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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.
Valentine Williams
The novel begins in Paris on the wedding night of Sally and Rex Garrett. A former member of the French Foreign Legion Rex mysteriously disappears on the night of his wedding. At The Pigeon House, a lonely inn, a band of conspirators await the arrival of a deserter from the Foreign Legion, who is their key man in their plan to start an uprising in French Morocco. The conspirators have also driven the bridegrooms closest friend into exile and a shameful death, which means he must hunt them down and destroy them. Williams spy story, The Pigeon Man (1927), presents us with a character whose motivations are as obscure as any in modernist literature. Why is the hero doing what he is doing? Why, for that matter, are the other characters? George Valentine Williams never says explicitly, leaving readers to puzzle this out for themselves.
Robert E. Howard
Robert E. Howard turned to writing comic and dialect Western tales only late in his career, but he found an immediate and continuously successful market for them, and they are in many respects his most accomplished and polished works. The Pike Bearfield Stories is a collection of stories in the western genre, featuring Pike Bearfield the character who lead well-intentioned lives of perpetual confusion, mischance, and outright catastrophe. It includes: While the Smoke Rolled, A Gent from the Pecos Shave That Hawg! , Gents on the Lynch, The riot at Bucksnort. They are reminiscent of traditional southwestern tall tales, told in dialect, featuring larger-than-life characters, swift action, broad satire, and wry humor. All stories are fast-paced with simple yet effective plots that have a few surprises thrown in for good measure.
James Fenimore Cooper
In The Pilot (1824), James Fenimore Cooper invented a new literary genre: the sea novel. Bold, vigorous, original, it is a tale of high adventure that vividly captures the majesty and power of the seafaring life. Cooper drew on his direct knowledge of ships and sailors to present a truer picture of life on the sea than had ever before achieved in literature. As a boy of seventeen he had experienced the life of a common seaman, learned the craft of sailing, encountered terrifying storms, was chased by pirates, and watched the impressment of crew members by a British man-of-war.The Pilot is loosely based upon stories of John Paul Joness daring hit-and-run tactics during the Revolutionary War. The shadowy hero, modeled on Jones, leads a squadron of the infant American navy in a series of raids on the English coast, braving fierce storms and the guns of hostile warships, yet never revealing his identity. In this novel Cooper introduced the character of the old salt, the seasoned deckhand happy only aboard ship.
The Pioneers. or The Sources of the Susquehanna
James Fenimore Cooper
The fourth of the Leatherstocking novels, we find Leatherstocking (Natty Bumppo) entering the last stages of his life. He has lost a great deal of his effectiveness with his musket and now relies a great deal on his dog to help him hunting. The main focus is one two things: 1. the reinstatement of Nattys old commander in his properties and wealth in the new US while believing he is the victim of treachery by his old friend the judge in this story; and 2. Nattys struggle with and disgust about the developing societal rules that limit his freedom in hunting, trapping and fishing in the wilderness as he has his whole life. Good story on both accounts. In The Pioneers, James Fenimore Cooper thematically debates the complexity of landscape within a new American frontier. The battle between nature and civilization is a constant and competing force within the minds of the characters and in the general surroundings.
Charles Williams
Charles Williams is able to create wonderful ghostly episodes powerful moments of disclosure. In the novel The Place of the Lion, the world of feelings is depicted as an illusion simply a reflection of the real world from which it originates. This makes some absolutely fascinating scenes, as people suddenly face a reality that they cannot understand. The book raises some interesting questions about good and evil.
Otis Adelbert Kline
Otis Adelbert Kline is best known for his purported novelistic feud with Edgar Rice Burroughs. In 1929, long before planetary romance became a conventional genre, he wrote Planet of Peril, a novel set on the planet Venus and written in the storytelling form of Burroughs Martian novels. He followed this with two sequels. This novel is a science-fiction adventure on a world of semi-barbaric nations, ferocious beasts, gigantic reptiles, and maidens in distress. In it, Robert Grandon of Earth exchanges his body with that of a captive Prince of the planet Venus. Of course being a earthmen he doesnt stay captive very long. Battles, swordfights, monsters, whirlwind of intrigue, danger, desperation and beautiful Queens vie for your attention as this story unfolds.
Stanley G. Weinbaum
If youre going to launch a series dedicated to the very best science fiction and fantasy writers of the century, it makes sense to start with Stanley G. Weinbaum. The Planetary Series includes ten stories set on worlds of Earths solar system following several centuries of human exploration and settlement. It features a host of fascinating alien creatures, including birdlike Martians (features in A Martian Odyssey and its sequel Valley of Dreams) and The Red Peri and the Venusian trioptes (in Parasite Planet, The Lotus Eaters). Written in the 1930s, the planetary stories were consistent with scientific understanding of the solar system at that time, as well as consistent with science fiction ideas of the planets, most notably a warm and wet jungle-like Venus. Even today, the collection remains a highly readable and enjoyable, a great example of early science fiction that exhibits the finest pulp virtues: fast action, colorful settings and characters, and terrific storytelling.
Joseph Conrad
This is both mystery and romance; the latter creates one of the recurring difficulties in Conrad: it preserves the Victorian histrionic element, which sometimes may seem a little attractive. But overall, it is well read and much less burdensome than some of his novels.
T.C. Bridges
Short and stout as he was, Pip could handle a boat with any man, and the speed with which he got the sail up and tied down the reef points was worth watching. As he finished, the great arch of cloud swept over the sun, wiping, out its bright light. Then with a roar the wind was on them.
The Point of Honor. A Military Tale
Joseph Conrad
Conrad stresses that the narrative clearly shows that the duel really benefited two. Combat competitions made every job and strive a little harder, forced the will to survive and win in a personal fight as seriously as the desire to survive the bloody years of the Napoleonic war. Both are officers in Napoleons army, and both are to the core.
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?
Arthur B. Reeve
The second collection of 12 of the early Craig Kennedy mysteries, written by Arthur Benjamin Reeve and published in 1912. His Craig Kennedy stories, of which these are early examples, earned their main character the nickname the American Sherlock Holmes, both for his highly rational and analytical detective work as well as for his ever-present Dr. Watson-like companion Walter Jameson. They solve crimes using cutting-edge technology of the early twentieth century with varying degrees of plausibility. This volume includes The Germ of Death, The White Slave, The Confidence King, The Invisible Ray, and eight more. Each story features a fascinating look at life in the early 20th century, and even includes some action along the way.
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.