Publisher: 8
Robert E. Howard
The Pool of the Black One is one of the original short stories starring the sword and sorcery hero Conan the Cimmerian, written by American author Robert E. Howard. It is set in the pseudo-historical Hyborian Age and concerns Conan becoming the captain of a pirate vessel and encountering a remote island with a mysterious pool that has powers of transmutation.
Otis Adelbert Kline
When Vernia, empress of Reabon, mightiest land of all Venus, was kidnapped by the strange marauders of the sea and was taken to their hidden port, it presented the Earthman, Robert Grandon, with his greatest challenge. Grandon goes on a quest to save her, a quest that will put him on challenges, and against enemies beyond everything he had came across before. And out of this comes a tale of action in which event follows event at unparalleled speed, and always against a background of the most fantastic creatures and horrible men. The Port of Peril, Otis Adelbert Klines concluding novel of Venusian adventure, amply demonstrates his high skill with fast-action science-fiction. It continues the fantastic adventures of Robert Grandon as he encounters the Huitsenni, a weird, buccaneering race.
Henry James
Isabel, the main character of the story, knows the charm of marriage with a worthless person. Her fate the confluence of fatal circumstances. Being a dowry and finding herself in Europe, she refuses to quite worthy applicants for a hand, and having received a fortune, she links life with the rogue Osmond, who married her only to provide a bastard daughter, Pansy, born of a courtesan, a decent existence. Illusions are crumbling, there is no hope for happiness, but Isabelle, with stoic courage, endures all the misfortunes that have fallen to her lot.
Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky
The Possessed (also known in English as The Devils and The Demons) is the greatest novel ever written about the politics of revolution. It is a social and political satire, a psychological drama, and large scale tragedy. Published in 1871, Fyodor Dostoevskys novel foretold with uncanny prescience events that would occur almost fifty years later during the Bolshevik Revolution and the Communist tyranny that followed. Inspired by the true story of a political murder that horrified Russians in 1869, Dostoevsky conceived of Demons as a novel-pamphlet in which he would say everything about the plague of materialist ideology that he saw infecting his native land. The novels relevance, however, is not limited to Russia and its revolution. With its cast of idealistic murderers and suicides, seductive madmen and glamorous fanatics, The Possessed is a novel for our time as well.
The Postmaster of Market Deignton
E. Phillips Oppenheim
This early work from the prince of storytellers E. Phillips Oppenheim published as a novel in 1897. Mr. Norman Scott is a young, hardworking, distinguished physician with a busy practice in London. He is called to visit a patient, Mr. Humphrey Deignton, who suffers from gout and who is murdered later. Dr. Scott is suspected. Two years later, we meet Mr. John Martin, postmaster and chemist in Market Deignton. A lonely, bitter, impoverished man. He is living near the home of Lady Deignton, seeking revenge upon the person who killed Lord Deignton, and ruined his name and career. There are lots of unexpected turns and twists to the adventure of poor John and the local color of the setting is extremely charming.
The Pot of Gold and Other Stories
Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
This novel is for those who are looking for a quick and easy read. The Flowers family lived in a small house in a wide grassy meadow that descended a few branches from the front door to a gentle silvery river. Directly across the river stood a lovely dark green mountain, and when a rainbow fell, as it often did, nothing could look more charming than it rose from the opposite bank of the stream against the backdrop of a wet, shady mountain.
The Power of Darkness. A Drama in Five Acts
Leo Tolstoy
The very concept of The Power of Darkness for Tolstoy corresponds to the Gospel, where darkness is identified with the concept of hell and death, and light with hope and paradise. The Power of Darkness expresses not only religious, but also philosophical ideas of the great Russian writer. Darkness is the moral blindness of people who commit a crime in order to satisfy the most base motives. The power of The Power of Darkness for Tolstoy is the tragedy of hopelessness, a heavy chain of sins that entangle a person. But The Power of Darkness is also the path to moral regeneration through repentance.
Max Brand
One of Max Brands greatest gifts as a storyteller is his ability to create unforgettable, larger-than-life characters. 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. This is one of his novels. "The Power of Prayer" (1922) is an unusual and vexing Christmas story in which Gerald Kern, gentleman, gunman and fortune-hunter, must make a fateful choice when his cold-blooded nature and his love of a woman collide. Neatly plotted and briskly told, it illustrates Brands remarkable gift for storytelling. Another great read by Max Brand.