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  The House of the Seven Gables

  Nathaniel Hawthorne

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  The wealthy Colonel Pyncheon covets the carpenter Mathew Maule's land. A few years later, during the witch hysteria in Salem, Maule is brought before a judge on witchcraft charges and is sentenced to death. Before his execution, Maule curses the Pyncheon family. The Colonel, undaunted, continues to build an extravagant house on Maule's property. After the house is finished, however, the Colonel is found dead, and the property deed is missing. More than 200 years later, we meet the family in its decaying, gabled mansion, still haunted by the presence of dead ancestors: Hepzibah, an elderly gentlewoman fallen on hard times; her ineffectual brother, Clifford; and young Phoebe, a country maiden who cheerfully takes it upon herself to care for her two doddering relations. There's also Holgrave, a free-spirited daguerreotypist, who makes a surprising transformation into conventional respectability. Hawthorne's masterful tale describes the brooding hold of the past over the present, twisting and turning through many generations of a venerable New England family.

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  The Last Trail

  Zane Grey

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  Two frontiersmen venture into the unknown wilderness to save a kidnapped woman in this historical novel by “the greatest Western writer of all time” (Jackson Cain, author of Hellbreak Country).In the late eighteenth century, Wheeling, West Virginia, was an untamed land where brave settlers relied on the protection of a lonely outpost known as Fort Henry. But when a band of renegades and Ohio Valley Indians kidnap a woman from the fort, justice rests on the shoulders of two men: Jonathan Zane and Lewis Wetzel. As these lone outlaw hunters pursue the trail into wild and lawless territory, they vow it will be their last venture—knowing the end of the trail may also be the end of their lives. Zane Grey’s The Last Trail completes a trilogy of western adventure novels based on the real lives of his ancestors. Set in the Ohio River Valley and drawn in part from recovered family journals, the series—which also includes Betty Zane and The Spirit of the Border—depicts the gritty reality of the late eighteenth-century American frontier

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  The Adventure of the Illustrious...

  Arthur Conan Doyle

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  The Adventure of the Illustrious Client (1924) is one of the 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories written by British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and one of the 12 stories collected as The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes.Sir James Damery comes to see Holmes and Watson about his illustrious client's problem (the client's identity is never revealed to the reader, although Watson finds out at the end of the story; it is heavily implied to be King Edward VII). General de Merville's young daughter Violet has fallen in love with the roguish and sadistic Austrian Baron Adelbert Gruner, who Damery and Holmes are convinced is a shameless philanderer and a murderer. The victim was his last wife, of whose murder he was acquitted owing to a legal technicality and a witness's untimely death. She met her end in the Splügen Pass. Holmes also finds out that the Baron has expensive tastes and is a collector and a recognised authority on Chinese pottery.Holmes's first step is to see Gruner, who is amused to see Holmes trying to "play a hand with no cards in it". The Baron will not be moved and claims that his charm is more potent than even a post-hypnotic suggestion in conditioning Violet's mind to reject anything bad that might be said about him. Gruner tells the story of Le Brun, a French agent who was crippled for life after being beaten by thugs after making similar inquiries into the Baron's personal business...Famous works of the author Arthur Conan Doyle: A Study in Scarlet, The Sign of the Four, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Return of Sherlock Holmes, The Valley of Fear, His Last Bow, The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes, Stories of Sherlock Holmes, The Lost World.

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  The Cattle-Dealers

  Anton Chekhov

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  The old man Malakhin, accompanied by his rather useless son Yasha, makes a journey to Saint Petersburg in a freight train with the view of selling his cattle. Everybody around is bent on extorting the money from him. The train driver simply refuses to move the train without being paid, and the uber-conductor has to have his reward too. Malakhin is so distressed as to file a written complaint to the police, still he throws his money around, even on the occasions when this does not seem necessary. Four days later, after having bribed his way to the capital, he sells his starved-out animals, loses a great deal of money but is greatly relieved to see his totally meaningless mission completed.

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  The Siege of Berlin

  Alphonse Daudet

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  The year is 1870. The elderly Colonel Jouve has suffered a medical collapse and is confined to his bed. It is uncertain whether or not he will pull through.His granddaughter takes over his care. Then one day, news reaches Paris of military successes in the war against Prussia. Colonel Jouve senses the optimism in the air and his health begins to improve. Almost immediately further news reaches Paris. The previous news was wrong - in fact the French are being beaten back. Colonel Jouve's son has been taken prisoner. The Prussians are marching on Paris.Fearful that this news will prove the death-blow to Colonel Jouve, his granddaughter, with the complicity of the doctor, decides to create the illusion that the French are winning the war. But the Colonel demands constant details. Where are battles being fought? What route are the French regiments taking on their advance towards Berlin? News bulletins and letters must be faked in order to deceive the old invalid.White bread and meat must be procured for him...for he must not guess that it is Paris itself that is besieged and not Berlin. But then finally the day arrives when the Prussians enter Paris and parade down the Champs Elyssées....

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  Possible Collapse of...

  H. G. Wells

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  Herbert George Wells (21 September 1866 - 13 August 1946) was an English writer. Prolific in many genres, he wrote dozens of novels, short stories, and works of social commentary, history, satire, biography and autobiography. His work also included two books on recreational war games. Wells is now best remembered for his science fiction novels and is often called the "father of science fiction", along with Jules Verne and the publisher Hugo Gernsback.THE POSSIBLE COLLAPSE OF CIVILISATION: (New Year, 1909.) The Editor of the New York World has asked me to guess the general trend of events in the next thirty years or so with especial reference to the outlook for the State and City of New York.

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