I am Roderick Random. This is the contemporary story of my struggle against the adversity of orphan-hood, poverty, press gangs, bloody duels, rival fortune hunters, and the challenge to be well-dressed through it all. In the course of recounting my adventures to you, dear reader, I will give you a front row seat to the characters of English eighteenth century life including highway robbers, womanizing monks, debt-laden gallants, lecherous corrupt officials, effeminate sea captains, bloodthirsty surgeons, and my dear friend Miss Williams, a reformed prostitute...

"The object of this volume is to excite interest in one of the greatest poems of English literature, which for all its greatness is but little read and known--to excite this interest not only in young persons who are not yet able to read "The Faerie Queene," with its archaisms of language, its distant ways and habits of life and thought, its exquisite melodies that only a cultivated ear can catch and appreciate, but also in adults." (From the Author's introduction)

A detective novel set in turn-of-the-century New York City, in which a young lawyer plays the sleuth. Packed with plot twists (and the ubiquitous romantic complication, of course). (

Torn between her love for her aging father, a minister steeped in the puritanical values of old New England, and the young Virginian who was born and raised of southern chivalrous tradition, the many and conflicting emotions which stir deep within Conscience Williams envelop this tale of desire, devotion, inner strength, devious treachery, and individuality of spirit.

A tale of cattle duffing, horse stealing and bushranging in the New South Wales outback with Captain Starlight.To quote the author "though presented in the guise of fiction, this chronicle of the Marston family must not be set down by the reader as wholly fanciful or exaggerated. Much of the narrative is literally true, as can be verified by official records. A lifelong residence in Australia may be accepted as a guarantee for fidelity as to local colour and descriptive detail."

The Milky Way - F. Tennyson Jesse's first novel - began life as a 1913 magazine serial called The Adventures of Viv. In it, poor-but-plucky Cornish painter/model Vivian Lovel recounts events of her twenty-first year: en route from Penzance to London by steamer, she catches a baby dropped over the side of a sinking ship - and decides to keep it. Penniless, however, she "platonically" pairs up with pan-like fellow passenger Peter Whymperis, an actor and aspiring writer, and together they find work with a fifth-rate repertory troupe...

‘Sapper’, the pseudonym of Colonel. H.C. McNeile M.C. was one of the most popular English writers of thrillers between the two world wars. And Hugh (Bulldog) Drummond was his most popular leading character. This book, the first of the series, is of its time. Opinions are expressed which would not pass muster today and the books are strongly laced with jingoism, racial stereotypes and hostile references to foreigners. Naturally all the villains are masters of disguise and invariably put off murdering the hero until later whist they think of something absolutely beastly. Nevertheless the story is a good one and well told.

This is one of the Victorian “Sensationist” Mary Elizabeth Braddon's many novels (best known among them: “Lady Audley’s Secret”). It is extremely well written, fluid, humorous and, in places, self-mocking: one of the main characters is a Sensation Author. The motifs of the-woman-with-a-secret, adultery, and death are classic “sensationist” material. Yet this is also a self-consciously serious work of literature, taking on various social themes of the day. Specifically, Braddon presents...

This story revolves around Gilbert Fenton, a very talented middle class businessman from London, who falls in love with a beautiful country woman far below his station. He decides to marry her anyway. But is she all that she seems?

A captivating Victorian “sensation” novel by the author of Lady Audley's Secret, Run to Earth has it all: scoundrels and mercenaries, love and lust, jealousy, intrigue, and suspense. (Introduction by Gail Mattern)

The novel traces the return of a young Englishwoman from several years of schooling abroad, to find that her life will not take up where she thought it would. Clarissa Lovel faced not only an emotionally and financially bereft father, but her first glimpse at love - and that not from the best vantage point.

"Like Wuthering Heights, the center of this story is a dramatic love triangle, the setting is a huge English manor. Olivia Marchmont has always "done her duty." However, when she falls in love and her beloved is in love with another woman, the malice of her heart is released in full view. In this dramatic tale, the vivid description of the country is also important- as if nature has a part in it. Unlike many novels, nobody gets what they deserve at the end. Or do they? Read and decide for yourself."

The first part of the book builds the characters of four con men who become interconnected and attempt their schemes on each other. This book is the first of a two part story, the second part is the book Charlotte's Inheritance.

This story is from Mary Cowden Clarke’s multi-volume work The Girlhood of Shakespeare’s Heroines, in which she imagined the early lives of characters from Portia to Beatrice to Lady Macbeth. In her revision of Ophelia from Hamlet, she creates a backstory for Shakespeare’s tragic heroine, from her infancy to just before the action of Hamlet begins.

18 works -- two non-fic articles & one short fiction or poetry each -- from issues March, April, May, June, July, & August 1906 of The Scrap Book, Volume 1, edited by Frank Munsey. As he states in the editorial of the April 1906 issue (Vol 1, Iss 2) this was a sort of supplement to the editor's popular monthly, Munsey's Magazine. The Scrap Book is very like an American version of Punch with many short, often humorous articles interspersed with at least one short story, some poetry, and several longer non-fic pieces. The Scrap Book ran up to 1922.

Join Angelo Daily and his chums during a fun filled summer at Killgloom Park, a Coney Island, New York amusement park in the 1930's. A runaway tiger! Tracking down a wanted thief! Climbing down a ferris wheel in the middle of the night! These are just a few of the exciting things that happen during this adventurous summer!The author grew up in the world of amusement parks, providing first hand material for two of his boys books – “On the Sands of Coney” and its sequel, this title - “Killgloom Park”...

Ethan Hopkins and Mickey McSquizzle-a "Yankee" and an "Irishman"-encounter a colossal, steam-powered man in the American prairies. This steam-man was constructed by Johnny Brainerd, a teenaged boy, who uses the steam-man to carry him in a carriage on various adventures.