Publisher: 8
The Battle of Life. A Love Story
Charles Dickens
While The Battle of Life is one of Charles Dickens Christmas Books his annual release of a story just before Christmas this one breaks the tradition by not being concerned with Christmas. Rather, its subtitle, A Love Story, reveals more of the plot. The setting is an English village that stands on the site of a historic battle. Some characters refer to the battle as a metaphor for the struggles of life, hence the title. This novel basically depicts the battles one faces in life and winning them. Grace and Marion are sisters, saying goodbye to their childhood friend, Alfred, who has just come of age after growing up as a ward to the girls father, Dr. Jeddler. Alfred promises to come back someday to marry Marion when he has finished medical school and made his fortune. The years pass, but their happy plans take a sorrowful turn, and it will take all their courage to survive the battle of life...
Henry James
At the reception in the rich manor there are not the first youth mister and also not a young lady anymore. Both belong to the same circle of birth, but the financial affairs of a man are in somewhat better condition. It all seems to him that he is meant for something great and terrible that will destroy his own life and the lives of loved ones like a sudden fit of madness or, yes, how many anything can be options. It is like seeing yourself as a thicket in which the beast is hiding for the time being.
Edgar Rice Burroughs
“The Beasts of Tarzan“ is a novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs, an American fiction writer, who created such great characters as Tarzan and John Carter of Mars. This is the third novel in a series of twenty-four books about the title character Tarzan. The story follows Tarzan's adventures, from his childhood being raised by apes in the jungle to his eventual encounters with other humans and Western society.
F. Scott Fitzgerald
F. Scott Fitzgeralds second novel, first published in 1922, which brilliantly satirizes a doomed and glamorous marriage of would-be Jazz Age aristocrats Anthony and Gloria Patch: they are beautiful, shallow, pleasure-seeking, and vain. As they await the inheritance of his grandfathers fortune, their reckless marriage sways under the influence of alcohol and avarice and disintegrates under the weight of their expectations, dissipation, jealousy and aimlessness...
Guy Boothby
This novel, filled with lots of action and romance, talks about the exploits of an attractive criminal mastermind who steals the heart of the main character of a fairy tale. The heroine is a first class woman. She is smart, beautiful, commanding and respected. She is all that a leader should be, demonstrates courage in the face of danger, and has never even been portrayed in any way not ideal.
The Beauty of the Purple. A Romance of Imperial Constantinople Twelve Centuries Ago
William Stearns Davis
There are typical characters in this book: the villains are very evil, while the heroes and heroines are beautiful, brave and wise. However, there is romance, adventure and suspense in this book, all against the backdrop of Constantinople during the Byzantine Empire.
J.S. Fletcher
The main character in the story is a detective story. He is investigating a mysterious murder. Detective and young Richard Marchmont soon discover that there is a triangle of financial intrigue that needs to be unraveled before the truth can be found out, and that in the hour of crime, not one suspicious person was hiding near the Marchmont house, but several.
S.S. Van Dine
The Benson Case is the first case, the first detective from the Philo Vens series. Again, we are dealing with an amateur detective who has his own Watson and Lestrade, a first-person narrator who is present at all events and a good acquaintance of Vance, the New York City Police Attorney Markham. In this book, he still does not particularly believe in Vances ability to psychologically unwind potential victims of murder suspects.