Parnassus on Wheels

Christopher Morley

Summary

Parnassus on Wheels is a novel by Christopher Morley, first published in 1917. It tells the charming story of Helen McGill, a middle-aged woman living on a farm, who decides to change her life by purchasing a traveling book wagon from a man named Roger Mifflin.
Mifflin is a quirky bookseller who wants to sell his "Parnassus," a horse-drawn wagon full of books, and retire to write. Helen takes over the business, embarking on an adventure that leads her to discover the joys of books, independence, and new horizons.

Christopher Morley (1890–1957) was an American writer, poet, essayist, and literary critic known for his wit, humor, and deep love of books. He was a prolific author who wrote novels, essays, poetry, and plays, and his work often celebrated the joy of reading, literature, and the quirky aspects of everyday life.

Available since: 09/23/2024.

Other books that might interest you

Jimmy Goggles the God (Unabridged)

H. G. Wells

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.
JIMMY GOGGLES THE GOD: "It isn't every one who's been a god," said the sunburnt man. "But it's happened to me. Among other things." I intimated my sense of his condescension.

Show book

The Picture in the House

H. P. Lovecraft

Title: The Picture in the House 
Author: H. P. Lovecraft 
Narrator: Jonathan Dunne 
Original Publication: 1921 
Public Domain: Yes 
Series Placement: Timeless Terrors #58 
Description: 
The Picture in the House is a masterclass in creeping dread — a tense, claustrophobic story where isolation and obsession blur the line between horror and fascination. 
The tale begins with a traveler seeking shelter from a storm in an ancient, decaying New England farmhouse. Inside, he encounters a gaunt, ancient man whose fascination with a grotesque, centuries-old illustration depicting cannibalism quickly becomes unsettling. Every creak, flicker of candlelight, and shadow heightens the traveler’s growing unease as he realizes the horror he has stumbled upon may be closer than he ever imagined. 
Lovecraft’s story relies on atmosphere, suspense, and human curiosity rather than gore or spectacle. The terror is subtle, intimate, and lingering. 
Narrated by Amazon-bestselling horror author Jonathan Dunne, this performance brings Lovecraft’s chilling tale of dread and lurking menace vividly to life. While the text is firmly in the public domain, this narration is an original performance and copyright © 2025 Jonathan Dunne. 
Part of Timeless Terrors, a series dedicated to resurrecting the masters of the macabre, The Picture in the House reminds us that sometimes the most terrifying thing isn’t what’s on the page, but the dark intentions of the mind that studies it.

Show book

Wuthering Heights

Emily Brontë

Step into the windswept Yorkshire moors in Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights — a story of passion, vengeance, and haunting devotion that defies time itself. 
When the brooding orphan Heathcliff is taken in by the Earnshaw family, his deep, fierce love for Catherine Earnshaw becomes both his salvation and his ruin. Torn apart by pride and circumstance, their bond transforms into an obsession that spans generations, binding the fates of all who live at Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange. 
Through the eyes of the outsider Mr. Lockwood and the housekeeper Nelly Dean, Brontë unravels a gothic masterpiece where love becomes indistinguishable from torment, and memory itself refuses to rest. 
Darkly poetic and emotionally raw, Wuthering Heights remains one of the most powerful explorations of human desire and self-destruction ever written — a tale where the moors echo with the ghosts of hearts that could never let go.

Show book

The Ghost in the Cupboard Room -...

Wilkie Collins

Wilkie Collins was born on 8th January 1824 in Marylebone, London.
The family moved several times in his early years before, at 12, they travelled to France and Italy for 2 years where the sights and atmosphere made a deep and lasting impression on him.
He resumed his education at Mr Cole’s private boarding school in Highbury, Islington. Here, he began his literary career under unusual circumstances: the school bully would give him no peace until he had been told a bedtime story. This ‘little brute’ helped create one of England’s greatest writers.
On leaving school, in 1841, he became a clerk at a tea merchant before, 2 years later, publishing his first short story. However, his first novel was rejected and remained so during his lifetime.
A brief stint at Lincoln’s Inn to please his father and to acquire a steady income was halted by his father’s death. Collins then wrote and published his fathers’ memoirs. He then completed his legal education though he would never practice.
In March 1851, he was introduced to Charles Dickens and there now started a period of sustained literary output and a remarkable lifelong friendship. His stories were published in Dicken’s magazines, and he toured with Dicken’s theatrical before the two of them travelled to the Continent.
By the early 1860’s worrying signs of ill-health appeared with rheumatic gout. As it worsened, he sought respite and cures in German spa towns and gave up writing to help his recuperation.
His personal life had become very complicated. He was living with the widowed Caroline Graves and conducting an affair with a much younger Martha Rudd. With the serialised release of ‘The Moonstone’ and vicious attacks of gout Caroline left him and married another. Collins was now prescribed opium and was soon its lifelong dependent. Martha bore him two children and with the return of a now divorced Caroline Graves he now divided his time between the two women.
In 1874 he set aside writing to tour North America on a reading tour.
Throughout his later years he continued to write and publish. In all 30 novels, 14 plays, 60 short stories and over a 100 non-fiction essays as well as many more collaborations with Dickens.
In 1884 the Society of Authors elected him as it’s Vice-President.
Wilkie Collins died from a paralytic stroke on September 23rd, 1889, in London. He was 65.

Show book

The Man in the Iron Mask

Alexandre Dumas

A hidden twin, a stolen throne, and a secret so dangerous it could shatter a kingdom.
In this dramatic finale to the Musketeers saga, a mysterious prisoner—his face locked behind an iron mask—holds the key to a truth that could overthrow Louis XIV. As Athos, Porthos, Aramis, and D'Artagnan find themselves torn between loyalty and justice, friendships are tested, alliances shift, and the fate of France hangs in the balance.

Praised as "one of Dumas's most powerful and emotionally charged works," this novel delivers political intrigue, daring escapes, heartbreaking choices, and unforgettable heroism. Readers love its rich drama, iconic twist, and triumphant yet tragic depth.

If you crave epic adventure, royal secrets, and the final, thrilling chapter of the Musketeers, this story will grip you until its stunning conclusion.

Unmask the truth—start reading now and experience the legend brought to life.

Show book

Lafcadio Hearn - A Short Story...

Lafcadio Hearn

Lafcadio Hearn was born on the 27th June 1850 on the Ionian isle of Levkás in Greece to a British Army officer and a Greek Mother.

His father, fearing for his career prospects at being married to a Greek Orthodox wife, sent them to Dublin whilst he continued to advance his career with further postings. Life there was difficult for mother and son. His father returned, wounded and traumatised, when Lafcadio was three. He annulled the marriage and she remarried but had to give up care of Lafcadio to her sister-in law.

After brief periods for Catholic education in England and France he emigrated to Ohio in the United States when he was 19, taking on a series of casual jobs before embarking on a career as a journalist, publishing poems and essays in Cincinnati. It was whilst here that he began a side-line in translating, starting with Gautier and Flaubert. He married in 1874 to a 20 year old African-American woman in violation of Ohio's anti-miscegenation law. The marriage soon failed.

In 1877 he relocated to New Orleans to write on a variety of themes before picking up a two year assignment from Harper’s to write in the West Indies, where he also wrote his first novel.

In 1890 Harper’s sent him to Japan. Here he left journalism and took the remarkable decision to become a schoolteacher in the north of Japan. Enraptured by the culture he was driven to explain it in various Western publications to those who had little, if any, knowledge of its culture. Within the year he had fallen in love with, and married, a high-born Japanese lady, together they would have four children.

In 1895 he became a Japanese national and took the name Koizumi Yakumo, Koizumi being his wife’s family name.

The following few years, whilst a professor of Literature at the Imperial University of Japan, were his most creative and admired period.

Lafcadio Hearn died of heart failure on the 26th of September 1904, in Tokyo, Japan shortly before leaving to deliver a series of lectures at Cornell University in New York State. He was 54.

1 - Lafcadio Hearn - A Short Story Collection - An Introduction
2 - A Dead Secret by Lafcadio Hearn
3 - Before the Supreme Court by Lafcadio Hearn
4 - Diplomacy by Lafcadio Hearn
5 - L'Amour Apres La Mort by Lafcadio Hearn
6 - Of A Promise Broken by Lafcadio Hearn
7 - Stranger Than Fiction by Lafcadio Hearn
8 - The Corpse Rider by Lafcadio Hearn
9 - The Ghostly Kiss by Lafcadio Hearn
10 - The Undying One by Lafcadio Hearn
11 - The Vision of the Dead Creole by Lafcadio Hearn

Show book