Publisher: Jules verne
The Underground City, by Jules Verne, is a novel about the fortunes of a mining community called Aberfoyle which is near Stirling, Scotland. Miner James Starr, after receiving a letter from an old friend, leaves for the Aberfoyle mine. Although believed to be mined out a decade earlier, James Starr finds a mine overman, Simon Ford, along with his family living deep inside the mine.
A respectable young widow and mother of two children, the Marquise of O— finds herself inexplicably pregnant after being rescued by a Russian officer from the attentions of his soldiers during the storming of her town's citadel. Convinced of her own innocence and wishing to vindicate her own integrity, the Marquise places an advert in the newspapers, appealing for the father to come forward and promising to marry him. But will this be enough to quench her family's doubts and the derision of the society around her? Will this help her solve the mystery and urge the perpetrator to acknowledge paternity of the child? One of the great classics of German literature, Heinrich von Kleist's sexually charged novella is as edgy today as it was when it was first published in 1808, and is accompanied here by two other celebrated stories, ‘The Earthquake in Chile' and ‘The Foundling', showcasing the range of their author's narrative abilities and his taste for the ambiguous and the paradoxical.Show book
Howard Phillips Lovecraft (1890-1937) is an American writer, poet and journalist. He wrote horrors, mysterious and fantastic stories and also created the famous Cthulhu Mythos. Along with Robert Ervin Howard he is considered to be a founder of a fantasy genre in literature. Here is a detective story "The Mystery of the Grave-Yard" or “A Dead Man’s Revenge”. On a funeral of some Joseph Burns a strange thing happened. Mr. Dobson went into the tomb to put a golden ball there as the late wished. But Mr. Dobson disappeared in the tomb. After that a strange man came to his daughter and offered his help for money. Who is that man? What has happened to Mr. Dobson? Was he kidnapped or fell into some secret basement? That's what the main characters of the story have to figure out.A SmartTouch Media production.Show book
Joseph Conrad’s searing tale of one of the strangest and most memorable journeys ever takenQuite simply the scariest book ever written, this is a searing tale of one of the strangest and most memorable journeys ever undertaken – to the heart of a geographical and psychological wilderness from which no-one returns unscarred. For this isn’t simply a journey up an uncharted river into a geographical wilderness; rather, it’s a trip deep into our collective subconscious. This story – about what happens when so-called “civilized” human beings go off the rails - was the inspiration for Francis Ford Coppola’s movie “Apocalypse Now”.Conrad himself had undertaken such a river journey as a ship’s captain back in 1889 when he was in his early 30’s and before he took to writing full time. Back then, the Congo Free State, as this area of Africa was known, was a Belgian colony under the personal control of King Leopold II. Atrocities were commonplace, to the point where the international community finally had to sit up and take notice; in a report published in 1904, over 3 million people were said to have died as a direct result of European intervention in the area.It has long been argued whether “Heart of Darkness”, which first appeared in 1902, was in any way influential in bringing Leopold’s violent regime to the public’s attention; but whether or not, it remains a searing indictment of human rapacity – and depravity.Show book
Rosamond Lehmann’s first novel, now a classic of British literature, tells a luminous story of friendship, discovery, and forbidden love This debut novel, set in the early 1900s, tells the story of Judith Earle, a solitary only child growing up in a sprawling house in the Thames Valley. From an early age, she is fascinated by the six cousins who live next door. There’s boring, faithful Martin, of the red cheeks and perennially scabby knees; beautiful, aristocratic Charlie, whom Judith secretly adores and who will die in the First World War; reckless Julian, who turns lying into an art; enigmatic Roddy, who visits only occasionally; and Mariella, whose marriage to her first cousin will end tragically, and who lives with the scandal of her mother running off with another man. Every year, the Fyfe family returns to this idyllic corner of England. Childhood friendships blossom into adolescent romance as the cousins fall in love with Judith—and she with them. But her world transforms forever when she meets a beautiful fellow student named Jennifer. A novel in many ways ahead of its time, Dusty Answer is about love: first love, love on the rebound, taboo love, the loss of love. With its gentle indictment of England’s class system, it is also about what goes on behind the closed doors of genteel society, and the self-deceptions we spin in order to give our lives meaning.Show book
Far from its popular image, the story of Frankenstein as told by Mary Shelley is not a tale that finds horror in a hideous "monster" or a "crazed" scientist. The darkness in the narrative is found in the profound loneliness of both Creator and Created as they seek one another in a tragic cycle of unfulfilled longing and revenge. This powerful novel, first published in 1818, still surprises and shocks us with the fundamental questions about the moral boundaries of human discovery and helps us to question what it means to be human.Show book
A short story from the British Library Tales of the Weird collection Evil Roots. The Victorian era saw orchids become one of the most expensive and collectable plants, and this short story follows orchid collector Wedderburn, who gets more than he bargained for with his latest floral specimen.Show book
