A gothic masterpiece set in Victorian England: "One of the best horror stories ever written. Perhaps the best in the English language" (Stephen King). When Mr. Clarke agrees to visit his friend Dr. Raymond, he is dubious about the proceedings he is to witness. In pursuit of what Raymond calls "transcendental science," the doctor intends to make a small incision in a woman's brain, allowing her to see past the world of the senses to a reality beyond...

We wonder that so great a man as Abraham Lincoln should spring from humble people - but who knows what his more distant ancestry might have been? In a series of dramatic chapters, Mr. Buchan tells what he imagines to have been the ancestry of Lincoln. The worthy son of a northern chieftain who had come down with his people into Normandy; a Norman knight who fought under Duke William and settled in England; a French knight, emissary of Saint Louis...

This collection of nineteen short stories from O.Henry beautifully captures the spirit of the American West, crystallising the era of gunslingers and cowboys in a extremely poignant manner. There are captivating moments of happiness, joy, love and sorrow throughout this tumultuous tour of brilliant characters. Nothing in the West is easy, and it becomes apparent that love is above all else the most important thing we can possess. This importance of...

"Crushing national Debt? Climate Change? No: the greatest danger to our way of life is the decline of grammar. Thus preaches the inimitable Mr Gwynne as he shows us the way out of this sorry state. "Grammar is the science of using words rightly, leading to thinking rightly, leading to deciding rightly, without which-as both common sense and experience show-happiness is impossible. Therefore, happiness depends at least partly on good grammar." So...

The road novel that gave Sonoma Valley its nickname from the renowned nineteenth-century American author of The Call of the Wild and White Fang. In Oakland, California, former boxer Billy Roberts and his wife, Saxon, have a turbulent marriage, disrupted by the social issues of turn-of-the-century urban California-including labor strikes and violence. So Billy and Saxon embark on a quest through the rural countryside, encountering a Portuguese settlement...

A collection of Love Poems "Welladay! Welladay!, For the winds of May!, Love is unhappy when love is away!" The title of the book, "Chamber Music," was reportedly a pun relating to the sound of urine tinkling in a chamber pot, though this seems to be a later embellishment by Joyce of the title's meaning.

William Dean Howells (1837-1920) was an American realist author and literary critic. He wrote his first novel, Their Wedding Journey, in 1871, but his literary reputation really took off with the realist novel A Modern Instance, published in 1882, which describes the decay of a marriage. His 1885 novel The Rise of Silas Lapham is perhaps his best known, describing the rise and fall of an American entrepreneur in the paint business. His social views...

Eugene is not only naive in the ways of the world, having been isolated and cosseted by his father for twenty-seven years, but he is also symbolically short-sighted. He is unable to ‘see’ Madam Blumenthal as the rogue female seductress. She is glamorous, experienced, bohemian, an author, and something of an adventuress. What this tale represents then is yet another warning to men about the dangers of forming romantic relationships with women....

Dr. Goodwin is on a botanical expedition in the Himalayas. There he meets Dick Drake, the son of one of his old science acquaintances. They are witnesses of a strange aurora-like effect, but seemingly a deliberate one. As they go out to investigate, they meet Goodwin's old friends Martin and Ruth Ventnor, brother and sister scientists. The two are besieged by Persians as Darius III led when Alexander of Macedon conquered them more than two thousand...