Publisher: Aeneas Press
An American millionaire tries to buy a steak and a bottle of beer in London's grandest hotel, is refused, and buys the hotel instead — after which the staff begin to disappear. Bennett wrote it as a serial in the year the century turned, for money, at speed, and produced the ancestor of every glamorous hotel thriller since.
We rely on your support to help us keep producing beautiful, free, and unrestricted editions of literature for the digital age. Will you support our efforts with a donation ? One of the most controversial novels of the twentieth century, Lady Chatterley's Lover follows the story of Lady Constance Chatterley, unhappily married to disabled World War I veteran and coal tycoon Sir Clifford Chatterley, as she takes as a lover the gamekeeper of her estate, Oliver Mellors, a working class man of the earth. Constance struggles with the guilt of her infidelity, but realizes that her marriage is over and wants to get more out of her life. Oliver, a veteran himself with some education, enjoys her company but worries about his own position in society. Like D. H. Lawrence's earlier novels Women in Love and The Rainbow , this novel describes in detail the sexual encounters between the two lovers, doing so using language that was shocking at the time. It was subsequently banned in many countries and for years was only available through underground means. It was not until 1960 that the full, unexpurgated edition was finally able to be published in its native United Kingdom, after being the subject of a court case about freedom of speech and the idea of redeeming social or literary value trumping any notions of obscenity in works of art. The novel's victory at trial is seen by many as the moment Britain began changing into a permissive society. As with other Lawrence novels, the novel features commentary on industrialization, the dying coal industry, and the societal class structure of England, but these themes are to this day still largely obscured by the book's sexual content and the surrounding scandal.Show book
Lazarillo de Tormes is not much older than ten when, after some unfortunate choices by his stepfather, he's turned out of his house to become a seeing companion for a blind man who travels from place to place selling cures for all types of complaints. This works out pretty well for both of them until Lazarillo, having taken a liking to his new master's jug of wine, takes one too many sips and is violently put in his place. Finding a second master only increases his difficulties, as this one is miserly with food to the point of danger; after another misadventure he has to move on again. Over the course of many archetypal masters, Lazarillo tells the story of his boyhood. Published anonymously in 1554, The Life of Lazarillo de Tormes and of His Fortunes and Adversities is generally held to be the first picaresque novella, and accrued considerable fame and notoriety. Its less-than-generous characterization of the priesthood saw the Inquisition place it on their list of banned books, although a couple of decades later an expurgated version was allowed. Even half a century later, Cervantes was still referencing the work in Don Quixote as something his readership would be assumed to be familiar with. While the translator of this 1908 edition, Clements Markham, confidently explains in the introduction that this book was authored by Don Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, the authorship remains disputed to this day. Anonymous was a significant literary figure whose work has stood the test of time. This public domain edition preserves the original text in its entirety, making it accessible to modern readers and scholars alike. As a work of classic literary fiction, Clements Markham exemplifies the narrative craft and social insight that defined great storytelling of its era. Literary fiction of this period was characterized by careful attention to character psychology, social milieu, and the moral questions that animated public discourse.Show book
Stephen P H Butler Leacock FRSC was born on the 30th December 1869 in Swanmore, near Southampton, England, the third of eleven children. The family emigrated to Canada in 1876 to live on a 100-acre farm in Sutton, Ontario. There Leacock was home-schooled and later enrolled into the elite private school Upper Canada College in Toronto. Academically he was very strong and enrolled at the University of Toronto to study languages and literature. He left there after his alcoholic father abandoned the family and finances were too stretched to continue his attendance. He now enrolled in a three-month course at Strathroy Collegiate Institute to become a qualified high school teacher and with it a regular income. Leacock published humorous articles in many Canadian and US magazines but his real passion was economics and political theory. In 1899 he enrolled for postgraduate studies at the University of Chicago and earned his PhD in 1903. His marriage to Beatrix Hamilton produced a single child 15 years later. Over time father and son developed a love-hate relationship, partially caused by his son’s diminutive stature of only four feet. He accepted a post at McGill University and kept it until he retired in 1936. His work ‘Elements of Political Science’, was adopted as a standard textbook for two decades and was also his most profitable. He now also began public speaking and lecturing. In 1910, he privately printed some articles as ‘Literary Lapses’. It was then released by a recognised publisher, and he became a commercially successful writer. His collections of light-hearted whimsy, parody, nonsense, and satire were now frequently published along with biographies and several award-winning volumes on Canada. Politically Leacock was a difficult creature. He opposed women’s right to vote, was a champion of Empire but advocated social welfare legislation and wealth redistribution, but he often caused friction with his racist views. Leacock has been forgotten as an economist, but it’s often said that in 1911 more people had heard of him than had heard of Canada. For the decade after 1915 Leacock was the most popular humorist in the English-speaking world. Stephen Leacock died on 28th March 1944 of throat cancer in Toronto, Canada. He was 74.Show book
An unsettling tale of plague, drift and terror, The Shadow-Line documents a young seaman’s coming of age after he is recruited to captain a ship for the first time. Bad luck and disease haunt the inexperienced hero and his crew, and the evil legacy of the previous captain overshadows them with a feeling of supernatural menace. Against all odds, the young captain must get his crew through the Gulf of Siam to safety in Singapore, before they succumb to malaria and the curse of his mad predecessor. Written in 1915 and based on Conrad’s own experiences 27 years earlier, The Shadow-Line is a gripping take on the lines between youth and maturity, sanity and madness.Show book
"The Pond" by Carl Ewald begins with a pair of warblers in Italy as they meet and agree to travel home to their pond, build a nest, and raise a family. At the pond, its other residents make themselves known. An eel, a cray-fish, a water-spider, a carp, and countless other creatures make the area a vibrant community. This book shows that no matter how peaceful a place might look from the outside, no one can understand just how much chaos might lurk beneath the surface.Show book
The timeless adventure featuring explorer Allan Quatermain, the inspiration for Indiana Jones, from one of the first authors of the “Lost World” genre. The Ivory Child is a novel by H. Rider Haggard featuring Allan Quatermain—explorer, treasure hunter, and adventurer. In one of his strangest undertakings yet, Quatermain finds himself in the throes of a war between two African tribes, one of them led by an evil spirit that resides in the body of a gigantic elephant. Two foreigners, Harût and Marût, call upon Quatermain by the name he uses among the Africans: Macumazana. They are convinced by divination that only Quatermain can defeat the elephant god and save Africa from an epic battle destined to plunge the continent into chaos . . .Show book
