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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.