In the degenerate, unpopular backwater of Dunwich, Wilbur Whately, a most unusual child, is born. Of unnatural parentage, he grows at an uncanny pace to an unsettling height, but the boy’s arrival simply precedes that of a true horror — One of the Old Ones, that forces the people of the town to hole up by night... read more »
A nameless old man sits in the corner of a cozy London tea shop, and without leaving his seat, solves baffling crimes reported to him by an admiring lady journalist. Using only methods of pure deduction, the eccentric, self-assured sleuth unravels the mysteries behind a wide range of criminal acts — from gruesome... read more »
Six selections from the famed Russian showcase his natural aptitude for detail, dialogue, humor, and compassion. Includes The Darling, a poignant piece supporting the claim that life has no meaning without love; as well as The Kiss, Anna on the Neck, The Man in a Case, The Malefactor, and the title story. Chekhov's... read more »
In Twelve stories and a Dream, the reader will find a surprising Wells extending your search to the fantastic and humorous to the motley recreation of a common bond that unites characters: the emergence in their lives an unusual event, strange, that leads to the most unexpected and hilarious situations... the rogue... read more »
The story follows Walter Gilman, who takes a room in the Witch House, an accursed house in Akham, Lovecraft's fictional New England town. The house once harbored Keziah Mason, an witch who disappeared mysteriously from a Salem jail in 1692. Gilman discovers that over the centuries most of its occupants have died... read more »
Taras Bulba is a magnificent story portraying the life of the Ukrainian Cossacks who lived by the Dnieper River in the sixteenth century. Taras Bulba is an old and hardened warrior who feels a little rusty from lack of action. When his two sons return from school at Kiev, he eagerly takes them to the 'setch,' the... read more »
Anton Checkhov's The Witch and other stories is one of his many collection of short stories. Included in this book are fifteen of Chekhov's; The Witch, Peasant Wives, The Post, The New Villa, Dreams, The Pipe, Agafya, At Christmas Time, Gusev, The Student, In the Ravine, The Huntsman, Happiness, A Malefactor... read more »
The Plattner Story and Others is a collection of seventeen short stories written by H.G. Wells, originally published in 1897, offers the reader classic Wells--ranging in theme from the multi-dimensions of time and space in The Plattner Story, to classic science fiction in The Apple and Purple Pileus to the betrayal... read more »
Presents horror legend HP Lovecraft's short prose piece Nyarlathotep. Lovecraft wrote in 1921, "Nyarlathotep is a nightmare, a real fantasy from my unconscious, the first paragraph was written when I was not yet fully awake". In these five stories, the author captures the visionary dream state, his cosmogony and... read more »
The House with the Mezzanine features a romantic story of a young artist and Eugenia, one of the two sisters living in the house. Eugenia longs to discover the domain of the Eternal and the Beautiful though her discovery of the arts and her developing romantic relationship. Lidia, the other sister, does not care for... read more »
The Door in the Wall, considered by both readers and critics, to be Wells's finest tale, examines an issue to which Wells returned repeatedly in his writing: the contrast between aesthetics and science and the difficulty of choosing between them. This collection also includes The Star, A Dream of Armageddon, The... read more »
The Overcoat is a short story by author Nikolai Gogol, published in 1842. The story and its author have had great influence on Russian literature, thus spawning Fyodor Dostoyevsky's famous quote: "We all come out from Gogol's 'Overcoat'." The story has been adapted into a variety of stage and film interpretations... read more »
Twenty-two lesser-known short stories from Anton Chekhov including; The Horse-Stealers, Ward No. 6, The Petchenyeg, A Dead Body, A Happy Ending, The Looking-Glass, Old Age, Darkness, The Beggar, A Story Without a Title, In Trouble, Frost, A Slander, Minds in Ferment, Gone Astray, An Avenger, The Jeune Premier, A... read more »
Shooting an Elephant is Orwell's searing and painfully honest account of his experience as a police officer in imperial Burma; killing an escaped elephant in front of a crowd 'solely to avoid looking a fool'. Opinionated, uncompromising, provocative and hugely entertaining, shows Orwell's unique ability to get to... read more »
A wounded German officer, Count Psanek, shares his philosophies on life and love with a local acquaintance, Lady Daphne, while interned in London during the final months of the First World War. Lady Daphne finds herself alternately attracted and repulsed by the Count, and when her husband returns home from the front... read more »
Paris, 1944. Two scientist, using their own invention, break the laws of time to conjure up an apothcary from 15th century Paris to the here and now. Showing him around the modern city and all its scientific breakthoughs, presenting him to their fellow scientist, before sending him back to his own time. read more »
The Phoenix on the Sword begins with a middle-aged Conan of Cimmeria attempting to govern the turbulent kingdom of Aquilonia. Conan has recently seized the bloody crown of Aquilonia from King Numedides whom he strangled upon his throne; however, things have not gone well, as Conan is more suited to swinging a... read more »
The Schoolmistress and Other Stories contains twenty-one tales by Russian master of drama and the short story, Anton Chekhov. Among the stories is one of Chekhov's classics, The Bet, in which a greedy banker makes an ill-considered bet regarding capital punishment with a young and impressionable guest. Fifteen years... read more »
Another collection of G.K. Chesterton's ingenious, thoughtful, and lyrically written mystery stories featuring the unassuming little priest who solves crimes by imagining himself inside the mind and soul of criminals, thus understanding their motives. The stories are full of paradox, spiritual insight, and... read more »
Since his friend and partner in crime, A. J. Raffles, jumped into the Mediterranean, Bunny Manders has scraped along as best he can. At Raffles’s side, he was witness to, and participant in, the most ingenious burglaries the underworld had ever seen. Without him, Bunny is a struggling ex-convict, so down on his... read more »
The Darling is a short story by Russian author Anton Chekhov, first published in 1899 in London, it follows the life of a woman who is referred to as darling. Olenka Plemyannikova, the daughter of a retired collegiate assessor, falls in love with the theater owner, Kukin. Olenka’s father dies and she marries... read more »
This book contains the following stories: The Schoolmaster, Enemies, The Examining Magistrate, Betrothed, From the Diary of a Violent-Tempered Man, In the Dark, A Play, A Mystery, Strong Impressions, Drunk, The Marshal's Widow, A Bad Business, In the Court, Boots, Joy, Ladies, A Peculiar Man, At the Barber's, An... read more »
Not only does any tale which crosshatches between this world and Faerie owe a founder's debt to Lord Dunsany, but the secondary world created by J.R.R. Tolkien--from which almost all fantasy lands have devolved--also took shape and flower from Dunsany's example. The Book of Wonder is Dunsany at his peak of his... read more »
Gentleman thief Raffles is daring, debonair, devilishly handsome-and a first-rate cricketer. In these eight stories, the master burglar indulges his passion for cricket and crime: stealing jewels from a country house, outwitting the law, pilfering from the nouveau riche, and, of course, bowling like a demon-all with... read more »
The Most Dangerous Game features as its main character a big-game hunter from New York, who becomes shipwrecked on an isolated island in the Caribbean, and is hunted by a Russian aristocrat. The story is an inversion of the big-game hunting safaris in Africa and South America that were fashionable among wealthy... read more »
Explore the Russian creative movement known as literary realism through the work of writer Nikolai Vassilievitch Gogol, whom many critics regard not only as one of the foremost practitioners of this style, but also as one of the most significant literary figures of the twentieth century. This exquisitely translated... read more »
An amazing weird mystery story, packed with thrills, danger and startling events. Edmond Hamilton. For most people, this name conjures visions of two-fisted space opera -- pure pulp science fiction. And Hamilton -- known as the author of the Captain Future series -- was indeed one of the foremost writers of pulp... read more »
The stories in this collection capture the varied scents and colours of India in the days of the Raj. Magic and religion, art and life, politics and society, combine into one special stroke of genius in Kipling's imaginative canvas, bringing the short story and the poem together. These tales hold a tremendous appeal... read more »
Slim is a boy whose astronomer father is visiting the country estate of an important industrialist. The industrialists son, Red, has found two strange animals, and he enlists Slim in a plan to turn the animals into a circus act. The astronomer, meanwhile, tells the industrialist that he has been in contact with... read more »
This collection of short stories is sure to please fans of the eminently talented British author W. Somerset Maugham. With details drawn from Maugham's first extended period of living abroad, the stories offer a unique glimpse into the early stages of the author's artistic development. read more »