Under the Greenwood TreeThomas Hardy
One of the most popular of Hardy's novels, this charming pastoral idyll is a lightly humorous depiction of life in an early Victorian rural community. The story delicately balances the concerns of the Mellstock parish choir with a romance between a member of the choir and the village schoolmistress. read more »
Under the LilacsLouisa May Alcott
Under the Lilacs is a children fiction novel about two girls (Bab and Betty Moss), Miss Celia, a circus runaway (Ben Brown) and his dog (Sancho). When two young girls decide to have a tea party with their dolls and a mysterious dog comes and eats their prized cake, they end up finding a circus run-away in their play... read more »
Under the Tonto RimZane Grey
Lucy Watson, a young schoolteacher, is appointed welfare instructor in a community of isolated backwoods folk. She quickly overcomes their fears, and achieves popularity by the practical results of her work. She is especially successful with a strong, uncouth bee-hunter. Zane Grey's handling of these primitive... read more »
Under Western EyesJoseph Conrad
Bomb-throwing assassins, political repression and revolt, emigre revolutionaries infiltrated by a government spy: much of Under Western Eyes is more topical than we would wish. Set in Czarist Russia and in Geneva, and told through the Western eyes of Conrad's English narrator, we are given a somber but not entirely... read more »
Uneasy MoneyP. G. Wodehouse
For William, Lord Dawlish, it seemed the realization of his dreams. He could marry the girl he loved. Of course, things are not quite so simple. The famous Wodehouse humour, which has no equal, sees to that, in a transatlantic cocktail of breathtaking ingenuity. read more »
Unpleasantness at the Bellona ClubDorothy L. Sayers
90-year-old General Fentiman was definitely dead, but no one knew exactly when he had died -- and the time of death was the determining factor in a half-million-pound inheritance. Lord Peter Wimsey would need every bit of his amazing skills to unravel the mysteries of why the General's lapel was without a red poppy... read more »
Unto CaesarEmma Orczy
Taurus Antinor loved her, that she knew. The last four days had made a woman of her: she had tasted of and witnessed every passion that rends a human heart, love, ambition, cruelty, hatred! The man whom she loved, loved her with an intensity at least equal to that which even now made her heart throb at the memory of... read more »
Unto This LastJohn Ruskin
A closely argued assault on the science of political economy, which dominated the Victorian period. Ruskin was a profoundly conservative man who looked back to the Middle Ages as a Utopia, yet his ideas had a considerable influence on the British socialist movement. And in making his powerful moral and aesthetic... read more »
Up the ChimneyShepherd Knapp
One of a series of plays set at Christmas time intended for young boys and girls. It is intended, not only for acting, but also for reading. What sort of a Christmas play do the boys and girls like, and in what sort do we like to see them take part? It should be a play, surely, in which the dialogue is simple and... read more »
UtopiaThomas More
One of the most influential books in the Western philosophical and literary tradition, Sir Thomas More’s Utopia appeared in 1516. The formidable Henry VIII had recently assumed the throne in England, and conflicting ideas about religion were fuelling the Reformation throughout Europe. A scathing satire, Utopia was... read more »
The Valley of DecisionEdith Wharton
This two part romance chronicles the rise to power of Odo Valsecca during the intellectual and political tumult which preceded the French Revolution. During his childhood and early manhood, Odo comes in close contact with all the major factions the peasantry, the clergy, the liberal freethinkers, and the nobility... read more »
Valley of DreamsStanley G. Weinbaum
'A pair of lunatics, you two,' observed Harrison. He squinted through the port at the gray gloom of the Mare Cimmerium. 'There comes the sun.' He paused. 'Listen, Dick--you and Leroy take the other auxiliary rocket and go out and salvage those films.' read more »
The Valley of FearArthur Conan Doyle
Only Holmes and Watson can get to the bottom of this baffling murder mystery. John Douglas is found in his study blasted faceless with a sawn-off shotgun. There is no obvious motive or suspect. Douglas and his wife, Ivy, a rich and locally popular couple, have lived for years in the ancient, moated Birlstone Manor... read more »
Valley of the FlameHenry Kuttner
Deep in an unexplored jungle, Brian Raft sought the secret of the legendary VALLEY OF THE FLAME. Somewhere there was a radioactive fire that could perform miracles of super-science. Somewhere there was a place where cat-people prowled, where time was altered, and incredible mysteries held their secrets of power and... read more »
Valley of Wild HorsesZane Grey
The tall, young Texan had gambled, fought, and killed in every town from Montana to Mexico. He'd been in plenty of places where there was no law, but this little hellhole was the worst. Jard Hardman and his son Dick were the law. They owned the marshal and used him to rob the town blind. These were the men Panhandle... read more »
Vandover and the BruteFrank Norris
The setting of the story is San Francisco in the 1890s. Vandover, fresh out of college and the son of a wealthy owner of slum properties, has dreams of being an artist but lacks the discipline to fulfill them. His seduction of a young woman results in her suicide and the death of his own father. Cheated by false... read more »
VanessaHugh Walpole
The fourth and final volume of the Herries Chronicles is a love story of 'effortless brilliance' which starts with the triumph of Judith Paris's hundredth birthday in the 1870's and then moves to the tragic disillusionment of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Set, predominantly, as before, amidst the grandeur... read more »
Vanity FairW. M. Thackeray
No one is better equipped in the struggle for wealth and worldly success than the alluring and ruthless Becky Sharp, who defies her impoverished background to clamber up the social ladder. Her sentimental companion Amelia, however, longs for caddish soldier George. As the two heroines make their way through the... read more »
The Variable ManPhilip K. Dick
The Terran system is growing and expanding all the time. But an old and corrupt Centaurian Empire is holding Terra down, as it encircles the Terran system and will not let the humans grow out of their current empire. For this reason Terra is at war with Proxima Centauri and is trying to find a way of breaking free... read more »
VendettaMarie Corelli
Imagine friends and family believed you were dead from the Cholera- Imagine being buried alive and awakening in your coffin - Now, imagine a frantic escape from the rotting crypt only to discover something worse waiting in store.... Thus begins Marie Corelli's suspense-thriller, Vendetta. Awakening to find he has... read more »
Venetian MasqueRafael Sabatini
Monsieur le Vicomte is a remarkable man - not least because, for all concerned, he had been guillotined along with numerous French aristocrats. Yet by some twist of fate he managed to escape and seek refuge in Turin, out of the jurisdiction of the French authorities. But by an even more perverse twist of fate, he is... read more »
The Vicomte de BragelonneAlexandre Dumas
It is now 1660, and although promised the captaincy of the musketeers at the close of Twenty Years After, D'Artagnan is still trailing his sword in the Louvre as a lowly lieutenant. Louis XIV is well past the age where he should rule, but the ailing Cardinal Mazarin refuses to relinquish the reins of power... read more »
VictoryJoseph Conrad
Axel Heyst, a dreamer and a restless drifter, believes he can avoid suffering by cutting himself off from others. Then he becomes involved in the operation of a coal company on a remote island in the Malay Archipelago, and when it fails he turns his back on humanity once more. But his life alters when he rescues a... read more »
Vile BodiesEvelyn Waugh
The Bright Young Things of 1920s Mayfair, with their paradoxical mix of innocence and sophistication, exercise their inventive minds and vile bodies in every kind of capricious escapade, whether it is promiscuity, dancing, cocktail parties or sports cars. A vivid assortment of characters, among them the struggling... read more »
Village WooingGeorge Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw combined ironic wit with weighty commentary on a variety of social issues, advocating for the working class, whom he felt was badly exploited. In Village Wooing Shaw portrays the relationship of a domineering woman with a man whom they are pursuing in marriage. Will she be happy with her conquest? read more »
VilletteCharlotte Brontë
Charlotte Brontë's final masterpiece powerfully portrays a woman struggling to reconcile love, jealousy, and a fierce desire for independence. Having fled a harrowing past in England, Lucy Snowe begins a new life teaching at a boarding school in the great capital of a foreign country. There, as she tries to achieve... read more »
The Violet Fairy BookAndrew Lang
For this collection, Andrew Lang gathered African, Scandinavian, Egyptian and even Babylonian stoires. While they may not be familiar to you, they are an excellent insight into various cultures, to show that despite our skin color, we all share similar belief systems and family values. read more »
Virgin SoilIvan Turgenev
Turgenev was the first writer who was able, having both Slavic and universal imagination enough for it, to interpret modern Russia to the outer world, and Virgin Soil was the last word of his greater testament. It was the book in which many English readers were destined to make his acquaintance about a generation... read more »
Vivian GreyBenjamin Disraeli
Originally published anonymously, ostensibly by a so-called "man of fashion", the first part caused a considerable sensation in London society. Contemporary reviewers, suspicious of the numerous solecisms contained within the text, eventually identified the young Disraeli (who did not move in high society) as the... read more »
Voodoo PlanetAndre Norton
The sequel to Plague Ship, Voodoo Planet features Dane Thorson, a young man fortunate enough to land a job on the Free Trader ship, the "Solar Queen." Plying their trade among the stars, Free Traders visit planets--known and unknown--in search of profit. Captain Gaelic and the ship's medic, Tau, are invited to... read more »