The star Mira was unpredictably variable. Sometimes it was blazing, brilliant and hot. Other times it was oddly dim, cool, shedding little warmth on its many planets. Gresth Gkae, leader of the Mirans, was seeking a better star, one to which his "people" could migrate. That star had to be steady, reliable, with a good planetary system. And in his astronomical searching, he found Sol.With hundreds of ships, each larger than whole Terrestrial spaceports, and traveling faster than the speed of light, the Mirans set out to move in to Solar regions and take over...

A sky pirate armed with superior weapons of his own invention... First contact with an alien race dangerous enough to threaten the safety of two planets... The arrival of an unseen dark sun whose attendant marauders aimed at the very end of civilization in this Solar System. These were the three challenges that tested the skill and minds of the brilliant team of scientist-astronauts Arcot, Wade, and Morey. Their initial adventures are a classic of science-fiction which first brought the name of their author, John W. Campbell, into prominence as a master of the inventive imagination.

As Earth's faster-than-light spaceship hung in the void between galaxies, Arcot, Wade, Morey and Fuller could see below them, like a vast shining horizon, the mass of stars that formed their own island universe. Morey worked a moment with his slide rule, then said, "We made good time! Twenty-nine light years in ten seconds! Yet you had it on at only half power...." Arcot pushed the control lever all the way to full power. The ship filled with the strain of flowing energy, and sparks snapped in the air of the control room as they raced at an inconceivable speed through the darkness of intergalactic space...

The famous scientific trio of Arcot, Wade and Morey, challenged by the most ruthless aliens in all the universes, blasted off on an intergalactic search for defenses against the invaders of Earth and all her allies. World after world was visited, secret after secret unleashed, and turned to mighty weapons of intense force--and still the Thessian enemy seemed to grow in power and ferocity. Mighty battles between huge space armadas were but skirmishes in the galactic war, as the invincible aliens savagely advanced and the Earth team hurled bolt after bolt of pure ravening energy--until it appeared that the universe itself might end in one final flare of furious torrential power....

Written in the 14th century by the Gawain poet, 'Pearl' is an elegiac poem reflecting on the death of a young daughter, pictured as a pearl lost in a garden. It is considered a masterpiece of Middle English verse, incorporating both the older tradition of alliterative poetry as well as rhyme, centered around the development of an intricately structured image. Sophie Jewett's translation from the Northern dialect of the original renders much of the poem's liveliness and beauty accessible to modern readers, whilst encouraging them to pursue their reading further, to read the original itself.This recording is dedicated to the memory of Pearl Jean Shearman, 1914-2012.

The scene of this story is laid in Kentucky. Its heroine is a small girl, who is known as the Little Colonel, on account of her fancied resemblance to an old-school Southern gentleman, whose fine estate and old family are famous in the region. (Introduction taken from original book.)

This is the story of Joyce, an American girl who has been sent abroad to France to study, and of her adventures in France, - the wonderful house with the gate of The Giant Scissors, Jules, her little playmate, Sister Denis, the cruel Brossard, and her dear Aunt Kate.

In This volume the Little Colonel returns to us like an old friend, but with added grace and charm. She is not, however, the central figure of the story, that place being taken by the “two little knights,” Malcolm and Keith, little Southern aristocrats, whose chivalrous natures lead them through a series of interesting adventures.

A charming 'coming of age' story about a young girl, Mary Marie, whose young life is thrown into turmoil as her parents divorce. As she leads two lives, she comes to realize that her parents still love one another, and engineers a reunion. In the end, we discover the long-lasting effect of this turmoil on the adult Mary Marie, and her own marriage."

"What a joy! How exciting! Margret Kendall returned home, to her loving and equally beloved mother's arms after 4 years in the slums of New York City- where she endured unimaginable hardships. This hardship made the naturally brilliant nine-years-old strong, resourceful, and full of questions which her mother finds it hard to answer. But this is not the end of the problems she would have to face. Those will include her mother's intended marriage, her need to get along with her stepfather's people, and her ever present worry about her poor friends from New York who were there for her in her darkest moments...

These 18 wonderful short stories by Eleanor H. Porter, the author of Pollyanna, deal with those marvelous and maddeningly frustrating creatures: human beings. As always, Porter describes real people with sensitivity and an insight into all of their variety that makes you say "I knew someone just like that". She is able to capture the faded, but not quite extinguished, dreams of the elderly and the bright hopes of youth. The theme of this collection is how we humans deal with life and love throughout our lives, "Across the Years", no matter where we are or what era we live in.

Along the coast of Maine are littered thousands of small islands. One such, named 'Pocket Island' by the locals was so called because of a pocket formed twice daily by the waning of the tides. The coast of Maine holds many secrets and legends, and Pocket Island was no exception. Subtitled "A Story of Country Life in New England", this story holds such varied and fascinating glimpses into the lives of a few individuals, and is not limited to merely a story of ghosts, of war, of barn dances, friendship, tales of rum-runners, smugglers, and seafarers...

This book is about Norah Linton, her brother Jim, her father David and Jim's chum Wally from Australia. They all move to England during WWI because Jim and Wally want to fight in the war.When a Irish friend of the family dies, Norah inherits a big house in Surrey: Homewood. To keep up the Irishman's memory they want to use the house to help the war effort. They turn it into a home for "Tired People"--soldiers recovering from injuries, or soldiers on leave that have no family to go home to, can come here to have a good time and enjoy the country-side, so that they can go back to their regiments fully rested and restored...

An Australian childrens' classic about life on a ranch around the same time of A Little Florida Lady, with a similarly plucky tomboy heroine. Also, like the latter story, expect some racial stereotyping of Asian and Aboriginal characters. This originally ran as a newspaper serial and it shows in the episodic nature of the chapters, such as a vivid trip to the circus sandwiched by talk of a mad killer and an unexpectedly sentimental ending.

In 1933, Forman Brown wrote, under the pseudonym Richard Meeker, a controversial novel called Better Angel, about a young man coming to terms with his homosexuality. This novel is regarded as "the first American novel to present the 'gay' experience in a healthy light."

The Masquerader is one of two Katherine Cecil Thurston’s books that appeared on the Publisher’s Weekly best-sellers list in 1905. The Masquerader is part mystery, part romance and part political thriller – all tied up in one neat package. Nature has a way of sometimes making two people nearly indistinguishable in appearance. Such is the premise for this book. John Chilcote, a British politician, and John Loder, a man down on his luck meet by accident one night during one of London’s worst fogs...

Clodagh, 18 years old, is the eldest daughter of Dennis Asshlin, an Irish gentleman who lives in an area of Ireland called Orristown. Dennis is passionate, proud and indebted to no one. But, Dennis has an obsession with gambling that is leading the family to ruin. When tragedy strikes, Clodagh finds herself in a situation where she must defend the family honor because “no Asshlin is ever obliged to anyone”. She marries a man she does not love who is many times her age and is thrust from adolescence to adulthood literally overnight...

AMUSEMENTS IN MATHEMATICSby HENRY ERNEST DUDENEYPREFACEIn issuing this volume of my Mathematical Puzzles, of which some have appeared in periodicals and others are given here for the first time, I must acknowledge the encouragement that I have received from many unknown correspondents, at home and abroad, who have expressed a desire to have the problems in a collected form, with some of the solutions given at greater length than is possible in magazines and newspapers. Though I have included a few old puzzles that have interested the world for generations, where I felt that there was something new to be said about them, the problems are in the main original...