A young man named Anodos experiences dream-like adventures in Fairy Land, where he meets tree-spirits, endures the presence of the overwhelming shadow, journeys to the palace of the fairy queen, and searches for the spirit of the earth. The story conveys a profound sadness and a poignant longing for death.
Fantasy, Fiction
Description: A great poet, Grimly tries to find his way after losing himself to booze and tries to find his way back to his music and poetry.
Excerpt: What came next? As he groped through his sodden memory, the Wolver Grimly slipped on a pink marble step and started to fall. The stair circled the outside of the Rose Tower, a long tumble to the hard pavement of the plaza below. Grimly yelped and flailed with all four paws, turned clumsy with drink. He tripped and slid down to a landing, chin first, biting his tongue. The night spun around him, the moon careening through the sky.
The narrator dies in the first sentence. Through relating his travels in the afterlife, Henry Fielding, author of Tom Jones and Joseph Andrews, gently satirizes life here on earth. (Summary by Denny Sayers)
Fantasy, Fiction, Satire
Die Totenstadt erschien 1901 im Rahmen der 10 Hefte umfassenden Serie „Aus dem Reiche der Phantasie“, wobei jedes Heft eine abgeschlossene Geschichte ist. Die Reihe wurde von Robert Kraft in Genre der Jules Verne’schen Schriften gehalten und für die Jugend geschrieben. Sie erschien im Münchmeyer Verlag. (Summary by Wassermann)
The Royal Book of Oz (1921) is the fifteenth in the series of Oz books, and the first to be written by Ruth Plumly Thompson after L. Frank Baum's death. Although Baum was credited as the author, it was written entirely by Thompson. The Scarecrow is upset when Professor Wogglebug tells him that he has no family, so he goes to where Dorothy Gale found him to trace his roots. Then he vanishes from the face of Oz. Dorothy and the Cowardly Lion mount a search for their friend...
Fiction, Fantasy, Fairy tales
The Ball and the Cross is G. K. Chesterton's third novel. In the introduction Martin Gardner notes that it is a mixture of fantasy, farce and theology. Gardner continues: Evan MacIan is a tall, dark-haired, blue-eyed Scottish Highlander and a devout Roman Catholic.... James Turnbull is a short, red-haired, gray-eyed Scottish Lowlander and a devout but naive atheist.... The two meet when MacIan smashes the window of the street office where Turnbull publishes an atheist jo...
Fiction, Fantasy, Religion
Radioactive decay is a major theme in the novel The World Set Free, published in 1914. Wells explores what might happen if the rate of decay could be sped up. The book may have encouraged scientists to explore theories of nuclear chain reaction. It also served as a vehicle for Wells to develop his ideas on survival of the human race. (Summary by Bill Boerst)
Fantasy, Fiction, Science fiction
The Metal Monster is an Abraham Merritt fantasy novel. 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 conqu...
What happens when a not-so-lucky man happens upon a brass bottle releases the djinni caught within? Misunderstanding, culture shock, hilarity, among other things. Will the well-intentioned djinni help his new master? Or will he makes things even worse? (Summary by Guero)
Fiction, Fantasy
News from Nowhere (1890) is a classic work combining utopian socialism and soft science fiction written by the artist, designer and socialist pioneer William Morris. In the book, the narrator, William Guest, falls asleep after returning from a meeting of the Socialist League and awakes to find himself in a future society based on common ownership and democratic control of the means of production. In this society there is no private property, no big cities, no authority, ...
Fantasy, Fiction, Literature, Politics, Science fiction
Created by Baroness Orczy, author of the famous Scarlet Pimpernel series, The Old Man in the Corner was one of the earliest armchair detectives, popping up with so many others in the wake of the huge popularity of the Sherlock Holmes stories. The Old Man relies mostly upon sensationalistic penny dreadful newspaper accounts, with the occasional courtroom visit for extra laughs. He narrates all this information (while tying complicated knots in a piece of string) to a Lady...
Mystery, Fiction
David Copperfield is een roman van Charles Dickens uit 1850. Zoals in vroeger eeuwen tamelijk gebruikelijk was, had het boek in werkelijkheid een lange titel: The Personal History, Adventures, Experience and Observation of David Copperfield the Younger of Blunderstone Rookery (which he never meant to be published on any account). Zoals de meeste van de boeken van Dickens verscheen het eerst als feuilleton; in dit geval in de periode 1848-1850. In dit boek komen nogal wat...
Fiction, Adventure, Romance, Literature
Richard Horatio Edgar Wallace (April 1, 1875–February 10, 1932) was a prolific British crime writer, journalist and playwright, who wrote 175 novels, 24 plays, and countless articles in newspapers and journals. Over 160 films have been made of his novels, more than any other author. In the 1920s, one of Wallace's publishers claimed that a quarter of all books read in England were written by him.[citation needed] He is most famous today as the co-creator of King Kong, wri...
Fiction, Mystery
Mäzli may be pronounced the most natural and one of the most entertaining of Madame Spyri's creations. The atmosphere is created by an old Swiss castle and by the romantic associations of the noble family who lived there. Plot interest is supplied in abundance by the children of the Bergmann family with varying characters and interests. A more charming group of young people and a more wise and affectionate mother would be hard to find. Every figure is individual and true...
Children, Fiction
What Is Man?, published by Mark Twain in 1906, is a dialogue between a young man and an older man jaded to the world. It involves ideas of destiny and free will, as well as of psychological egoism. The Old Man asserted that the human being is merely a machine, and nothing more. The Young Man objects, and asks him to go into particulars and furnish his reasons for his position. This collection of short stories covers a wide range of Twain's interests: the serious, the pol...
Essay/Short nonfiction, Fiction, Satire
Introduction - This is a collection of ten comic pieces from the 16th century and earlier, as compiled and edited by Frederick Furnivall for private circulation in 1871. Only the first is by Copland. (Introduction by Grant Hurlock)
Comedy, Fiction, Humor, Poetry
Geschiedenis van een neger is een anoniem, rond 1771 verschenen boekwerk. Het is het verhaal van een hugenoot, aangeduid met de letter N., die met zijn vrouw en dochter en vergezeld van de begaafde neger Thomas van Suriname naar Amsterdam reist. N. ontpopt zich als een meester met verlichte ideeën die gelooft in de natuurlijke edelheid van de mens. Hij verklaart deze ideeën wanneer een eiland wordt aangedaan waar een andere Hugenoot een heilstaat heeft gesticht. `Goede w...
Fiction, Philosophy, Travel
Cavanagh becomes involved in the adventurous search for a precious relic in the mysterious East. (Introduction by Laineyben)
Adventure, Fiction, Mystery
The Deerslayer, or The First Warpath (1841) was the last of James Fenimore Cooper’s Leatherstocking tales to be written. Its 1740-1745 time period makes it the first installment chronologically and in the lifetime of the hero of the Leatherstocking tales, Natty Bumppo.
Adventure, Fiction
This novel, published in 1856, was one of the popular and beloved novels in the Victorian era. It is told in the first person by Phineas Fletcher, an invalid son of a Quaker tanner who is presented to us in the beginning as a lonely youth. John Halifax, the first friend he ever had, is a poor orphan who is taken in by his father to help in the work which his sickly son can't constantly do. Phineas tells us in an unforgettable way how John succeeded in rising from his hum...
Fiction, Romance