The first in a trilogy of the Reconstruction era - The Leopard's Spots (1902), The Clansman (1905), and The Traitor (1907), parts of this novel were incorporated in the 1915 silent movie classic, "The Birth Of A Nation". Set in North Carolina, the book explores the extreme social and racial tensions of the period as Confederates attempt to fight off "reconstructionist" policy, rebuild the war-torn South's economy, and grapple with the rampant "race question" of the day, whether the black and white races can ever live side by side as equals, i...

What is a young man to do, when because of his pleasant disposition, and (of course) his considerable wealth, he finds himself besieged by bevies of eligible young women, some beautiful, some less so (some, even, his own cousins)? How on earth is he to protect himself from their onslaught and that of their mothers?

This book draws together some of Jane Austen's earliest literary efforts. It includes "Love & Freindship" and "Lesley Castle" both told through the medium of letters written by the characters. It also contains her wonderful "History of England" and a "Collection of Letters" and lastly a chapter containing "Scraps". In these offerings, we may see the beginnings of Miss Austen's literary style. We may also discern traces of characters that we encounter in her later works. G. K. Chesterton in his preface, for example, says of a passage in Love and Freindship; "...

Alexandre Dumas weaves the compelling story of Siamese twins who are separated physically but never in spirit. When one of the brothers is murdered, the other leaves Corsica for Paris to avenge the killing. Dumas brings this thrilling tale to life with his fascinating descriptions of Italy and France and his powerful portrayal of the undying love of brother for brother.

Dixon lived through Reconstruction, and believed it ranked with the French Revolution in brutality and criminal acts. The Traitor (1907), the final book in his trilogy which also includes The Leopard’s Spots (1902), and The Clansman (1905), spans a two-year period just after Reconstruction (1870-1872), and covers the decline of the Ku Klux Klan in North Carolina. Dixon, whose father was an early Klan leader, maintained that the original Klan, the “reconstruction Klan” was morally formed in desperation to protect the people from lawlessness, address Yankee brutality, and save southern civilization...

Despised by Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy, What Is To Be Done? is a fascinating, sympathetic story of idealistic revolutionaries in mid-nineteenth century tsarist Russia; translator Nathan Haskell Dole affirms in his preface his conviction that it is a thriller that no one can put down once s/he begins it. Its variegated cast of characters includes Vera Pavlovna, a boldly independent woman in a time of great oppression, and the inspirational radical Rakhmetov. The author wrote the novel from the depths of the infamous Peter & Paul Fortress of St...

Princess Casamassima can be read on several levels: first, as a political and social novel, exploring the anarchistic and revolutionary underground of London in the 1880s; secondly as a psychological study of such a movement on a young man (the protagonist, Hyacinth Robinson) who may or may not be descended from the aristocracy, but whose artistic nature shines out in the midst of the London slums; and thirdly, as an examination of the conundrum whether the world of art and culture is necessarily built on the abject poverty of others...

"The Frost-Giant's Daughter" is, arguably the earliest chronological story by Robert E. Howard in terms of Conan's life. The brief tale is set somewhere in frozen Nordheim, geographically situated north of Conan's homeland, Cimmeria. Conan is depicted by Howard as a youthful Cimmerian mercenary traveling among the golden-haired Aesir in a war party. Shortly before the story begins, a hand-to-hand battle has occurred on an icy plain. Eighty men ("four score") have perished in bloody combat, and Conan alone survives the battlefield where Wulfhere's Aesir "reavers" fought the Vanir "wolves" of Bragi, a Vanir chieftain...

The Third Person is an amusing spoof on spooking. The 'ghostly man about the house' in whom two increasingly competitive maiden ladies come to take a proprietary interest is as unlikely to inspire terror as the wraith in one of James's earliest tales. The anticlimactic crisis may need a footnote for younger readers: a Tauchnitz was an unauthorized continental paperback edition of a british or american book which, purely for copyright reasons, was not supposed to be brought back to England. To think of this as smuggling certainly placed, for James's contemporaries, the crimes of the ghostly third person in a hilarious perspective.

This book is part of the "Our Little Cousin" series, written for North American children to tell them about their 'cousins' from other parts of the world. Embark on a journey to 19th Century Germany with Bertha, Gretchen and Hans. They live in a toy-making village in the Black Forest. Learn about their work and customs; get to know facts and lore, hear about architecture, music and more. ( Claudia Salto)

"The Lark" has all the charm and freshness which have made Miss Nesbit's former novels so justly popular, and yet the story ts entirely new and original. Two girls, Jane and Lucilla, are led by Jane's guardian to entertain high hopes. The fortune, however, which Jane was to have inherited, has been lost by unlucky speculations, and the two girls have to set about earning their own livings. They experience many adventures and ups and downs of fortune before they meet with the two men who ensure their happiness and prosperity. A delightful story, well worth reading.

This is a setting of the story of Jesus as if it had occurred during early twentieth century America. The narrator's point of view is that of an outsider looking in at the story of Jesus. Howard Pyle (1853 - 1911) was an American illustrator and author.

Imagine, if you will, a murder committed in a sealed room. A room which has been sealed from the inside, that is, with no possible means of exit, excepting a dangerous plunge through a window into a deep, foreboding lake with swirling eddies and rocks abound. Add to that image a wreath of flowers around the head and across the chest of the victim, a crucifix, an orange, a feather scarf tucked in here and there, two crackers, a handkerchief, and a feather duster. And a nail. Oh, and one more item to add to the curious array of arranged paraphenalia - a watch in a water pitcher by the bedside...

F. Anstey was the nom de plume of Thomas Anstey Guthrie, a Londoner who was trained for the bar but found success as a writer of humorous pieces for Punch and humorous novels. Voces Populi, a collection of his Punch pieces, is considered to be among his best works. He treats an array of situations from the charlatan conjuror to a row over a lady's large, obstructive hat at the music hall.

Saltus has been compared to Oscar Wilde for wit and language. His novels are entertaining, yet philosophical, exposing the vagaries of human nature. The publishers promoted Mr. Incoul's Misadventure thus: "A novel which is sure to be condemned by every one who prefers platitude to paradox, or tea and toast to truffles and red pepper."

Part local legend of a dark and dangerous Wolf-Leader, part childhood memories of his home near Villers-Cotterets, in Aisne, Dumas here penned a chilling supernaturlal encounter between man and the devil. Our hero, Thibault the shoemaker, is beaten on the orders of the Lord of Vez for hunting in the lord's forest. With Thibault's resentment at his treatment by the world at its height, the devil sees his chance and, in the guise of a wolf, proposes a deal which Thibault accepts; the ever available trade of one's soul for evil power...

The daughter of a minister, Deborah Alcock wrote novels on a Christian theme. The Spanish Brothers is set in the sixteenth century and deals with Protestant martyrdom during the Spanish Inquisition. Follow the fortunes of brothers Juan and Carlos as they face the trials and pressures of remaining true to their faith despite hardship, imprisonment, torture and even the agonizing deaths of those dear to them.

Five early stories by one of my favorite SF writers, Mack Reynolds. Medal of Honor is an intriguing look into the mind of someone who is above the law; who cannot commit a crime. How will he act? especially if he is a self centered drunk? Potential Enemy is story about the sad state of human minds that are ruled by fear and paranoia. Happy Ending is an SF story about the far future when the last solar system wide dictator has been finally defeated and what will he do? What will he do? This is also an exploration of mental megalomania and it's effects...

Little Yegorushka goes off to school for the first time, setting out on the journey in the company of his Uncle Ivan, the local priest Father Christopher, and the fun-loving servant Deniska. Along the way they meet an extraordinarily colorful array of characters, named and nameless: the innkeeper Moisey Moisevitch, the beautiful Countess Dranitsky, the mysterious Varlamov, Emelyan the voiceless singer, Tit the steppe waif, and many more. But the most colorful and extraordinary character of all is the Steppe itself in every mood and weather, painted stroke-by-masterly-stroke by Chekhov in all its wild, musical, redolent, flowering, chirruping, infuriating exuberance. (Expatriate)

A major work by Spenser, The Faerie Queen, was published between 1590 and 1596. As an allegorical work, it can be read on many levels. According to Jeanie Lang, Spenser always looked for the beautiful and the good when he wrote. Lang said, "There are many stories in The Faerie Queen, and out of these all I have told you only eight." The eight are "Una and the Lion," "St. Gergoe and the Dragon," "Britomart and the Magic Mirror," "The Quest of Sir Gregory," "Pastorella," "Cambell and Triamond," "Marinell the Sea-Nymph's Son," and "Flormell and the Witch."

Laptev, the rich but unattractive scion of a merchant, renounces his independent-minded, intelligent, devoted, but equally unattractive mistress Polina in order to marry the beautiful young gold-digger Yulia. Their life together quickly deteriorates into a loveless agony, Laptev seeking some sort of meaning in his life while Yulia whiles away her youth with the sparkling young Moscow social scene. The compelling question of the story is whether or not Laptev and Yulia can redeem something of lasting value from what seems to be a hopelessly empty relationship...

Science fiction is a genre encompassing imaginative works that take place in this world or that of the author’s creation where anything is possible. The only rules are those set forth by the author. The speculative nature of the genre inspires thought and plants seeds that have led to advances in science. The genre can spark an interest in the science and is cited as the impetus for the career choice of many scientists. It is a playing field to explore social perspectives, predictions of the future, and engage in adventures unbound into the richness of the human mind.

This recording includes both volumes of E. T. A. Hoffmann's Weird Tales, a collection of gothic novellas set in Germany, Italy, and some of the wilder parts of Europe. What there is of the supernatural in these tales is introduced with great subtlety if at all; most of the stories draw their "weirdness" from extraordinary characters, circumstances, or coincidences rather than from the paranormal, working out dark passions in dark settings. There are two themes dominating almost every one of these stories: not only the passion of young tragic love, but also a passion for Art in its every manifestation...

A Study in Scarlet is a detective mystery novel written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, introducing his new characters, "consulting detective" Sherlock Holmes and his friend and chronicler, Dr. John Watson, who later became two of the most famous characters in literature. Conan Doyle wrote the story in 1886, and it was published the following year. The book's title derives from a speech given by Holmes to Doctor Watson on the nature of his work, in which he describes the story's murder investigation as his "study in scarlet": "There's the scarlet thread of murder running through the colourless skein of life, and our duty is to unravel it, and isolate it, and expose every inch of it...

Published in 1866, "The Dead Letter: An American Romance" written by Metta Victoria Fuller Victor under the pseudonym, Seeley Regester, is credited by historians of popular literature to be the first full-length American crime fiction novel. The writing is melodramatic in places and includes opinions typical of the time period, but is an enjoyable, early example of the genre. The novel begins with Richard Redfield, a clerk in the "Dead Letter Office," opening an unclaimed letter. Upon reading the contents, he is convinced that the message relates to the events of a night two years prior when another young man was brutally murdered.

Lawrence summarised the plot of Sons and Lovers in a letter to Edward Garnett in 1912: “It follows this idea: a woman of character and refinement goes into the lower class, and has no satisfaction in her own life. She has had a passion for her husband, so her children are born of passion, and have heaps of vitality. But as her sons grow up she selects them as lovers — first the eldest, then the second. These sons are urged into life by their reciprocal love of their mother — urged on and on...

F. Anstey was the nom de plume of Thomas Anstey Guthrie, a Londoner who was trained for the bar but found success as a writer of humorous pieces for Punch and humorous novels. Mr. Punch's Model Music Hall is a collection of humorous pieces written for Punch, divided into songs and dramas. In his usual fashion, Mr. Anstey captured the tone of his times and then exaggerated whatever was already absurd to entertain and give pointed commentary at the same time.

While hunting, the boy Anchises stumbles upon Venus's forest retreat and is so kindly entertained by the goddess that he becomes the proud father of Aeneas, the hero of Vergil's Aeneid. The poem is an epyllion like Marlowe's "Hero and Leander" and Shakespeare's "Venus and Adonis," a short erotic poem with a mythological subject. The style is Spenserian, the stanzas rhyming ababbccc. When Brittain's Ida was published in 1628, the publisher ascribed it to Edmund Spenser. However, in 1926 Ethel Seaton discovered and published Fletcher's original manuscript, whose opening stanzas make clear that this is the work of Fletcher, who entitled it "Venus and Anchises."

"Canon Spratte saw himself as he thought others might see him: mediocre, pompous, self-assertive, verbose." Maugham could have added ambitious, hypocritical, and vain. In this engrossing social satire, Theodore Spratte, a cleric, motivated by an obsessive desire to be elevated to bishop, embellishes his family history and intrudes upon his son's and daughter's courtships. A reviewer in 1906 wrote, "The whole book is an admirable blend of cynical gaiety and broadly farcical comedy; it is the smartest and most genuinely humorous novel that the season has yet given us." -- Lee Smalley

Meet the Golovliovs, the ultimate dysfunctional family. In the difficult transition years before and after the liberation of Russia’s serfs, the Golovliovs are a gentry family ill-equipped to face the adaptations necessary in the new social order. Petty, back-biting, greedy, rigid, ignorant, and cruel, their personalities are captured in the array of nicknames they themselves give each other: The Hag, Little Judas, Simple Simon, Pavel the Sneak, the Orphans, the Blood-Sucker. They hate each other ferociously and utterly despise the peasants around them, who are gradually awakening to the potentialities of their new freedoms...

Set in Florence's Anglo-American colony in the late 19th century, this is a romantic story of a middle-aged man, returning to the scene of his first but disappointed love twenty years earlier. The doings of Americans abroad were staples of the fictions of Henry James and Edith Wharton, but Howells’s view is rather different. As John Updike has said of it, “the felicity of the writing makes us pause in admiration….A midlife crisis has rarely been sketched in fiction with better humor, with gentler comedy and more gracious acceptance of life’s irrevocability.” ( Nicholas Clifford)

This very special abridged version was written and performed by Dickens himself during his American Tour of 1862. Without the more terrifying and dark elements of the full length novel, its hour and a half length, and its lighter, comedic style makes this a family listening experience suited for all ages. ( Michael Armenta)