Published in 1924, Precious Bane is a novel by Mary Webb (1881 - 1927) which touches on ambition, prejudice and hatred but also on the power of love. Prue Sarn is a farm girl in rural Shropshire during the period of the Napoleonic Wars and is viewed...

Orphan Lady Margaret Cheyne returns home on her eighteenth birthday to live with her embittered maiden aunt and to take up her inheritance of the family jewels. The Cheyne jewels include a pendant featuring the Purple Emperor, a priceless jewel...

A short, simple Old Testament Bible History for children, but which can also be enjoyed by adults alike. Starting with Creation, the sections cover Adam and Eve, Abraham, Moses, etc. up to the promise of a Redeemer. The same format continues in the...

This book of Scottish fairy tales tells of brownies, fairies, and apparitions, bogies, witches, kelpies, and tales told about a mysterious region under the sea, "far below the abode of fishes," where the Mermaids and Mermen live. There are stories...

The Jubilee marks the fiftieth year of the reign of Queen Victoria. Dickensian in its sweeping scope of London life, Jubilee depicts the harsh and disreputable conditions of lower-middle class life at the end of the 19th century. (Introduction by S....

Sara Teasdale was an American lyric poet. This poem is taken from her 1920 collection Flame and Shadow. - Summary by David Lawrence...

In the Author's Preface to Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins, he describes this poem as Curtal-Sonnet "that is they are constructed in proportions resembling those of the sonnet proper, namely 6 + 4 instead of 8 + 6, with however a halfline tailpiece...

Chrisopher Morley was an American literary luminary whose prolific writings included novels, essays, poetry, plays and great journalistic output. This collection of essays is wide ranging in topics, many with his characteristic wit. - Summary by...

This is the second volume in this collection of reports and newspaper stories regarding notorious criminals and their punishment, assembled by prison inspector Arthur Hayward from original sources originally published in 1735.Please note that some...

Early victories by the USSR in a global nuclear war cause the United Nations government to retreat to the moon leaving behind troops and fierce autonomous robots called “Claws”, which reproduce and redesign themselves in unmanned subterranean...

Hard Times was Dickens's shortest novel and the only one to be set in the industrial north of England. A fast moving story with a typical cast of larger than life characters, the novel is a vehicle for a humanist critique of both utilitarian...

Anne Catherine Emmerich (1774-1824) was a German Augustinian nun who had visions about Christ's life and death. This book relates her visions regarding the Blessed Virgin Mary, from her marriage to St. Joseph to the events surrounding the birth of...

This is the story of Whitefoot the wood mouse, the most timid and shy creature in all the Green Forest. You see, Whitefoot has many enemies who would love nothing more than to make him their dinner. Despite the many perils Whitefoot often faces, he...

Born in Manchester, and a bookbinder by trade, Benjamin Stott was an active trade unionist and member of the Chartist movement. Songs of the Millions, a suite of seventeen short poems in which Stott experimented with a variety of forms, was his best...

The Encantadas or Enchanted Isles is a novella by American author Herman Melville. First published in Putnam's Magazine in 1854, it consists of ten philosophical "Sketches" on the Encantadas, or Galápagos Islands. It was collected in The Piazza...

The novel takes place 10 years after the Battle of the Plains of Abraham in 1759 when Quebec becomes a British colony. Written as a collection of letters, the story follows the relationships between Edward Rivers (a British soldier), his friend,...

Edgar Allan Poe was an American writer, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. Widely regarded as a central figure of Romanticism in the United States and...

Patrick Brontë (father of the famous Brontë sisters, Charlotte, Emily and Anna) is mainly remembered as a father, reverend and teacher, but he also was a poet and a novelist. Cottage Poems, his first published work, he gives gentle spiritual advice...

A short travelogue of Egypt, this book was written as part of an early 20th century series of travelogues on exotic destinations. (Summary by Sibella Denton)....

Arthur Conan Doyle was deeply affected by the many wars fought during his lifetime. As many other writers, he used the material for short stories, a collection of which is presented here. - Summary by Carolin...