Publisher: Adelphi Press
A stolen treasure, a secret pact among four convicts, and two corrupt prison guards. The Sign of the Four also presents the detective's drug habit and humanises him in a way that had not been done in the preceding novel, A Study in Scarlet. It also introduces Doctor Watson's future wife, Mary Morstan.
The Swiss Family Robinson is an adventure novel co-authored by Johann David Wyss and Johann Rudolf Wyss. It has a plot that exemplifies family ideals and the use of the natural world to achieve self-reliance. The story begins with the family in the hold of a sailing ship, riding out a huge storm. The passengers abandon ship without them, and William and Elizabeth Robinson and their four children (Fritz, Ernest, Jack and Francis) are left to survive on their own. How will they cope?Show book
This book draws together some of Jane Austen's earliest literary efforts. It includes "Love & Freindship" and "Lesley Castle" both told through the medium of letters written by the characters. It also contains her wonderful "History of England" and a "Collection of Letters" and lastly a chapter containing "Scraps". In these offerings, we may see the beginnings of Miss Austen's literary style. We may also discern traces of characters that we encounter in her later works. G. K. Chesterton in his preface, for example, says of a passage in Love and Freindship; "... is there not the foreshadowing of another and more famous father; and do we not hear for a moment, in the rustic cottage by the Uske, the unmistakable voice of Mr. Bennet?" These works are certainly worth exploring for their own sakes and not simply as historical relics.Show book
Edward Frederic Benson (1867 - 1940) was an English novelist, biographer, memoirist, archaeologist, and short story writer, best known as the true master of the gothic occult story.The Horror-Horn tells the story of a skiing holiday in the shadow of the mysteriously named Ungeheuerhorn mountain. Literally the name translates as "Horror-Horn". It appears that a local legend has it that hideous and terrifying monsters live in caves high up on the mountain.These monsters are primitive creatures... possibly an early stage of evolution of human beings, but wild, savage, malevolent. Moreover, the legend has it that they violently rape any human, male or female who they can manage to catch.When the narrator of this story loses his way on the mountain as dusk is falling, he soon finds himself pursued by an abonimable female monster, bent on having her evil way with him.Show book
In A Study in Scarlet, Holmes and Watson's first mystery, the pair are summoned to a south London house where they find a dead man whose contorted face is a twisted mask of horror. The body is unmarked by violence but on the wall a mysterious word has been written in blood.The police are baffled by the crime and its circumstances. But when Sherlock Holmes applies his brilliantly logical mind to the problem he uncovers a tragic tale of love and deadly revenge...Show book
Set during the time of the American Civil War, this story is about a man named Peyton Farquhar, a Confederate sympathizer who attempted to demolish the Owl Creek Bridge, but was caught and condemned to die by hanging. But all is not what it seems to be in this tale that has an irregular time sequence and a twist ending.Show book
Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Herland, first published in 1915, is a feminist utopian novel that describes an isolated society composed entirely of women-a progressive, environmentally conscious land where peace and rationality reign and poverty is unknown. Told from the perspective of Vandyk Jennings, a male sociology student who sets out with his two friends to determine whether Herland really exists, the novel ironically and pointedly critiques the arbitrary nature of many gender norms as it highlights the irrational features of the men's society and asserts women's fundamental capacity for reason and cooperation. Herland is a landmark work of feminist thought whose themes are as vital today as they were in the early twentieth century.Show book
