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Description

Grace Melbury, daughter of a rich local wood-trader, has been raised beyond her family through years of expensive education. Coming home, she finds herself pulled between her love for her childhood friend Giles Winterborne, and the allure of the enigmatic Doctor Fitzpiers. Giles and Edgar have their own admirers too, and the backdrop of the bucolic pastures and woodlands of an impressionistic take on south-west England provides the perfect setting for their story.

The Woodlanders was commissioned by Macmillan’s Magazine in 1884, and was serialized and later published as a novel in 1887. The story’s themes of infidelity and less-than-blissful marriage were unusual for the time and drew ire from campaigners, but on its publication it garnered immediate critical acclaim. Thomas Hardy later regarded it as the favorite of his stories, and it’s remained perennially popular as a novel and as a series of adaptations to theatre, opera and film.

Description

When Arsène Lupin disappeared at the end of The Hollow Needle the public and police assumed he was dead; but it turns out he was just biding his time and waiting for the right opponent to face off against. Luckily, a secret involving a stash of hidden papers and Europe’s aristocratic families is more than enough to pique the interests of Lupin and his unknown competitor. This novel is told more from Lupin’s point of view than the previous stories, and that reduces some of the omnipotence bestowed upon him by Leblanc while highlighting his more emotional qualities.

Originally serialized in Le Journal, 813 was published in novel form in 1910. At more than 500 pages, it was deemed a little heavy and was subsequently split into two volumes in 1917 along with slight editing to increase the timely anti-German sentiment. Presented here is the 1910 English translation.

Description

Returning from Liverpool, Mr. Earnshaw brings with him a dirty, ragged, black-haired child called Heathcliff, and sets into motion a tale of destructive passions. The book’s two locations, the genteel Thrushcross Grange and the wild Wuthering Heights, serve as matching backgrounds to the characters of their occupants, as they struggle to gain the upper hand in marriage and power. All the while, the ghosts of the past seem to drive revenge more than inspire forgiveness.

Wuthering Heights was Emily Brontë’s sole published novel before her early death at the age of 30. Published under the pen name of Ellis Bell, a shared surname with the pen names of her sisters, many assumed that such a book could only have been written by a man. Reviewers of the time praised its emotional power but were also shocked at the actions of its characters, and most agreed that it was impossible to put down. After the novel’s original publication in 1847 it was revised into a single volume in 1850, and over time has become a classic of English literature. The story has been reworked into plays, operas, films, TV dramatisations and a ballet, and has inspired many further works of art, music and literature.

Description

The Personal Memoirs of Ulysses Simpson Grant are an American classic. In them Grant, the most able General of the Civil War, tells the story of his life and experiences, covering his birth, early youth, military training at West Point, his involvement as a Lieutenant in the Mexican War of 1847–48, and of course, his role in the Civil War of 1861–65, during which he rose to become the supreme commander of the Northern forces. After the Mexican War, Grant had left military service and became, essentially, an unsuccessful shopkeeper. Re-enlisting at the start of the Civil War, he rose to his ultimate position entirely on his own merits, showing himself to be a skilled strategist and a master of logistics.

What distinguishes Grant’s Personal Memoirs, and makes them a clear candidate for being considered a part of American literature, is the high quality and interest of the writing, for which Grant clearly had a talent. Though he goes into an extremely high level of detail about the military movements and struggles of the Civil War, the book is full of interest, and in parts is as gripping as a novel.

Obviously, Grant tells only his own part of the story and from the perspective of the ultimately successful forces; but his humanity shows through in the respect he offers to those on the other side, and in his acknowledgement of their sufferings, despite his clear condemnation of their cause of preserving slavery. He is generous in awarding due credit to others on his own side, and where blame is due tempering it with his understanding of that person’s character, background and circumstances.

After the war, Grant served two terms as President of the United States between 1869–77, but his Memoirs do not deal with this period. He began writing the book on his retirement, and completed it only after suffering from severe illness and not long before his death from throat cancer. The first edition was published in two volumes by Mark Twain in 1885.

This Standard Ebooks edition includes 43 maps reproduced from the 1895 edition of the Memoirs.

Description

Whether it’s the benefits of taking it slow and steady (“The Tortoise and the Hare”), the necessity of invention (“The Crow and the Pitcher”), or the problems of cognitive dissonance (“The Fox and the Grapes”), Aesop has a fable for every occasion. Aesop lived in Greece in the 6th century BCE, far enough in the past that it’s become impossible to ascribe all these fables to him. Some were certainly retellings of older myths, some share their roots in collections of fables from India and further afield, and many were added well after his time. However, they all share a certain quality of prose that marks them out as belonging to the collection regardless of authorship. It’s that quality, combined with their insight into the human character, that has meant that they’ve stood the test of time for twenty-five centuries.

This collection is the 1912 translation by V. S. Vernon Jones, comprising two hundred and eighty-four of the fables.

Description

When Theodore Racksole—one of the richest men in America, and consequently the world—sits down in London’s Grand Babylon Hotel and orders a beefsteak and a bottle of beer, he isn’t aware that he’s about to become part of a plot involving blackmail, espionage, murder, the royal families of Europe and his daughter Nella. As he’s sucked in to the inner workings of the hotel and its staff he has to make a series of stark choices for the safety of his family and guests.

The Grand Babylon Hotel proceeds at a pace that betrays the novel’s roots: it was originally serialized in 1901 in the Golden Penny. It was Arnold Bennett’s second novel, and was followed by at least forty works of fiction along with numerous plays and non-fiction works. Since its original publication The Grand Babylon Hotel has remained in print, and it has also been adapted for film and radio.

Description

Kipps is the story of Arthur “Artie” Kipps, an illegitimate orphan raised by his aunt and uncle on the southern coast of England in the town of New Romney. Kipps falls in love with neighbor friend Ann Pornick but soon loses touch with her as he begins an apprenticeship at a drapery establishment in the port town of Folkestone. After a drunken evening with his new friend Chitterlow, an aspiring playwright, Kipps discovers he is to inherit a house and sizable income from his grandfather. Kipps then struggles to understand what his new-found wealth means in terms of his place in society and his love life.

While today H. G. Wells is best known for his “scientific romances” such as The Time Machine and The Island of Doctor Moreau, Wells considered Kipps his favorite work. Wells worked closely with (some say pestered) his publisher Macmillan to employ creative promotional schemes, and thanks to a cheap edition sales blossomed to over 200,000 during the first two decades of publication. It was during this period that his prior futuristic works became more available and popular with American audiences.

Description

On the unexplored jungle world of Jumala, former pilot turned safari guide Ras Hume schemes to collect the reward for finding a missing heir to a fortune. A busboy from local dive bar is brainwashed into believing he is the missing heir, but he soon begins to doubt his own memories.

This standalone story was originally published in 1961 as part of a double title paperback by Ace Books along with an abridged version of The Beast Master, and again in 1968 paired with the short novel Voodoo Planet, all by Andre Norton.

Description

Struggles and Triumphs is the autobiography of P. T. Barnum, the celebrated American showman. Though subtitled Forty Years’ Recollections, it covers a period of over 60 years, from his birth in 1810, to the later years of his career in the 1870s.

Barnum has an engaging style, and his autobiography is crammed with many amusing and interesting incidents as he tells how he learned to make money entertaining the public through circuses, “freak shows,” theatrical presentations, concert tours and the like. On the way he builds up an impressive fortune, only to lose it all through a fraudulous speculation perpetrated on him. Then he starts again, pays off his debts and builds up another, greater fortune. Though often labelled as a “humbug” or “a mere charlatan” it’s clear that the majority of his contemporary Americans held him in affectionate regard.

However modern readers may be upset by Barnum’s rather cavalier treatment of the animals under his care in the various menageries and aquariums he created, and be distressed by the details of how they were lost in the several fires which destroyed Barnum’s Museums.

Also of great interest are Barnum’s philanthropic endeavours: lecturing on teetotalism; supporting negro equality; and funding civic developments.

Description

The Airlords of Han, the sequel to Armageddon 2419 A.D., continues the adventures of Buck Rogers, the famous sci-fi adventure hero of early comics and radio shows. Originally published in Amazing Stories in 1929, in the 1960s this novella was later combined with Nowlan’s original piece and re-published under the title Armageddon 2419 A.D..

In it Buck Rogers and his wife, Wilma Deering, lead Americans in a conclusive battle with the evil Han Empire. The story reflects the “Yellow Peril” mindset at the time of its writing, and successfully predicts many future technologies, including bazookas, night-vision devices, and paratroopers.