Fiction

R. M. Ballantyne (1825-1894) was a Scottish juvenile fiction writer. Born Robert Michael Ballantyne in Edinburgh, he was part of a famous family of printers and publishers. In 1848 he published his first book, Hudson's Bay:

Robert Michael Ballantyne (24 April 1825 – 8 February 1894) was a Scottish author of juvenile fiction who wrote more than 100 books.

When a mysterious sailor dies in sinister circumstances at the Admiral Benbow inn, young Jim Hawkins stumbles across a treasure map among the dead man's possessions. But Jim soon becomes only too aware that he is not the only one who knows of the map's existence, and his bravery and cunning are tested to the full when, with his friends Squire Trelawney and Dr Livesey, he sets sail in the Hispaniola to track down the treasure. With its swift-moving plot and memorably drawn characters—Blind Pew and Black Dog, the castaway Ben Gunn and the charming but dangerous Long John Silver—Stevenson's tale of pirates, treachery and heroism was an immediate success when it was first published in 1883 and has retained its place as one of the greatest of all adventure stories.

"How much jousting have you done?" "A little," replied the young troubadour. "A little!" the Templar said ironically. "In tournaments all over Europe, Count Amalric has bested hundreds of knights. Many times he has killed men. Of course, it is against the rules. But he is a master at making it look like an accident." He looked at Roland with an almost fatherly kindness. "Indeed, Messire, the best advice I could give you would be not to enter the tournament at all."

War on any scale was outlawed, along with boom-and-bust economic cycles, and prudery -- but no change was more startling than the face of New York, where the Empire State Building has become the Tower of Zeus!

Rafael Sabatini was born in Jesi, Italy to an English mother and Italian father. His parents were opera singers who became teachers. At a young age, Rafael was exposed to many languages, living with his grandfather in England, attending school in Portugal and, as a teenager, in Switzerland. By the time he was seventeen, when he returned to England to live permanently, he was the master of five languages.

This anthology is a thorough introduction to classic literature for those who have not yet experienced these literary masterworks.

In this celebrated work, his only novel, Wilde forged a devastating portrait of the effects of evil and debauchery on a young aesthete in late-19th-century England.

Since its publication in 1842, Dead Souls has been celebrated as a supremely realistic portrait of provincial Russian life and as a splendidly exaggerated tale; as a paean to the Russian spirit and as a remorseless satire of imperial Russian venality, vulgarity, and pomp. As Gogol's wily antihero, Chichikov, combs the back country wheeling and dealing for "dead souls"--deceased serfs who still represent money to anyone sharp enough to trade in them--we are introduced to a Dickensian cast of peasants, landowners, and conniving petty officials, few of whom can resist the seductive illogic of Chichikov's proposition.

The famous novel of revolutionary conversion and struggle. This novel of Russia before the Revolution is without question the masterpiece of Gorky, Russia's greatest living writer.

In Maria, Wollstonecraft pursues in fictional form themes set forth in 'A Vindication of the Rights of Woman.' Her story of a woman incarcerated in a madhouse by her abusive husband dramatizes the effect of the English marriage laws, which made women virtually the property of their husbands.

The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck: A Romance is an 1830 historical novel by Mary Shelley about the life of Perkin Warbeck. The book takes a Yorkist point of view and proceeds from the conceit that Perkin Warbeck died in childhood and the supposed impostor was indeed Richard of Shrewsbury. Henry VII of England is repeatedly described as a "fiend" who hates Elizabeth of York, his wife and Richard's sister, and the future Henry VIII, mentioned only twice in the novel, is a vile youth who abuses dogs. Her preface establishes that records of the Tower of London, as well as the histories of Edward Hall, Raphael Holinshed, and Francis Bacon, the letters of Sir John Ramsay to Henry VII that are printed in the Appendix to John Pinkerton's History of Scotland[1In this novel, Mary Shelley returned to The Last Man's message that an idealistic political system is impossible without an improvement in human nature.

Falkner (+Biography and Bibliography) (6X9po Glossy Cover Finish) :The opening scene of this tale took place in a little village on the southern coast of Cornwall. Treby (by that name we choose to designate a spot, whose true one, for several reasons, will not be given,) was, indeed, rather a hamlet than a village, although, being at the seaside, there were two or three houses which, by dint of green paint and chintz curtains, pretended to give the accommodation of "Apartments Furnished" to the few bathers who, having heard of its cheapness, seclusion, and beauty, now and then resorted thither from the neighbouring towns.

This is a story of love, intrigue and adventure in a European court. In this story Mrs. Rinehart combines mystery, heart interest, and excitement of her past successes into a story that will be hailed as the most interesting of all her stories.

After the young Prince Edward VI of England and a peasant boy switch places, the "little king" tries to escape from a world in which he must beg for food, sleep with rodents, face ridicule, and avoid assassination.

Mark Twain's work on Joan of Arc is titled in full Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc, by the Sieur Louis de Conte who is identified further as Joan's page and secretary. The work is fictionally presented as a translation from the manuscript by Jean Francois Alden, or, in the words of the published book, "Freely Translated out of the Ancient French into Modern English from the Original Unpublished Manuscript in the National Archives of France".

The Iron Woman is a novel of manners by the American writer Margaret Deland set in the 19th century fictional locale of Mercer, an Ohio River community that represents Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

As its full title suggests, Blazing World is a fanciful depiction of a satirical, utopian kingdom in another world (with different stars in the sky) that can be reached via the North Pole.

The second volume of Marcel Proust's six-part masterpiece, In Search of Lost Time (À la recherche du temps perdu), finds the narrator emerging from childhood and losing interest in Gilberte, his childhood love. When the unnamed youth departs from Paris to vacation with his grandmother in the South of France, he develops an infatuation with a group of teenage girls — ultimately focusing on Albertine, with whom he will form the most tumultuous relationship of his life.

After the war has ended the unnamed protagonist goes back to Paris and meets the people he once knew before, but time has never stopped for anyone, especially for humans. The journey now grows more expansive and seeks writing as the answer to the perennial question of how do we defy death. This beautiful novel will absorb you wholly and make you wish that it may never come to a finish.