Other books that might interest you

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  The Balloon Hoax

  Edgar Allan Poe

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  The Balloon Hoax was first published in The Sun newspaper in New York in 1844. Originally presented as a true story, it detailed European Monck Mason's trip across the Atlantic Ocean in only three days in a hot air balloon.The story turned out to be a hoax and the paper published a retraction two days later (rumoured to also have been written by Poe himself) admitting the deception.The story ignited a fever of excitement in New York: Poe himself claimed that the Sun building was "besieged" by people wanting copies of the newspaper. "I never witnessed more intense excitement to get possession of a newspaper," he wrote.The furore around the story is a testimony to Poe's ability to build up a narrative with such plausible details, that it appears almost inconceivable that it should not be the truth.

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  The Overcrowded Iceberg

  Morley Roberts

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  Morley Roberts (1857-1942) was an adventurer who worked on railways, cattle, and sheep ranches all over Africa and the Americas and still found time to write a large number of very varied novels and stories with a zest that only real-life experience can give.The Overcrowded Iceberg is the story of the argumentative crew of a fog-bound ship in the northern Atlantic, which eventually strikes an iceberg and sinks. The crew are able to take refuge on part of the iceberg which sank their vessel. But as the berg drifts south to warmer waters, the iceberg begins to melt.

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  King Lear

  William Shakespeare

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  “When we are born, we cry that we are come to this great stage of fools.” 
  King Lear has lived a long and difficult life as a king and decides that he wants to retire of his duties. To absolve himself of power, Lear decides to split his kingdom among his three daughters based on their affections toward him. While two of his daughters flatter their father and declare their fealty and respect, his third daughter refuses to flatter his ego and declares that she only loves him because he is her father. This disrespect causes Lear to leave her nothing. 
  People in search of power can be duplicitous though, and as King Lear learns that the two flatterers were false in their declarations, his anger sparks a descent into madness that in turn sparks a chain of murders and betrayals that spread through many kingdoms and people rapidly. 
  King Lear, while written with beautiful poetry and language, is dark and brutal, with lessons of loyalty and the value of family bonds that still ring true centuries later.

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  The Time Machine

  H. G. Wells

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  An English scientist, known only as the Time Traveler, constructs a machine that allows him to move back and forth through different periods of time. Testing this machine, the man travels forward to AD 802,701. Here he discovers a lazy, non disciplined group of people who do not seem interested in anything. Thinking he has seen all he needs for his research, he decides to travel back home. Upon returning to where he left his time machine, he discovers an intelligent, violent group of people called the Morlocks, have stolen it. Seeing that this futuristic society has more secrets than he realized, the Time Traveler must find his machine and travel back to his time before an untimely end at the hands of the Morlocks.

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  Rudyard Kipling - Six of the...

  Rudyard Kipling

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  Six has always been a number we group things around – Six of the best, six of one half a dozen of another, six feet under, six pack, six degrees of separation and a sixth sense are but a few of the ways we use this number. 
   
  Such is its popularity that we thought it is also a very good way of challenging and investigating an author’s work to give width, brevity, humour and depth across six of their very best. 
   
  In this series we gather together authors whose short stories both rivet the attention and inspire the imagination to visit their gems in a series of six, to roam across an author’s legacy in a few short hours and gain a greater understanding of their writing and, of course, to be lavishly entertained by their ideas, their narrative and their way with words. 
   
  These stories can be surprising and sometimes at a tangent to what we expected, but each is fully formed and a marvellous adventure into the world and words of a literary master. 
   
  1 - Six of the Best - Rudyard Kipling - An Introduction 
  2 - Rudyard Kipling - An Introduction 
  3 - The Phantom Rickshaw By Rudyard Kipling 
  4 - They by Rudyard Kipling 
  5 - Mary Postgate by Rudyard Kipling 
  6 - Mark Of The Beast By Rudyard Kipling 
  7 - The Maltese Cat by Rudyard Kipling 
  8 - The Man Who Would Be King - Part 1 by Rudyard Kipling 
  9 - The Man Who Would Be King - Part 2 by Rudyard Kipling

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  Smallbone Deceased - A London...

  Michael Gilbert

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  Discover the captivating treasures buried in the British Library's archives. Largely inaccessible to the public until now, these enduring classics were written in the golden age of detective fiction."A first-rate job"—New York Times"A classic of the genre"—GuardianHorniman, Birley and Craine is a highly respected legal firm with clients drawn from the highest in the land. When a deed box in the office is opened to reveal a corpse, the threat of scandal promises to wreak havoc on the firm's reputation—especially as the murder looks like an inside job. The partners and staff of the firm keep a watchful and suspicious eye on their colleagues, as Inspector Hazlerigg sets out to solve the mystery of who Mr. Smallbone was—and why he had to die.Since its initial publication in 1950, Smallbone Deceased has been lauded as a perfect British mystery as well as a historical fiction bestseller. Written with style, pace, and wit, this is a masterpiece by one of the finest writers of traditional British crime books since the Second World War.

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