It had been the wish of her whole life to flee from all the Herries, but Walter Herries had challenged her, and she had taken up the challenge'. Judith Paris, now middle aged returns to the Lakes to deal with the bitter feud between the two branches of the family. A feud culminating in the construction by one branch... read more »
Lord Antony Dewhurst is 'a splendid fellow - a fine sportsman, a loyal gentleman'. The young gallant is also Percy's close friend and a lieutenant in the League. The year is 1793 and in Nantes, France, the hunting of aristocrats goes on. And over in England, the enemy has kidnapped Lord Tony's wife, Yvonne. It falls... read more »
Full of enthusiasm, young English schoolmaster Mr. Chipping came to teach at Brookfield in 1870. It was a time when dignity and a generosity of spirit still existed, and the dedicated new schoolmaster expressed these beliefs to his rowdy students. Nicknamed Mr. Chips, this gentle and caring man helped shape the... read more »
Set partly in Revolutionary Paris, and partly in romantic Cumbria, Judith Paris is the story of the two very different men who love Walpole's most delightful heroine. Daughter of Francis Herries and Mirabell Starr, Judith was described on publication as 'the most delightful of Walpole's heroines'. As impetuous... read more »
Leif Ericsson, also known as 'Leif the Lucky', was the second son of Erik the Red and certainly displayed the Viking spirit of adventure and exploration. As a young man Leif Ericsson visited Norway, where he converted to Christianity. He was charged with returning to Greenland to convert the populace, but instead... read more »
Described on its first publication by John Buchan as the finest English novel since Jude the Obscure, Rogue Herries tells the story of the larger than life Francis Herries who uproots his family from Yorkshire and brings them to live in Borrowdale where their life is as dramatic as the landscape surrounding them... read more »
Considered Bulwer-Lytton's best romance novel, in The Last of the Barons, as in Harold, the aim has been to illustrate the actual history of the period, and to bring into fuller display than general History itself has done the characters of the principal personages of the time, the motives by which they were... read more »
Following her marriage to Michael Mont, Fleur Forsyte throws herself into the Roaring 20s with the rest of London and takes life as it comes. But her marriage is haunted by the ghost of a past love affair, and however vibrant Fleur appears, those closest to her sense her unhappiness. Michael, devoted to Fleur but... read more »
The story of Frank Norris's The Pit could be taken from today's headlines: a businessman begins speculating in the commodities market on a small scale until, overcome by greed, addicted to the art of the deal, and harboring an ever-increasing appetite for power, he gambles recklessly in the market while the fortunes... read more »
On Forsyte 'Change deals in the main with the older Forsytes before the events chronicled in The Man of Property. Galsworthy states in a Foreword that "They have all been written since Swan Song was finished but in place they come between the Saga and the Comedy...". By way of explanation he says that "It is hard to... read more »
To Let, the final volume of the Forsyte Trilogy, chronicles the continuing feuds of the two factions within the troubled Forsyte family. The shadow of the past returns to haunt the lives of a new generation, as Irene's son Jon falls in love with Soames's daughter Fleur with tragic consequences. Soames Forsyte has... read more »
Classic Victorian tale of the last days of Pompeii, doomed city that lay at the feet of Mount Vesuvius. From poets to flower-girls, gladiators to Roman tribunes, here is a plausible story of their lives, their loves, and the tragic fate that awaited them. The novel uses its characters to contrast the decadent... read more »
The Octopus: A Story of California is a novel about wheat growers who are in conflict with a railroad company during late 19th century California. The railroad company, controlling the local newspaper, state legislature and the land prove to be a tough force for the local wheat growers to fight against. The Octopus... read more »
Separated from his wife Irene for some years now, Soames Forsyte has resigned himself to the fact that she's never coming back. But as he grows older and richer, he yearns for an heir. When he confronts Irene, the raw wounds of his past passion are exposed and he will do anything to claim back what is his. Then his... read more »
The most prized item in Soames Forsyte's collection of beautiful things is his wife, the enigmatic Irene. But when she falls in love with Bosinney, a penniless architect who utterly rejects the Forsyte values, their affair touches off a series of events which can only end in disgrace and disaster. John Galsworthy... read more »
A story of the French aristocracy, the book concerns Madame de Pompadour's influence over the King and France. read more »
Virginia Woolf's humorous biography of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's spaniel is charming yet also radical. A work of sensuous imagination, it opens up a range of questions about class, society, and cultural attitudes which are woven throughout the whole of Woolf's writing. read more »
Mr. Hector Ratichon-onetime aide to Robespierre and confidant of Napoleon Bonaparte-is a rascal and rogue of the highest order. Nevertheless, his service to France and his resulting adventures make entertaining reading. read more »
Hailed by George Bernard Shaw as "one of the summits of human achievement," Butler's autobiographical account of a harsh upbringing and troubled adulthood satirizes Victorian hypocrisy in its chronicle of the life and loves of Ernest Pontifex. Along the way, it offers a powerful indictment of 19th-century England's... read more »
At the end of the seventeenth century, on that 'grey rock in the Canadian wilderness' known as Quebec, a French family, the Auclairs, begin a life very different from the one they knew in Paris. On her mother's death ten-year-old Cecile is entrusted with the care of the household and of her father, Euclid, the... read more »
There is something epic--and almost mythic--about this sparsely beautiful novel by Willa Cather, although the story it tells is that of a single human life, lived simply in the silence of the desert. In 1851 Father Jean Marie Latour comes as the Apostolic Vicar to New Mexico. What he finds is a vast territory of red... read more »
The thrill of reading Virginia Woolf’s Orlando is the feeling of looking into a whirlpool just as something utterly extraordinary materializes for the first time: an exhilarating hallucination of surreal and beautiful images that remain in memory long after you put the book down. Orlando has it all: life, death... read more »
It is the early days of the French Republic, and Robespierre's revolutionaries find their wicked schemes repeatedly being thwarted. It appears that Sir Percy Blakeney--the cunning and heroic Pimpernel--is more than a match for them all. But Sir Percy's spy-catching archenemy, Chauvelin, has devised a plan. In this... read more »
One of the great books of world literature--an unforgettable tale of jealousy, unrequited love, greed, and vengeance. Based on Viking Age poems and composed in thirteenth-century Iceland, The Saga of the Volsungs combines mythology, legend, and sheer human drama in telling of the heroic deeds of Sigurd the dragon... read more »
Tomorrow is another day ... Set against the dramatic backdrop of the American Civil War, Margaret Mitchell's magnificent historical epic is an unforgettable tale of love and loss, of a nation mortally divided and a people forever changed. Above all, it is the story of beautiful, ruthless Scarlett O'Hara and the... read more »
Another adventure from Sabatini's remarkable and much-loved hero. In Scaramouche the Kingmaker, Andre Louis again dons his famous and much-admired disguise to embark upon a new adventure - and one full of the thrill and swashbuckling action that has earnt Sabatini his place in the hall of great writers. read more »
The novel is set in a fishing village in Dorset during the mid 18th century. The story concerns a 15 year old orphan boy, John Trenchard, who becomes friends with an older man who turns out to be the leader of a gang of smugglers. A much-loved classic story about a boy's adventures among smugglers and thieves as he... read more »
A dastardly deception Lady Sue was young, lovely, fresh -- and due to inherit a vast fortune when she came of age. Sir Marmaduke was a Roundhead -- and supporter of Oliver Cromwell in the English Civil War. It is 1657. King Charles I's head is long gone and Cromwell rules as Protector. From his manor in Kent, Sir... read more »
Marian Forrester is the symbolic flower of the Old American West. She draws her strength from that solid foundation, bringing delight and beauty to her elderly husband, to the small town of Sweet Water where they live, to the prairie land itself, and to the young narrator of her story, Neil Herbert. All are... read more »
This story takes place during the occupation of Netherlands in 1570's by Spain and describes the battle for Ghent...."It lacked two hours before the dawn on this sultry night early in September. The crescent moon had long ago sunk behind a bank of clouds in the west, and not a sound stirred the low-lying land around... read more »