Barnaby Rudge. This is Dickens fifth novel and it was his first attempt to write an historical novel and was inspired by the Walter Scotts novels. It is the most neglected, but most rewarding tale of treachery, forbidden love, abduction and the dangerous power of the mob. Barnaby Rudge is a half-witted young innocent simpleton who is devoted to his talkative raven, Grip. When he gets caught up in the mayhem of the Gordon riots and a mysterious unsolved murder, his life is put in jeopardy. And, as London erupts into riot, Barnaby Rudge himself struggles to escape the curse of his own past. With its dramatic descriptions of public violence and private horror, its strange secrets and ghostly doublings, Barnaby Rudge is a powerful, disturbing blend of historical realism and Gothic melodrama.

The Author of Beltraffio

Henry James

In this story, a mother allows her only child, a seven-year-old boy, to die of diphtheria only so that he will never be subjected to the corrupting influence of the books written by his father, which she deeply condemns. Anyone who imagines motherly love and at least once saw the torment of a child restlessly darting in his crib, fighting for every breath, would never have invented such a monstrous story. The French call it litterature. By this word they denote works created on the basis of a cheap literary effect, devoid of any likelihood.

The Coming of the Law

Charles Alden Seltzer

Charles Alden Seltzer (15 August 18759 February 1942) was an American writer. He was a prolific author of western novels, had writing credits for more than a dozen film titles, and authored numerous stories published in magazines, most prominently in Argosy. The Coming of the Law is a story of a young eastern newspaper man who goes West to a small town, and takes charge of a run-down newspaper, fights against an association of cattle rustlers for the benefit of the small ranchers, and wins. The hero is very much of a hero and manages to keep the peace and do justice without using his revolver. A little above the average of western stories, interesting, very exciting in parts and with some good local color. This is a western as only Seltzer could write it.

Jerychonka

Maria Rodziewiczówna

Akcja powieści rozgrywa się w środowisku cyganerii krakowskiej. Filip Osiecki, Andrzej Oryż i Magda Domontówna są malarzami. Każda z tych postaci kocha, jednak bez wzajemności ze strony obiektu uczuć. Filip jest opętany uczuciem do pięknej baronowej. Nie zdaje sobie jednak sprawy z tego, iż jest jedynie jej zabawką. Andrzej kocha Magdę, lecz jego uczucie nie opiera się na fizyczności. Domontówna jest dla niego niczym muza. Z kolei Magda darzy uczuciem Filipa. Jej miłość ma jednak charakter platoniczny. Dziewczyna bardziej pragnie wcielić się w rolę przyjaciółki i powiernicy niż obiekt namiętności. Wszystko zmierza nieuchronnie do dramatu...

Tales of Mean Streets

Arthur Morrison

Tales of Mean Streets, published in 1894, is a collection of short stories describing the appalling conditions that many working people endured. These stories are a brilliant evocation of a narrow, close-knit community, that of the streets of Londons East End. Having lived and worked there, he author knew that East Enders were not a race apart, but ordinary men and women, scraping by perhaps, but neither criminals nor paupers. Here Arthur Morrison chronicles their adventures and misadventures, their wooings and their funerals, with sympathy, humor and a sense of both the tragedies and the comedies to be found in the mean streets. One of tales, Lizerunt, was condemned for depicting all too clearly the victimization and degradation of women.

The Great Spy System. Or Nick Carters Promise to the President

Nick Carter

Nick Carter The Great Spy System or, Nick Carters Promise to the President is a detective story featuring the famous detective Nick Carter first published in 1907, written by John R. Coryell. John Russell Coryell was a prolific dime novel author. He wrote under the Nicolas Carter and Bertha M. Clay house pseudonyms, and, like many of his fellow dime novelists under many other pseudonyms. This is the story of how Nick Carter, Master Detective, broke a foreign spy ring in Washington, DC in one night to keep his promise to the President. Nick Carter is a fictional character who began as a pulp fiction private detective in 1886 and has appeared in a variety of formats over more than a century. His father, Sin Carter, was also a detective and he taught young Nick some investigation techniques from early ages. After his fathers death during one case, Nick takes over the investigation and continues to work as a detective.

Mr. Justice Maxell

Edgar Wallace

Mr. Justice Maxell follows the story of two business partners, Maxell and Cartwright, one of whom becomes a judge and sentences the other to prison, the woman they both marry, and their respective cousins whom they take on as their own wards. Spanning roughly a decade, the plot hinges on multiple coincidences involving mutual acquaintances meeting one another at critical points on different continents, and maintains much of its suspense by instilling most of its main characters with shady backgrounds and dubious motivations. This book is one of the most popular novels of Edgar Wallace, and has been translated into several other languages around the world.

Miasto pływające

Jules Verne

Powieść z cyklu literackiego Niezwykłe Podróże. Opisuje wrażenia autora z podróży do Stanów Zjednoczonych. Juliusz Verne płynął na tę wyprawę największym parowcem świata SS Great Eastern. Wycieczka była krótka, ale podróż zrobiła na pisarzu ogromne wrażenie.