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Tom Brown’s School Days

Tom Brown’s School Days is a seminal novel of Victorian literature that immerses readers in the turbulent world of 19th-century English boarding schools. The novel follows Tom Brown, a spirited and good-hearted boy from the countryside, as he navigates life at Rugby School, an institution renowned for its strict traditions and emphasis on character-building. Through Tom’s eyes, the story explores the challenges of adolescence—bullying, loyalty, and moral growth—against the backdrop of a school culture defined by the reforming influence of its real-life headmaster, Dr. Thomas Arnold.

Thomas Hughes · Drama · 18 ch

The Amateur Cracksman

A. J. Raffles and his friend “Bunny” Manders are the quintessential rich young socialites; but behind the high-living façade, they’ve exhausted their funds.

E. W. Hornung · Drama · 8 ch

Scaramouche

Scaramouche tells the tale of André-Louis Moreau, a young lawyer in Brittany. When his friend is killed by an unremorseful landowner, Moreau swears revenge and begins a life of adventure on the run. His travels lead him to joining a traveling theater troupe, becoming a master swordsman, and even to revolution.

Rafael Sabatini · Drama · 38 ch

Armageddon 2419 A.D.

Armageddon 2419 A.D. features the introduction of Buck Rogers, the famous sci-fi adventure hero of early comics and radio shows. Originally published in Amazing Stories in 1928, this novella was later combined with Nowlan’s sequel, The Airlords of Han, and re-published under this same title in the 1960s.

Philip Francis Nowlan · Sci Fi · 13 ch

The Son of Tarzan

Following the events in The Beasts of Tarzan, Tarzan and his wife, Jane, return to England to raise their infant son, Jack. Now, ten years later, Jane has refused to allow Tarzan to share his past in the jungles with their son for fear of awakening a desire in him to follow in his father’s footsteps. Unfortunately, Jack is already feeling drawn to Africa, and when one of Tarzan’s old friends surfaces, Jack is quick to set out on his own adventure.

Edgar Rice Burroughs · Adventure · 27 ch

The Shadow Line

The unnamed narrator, a young seaman, is the first mate on a ship in Southeast Asia. Despite being satisfied with his position, he decides, on a whim, to end his career and head back to Europe. As he awaits for passage in the port of Singapore, he’s offered his first command: the captaincy of a ship left stranded in a nearby port without its commanding officer.

Joseph Conrad · Drama · 6 ch

The Chessmen of Mars

The Chessmen of Mars, the fifth installment in the Martian series, was originally serialized in six parts in Argosy All-Story Weekly before being published as a novel in 1922. It introduces Tara, Princess of Helium, the headstrong daughter of John Carter, the Warlord of Mars. Just like the rest of the novels in the series, this one is packed with imaginative characters and locations.

Edgar Rice Burroughs · Fantasy · 24 ch

The Leavenworth Case

Horatio Leavenworth, a wealthy and widowed philanthropist, raises his two beautiful orphaned nieces, Mary and Eleanore. One of the cousins, Mary, is his designated heir. When Mr. Leavenworth is murdered in mysterious circumstances, a young lawyer is called upon to support the distraught cousins.

Anna Katharine Green · Mystery · 40 ch

The Coming Race

An engineer encounters a strange sight while exploring a mine, and reluctantly reports it to the narrator. The two descend into the mine together, but an accident causes the narrator to fall through a crevice and into a secret subterranean world. The inhabitants seem to be an offshoot of an ancient human race who have been living and evolving underground.

Edward Bulwer-Lytton · Sci Fi · 29 ch

The Absolute at Large

The Czech writer Karel Čapek wrote his novel Továrna na absolutno in 1922. It was translated into English and published by Macmillan in 1927 as The Absolute at Large. The novel is a satirical piece of science fiction, and starts with the invention of an “atomic engine” in the future year 1943 which can convert matter directly into energy.

Karel Čapek · Sci Fi · 29 ch

The Outlaw of Torn

In 13th century England, Norman of Torn is trained by his father, a French swordmaster with a grudge, in the art of swordsmanship—and to hate the English. He also befriends the priest Father Claude, who teaches him to respect the poor and the weak. As he comes of age, he becomes known as the “Devil of Torn,” the powerful leader of a band of outlaws that terrorizes the aristocracy and protects the poor.

Edgar Rice Burroughs · Adventure · 19 ch

The Phoenix and the Carpet

Like other E. Nesbit stories, The Phoenix and the Carpet was initially published in The Strand Magazine. While The Railway Children or Five Children and It proved more popular, Phoenix has still been adapted into three BBC TV series and a film.

E. Nesbit · Fantasy · 13 ch

Some Do Not …

Some Do Not … opens at the cusp of World War I. Christopher Tietjens, a government statistician, and his friend Vincent Macmaster, an aspiring literary critic, are visiting the English countryside. Tietjens, preoccupied with his disastrous marriage, meets Valentine Wannop, a suffragette, during a round of golf.

Ford Madox Ford · Drama · 16 ch

The Mystery of a Hansom Cab

The Mystery of a Hansom Cab, published in 1886, was the first novel by Fergus Hume. It begins with a sensational murder, as the body of a dead man is discovered in a hansom cab by the driver. Set in Melbourne, Australia, it presents an engaging story of crime and detection, with several unexpected twists and turns.

Fergus Hume · Mystery · 36 ch

The Enchanted Castle

The Enchanted Castle is a novel for young readers by Edith Nesbit, who was writing in the late Victorian and early Edwardian era in Britain. As in her other children’s books, it begins in the everyday world but quickly brings in the fantastical and magical. A large part of the delight of Nesbit’s books is that her children behave in quite ordinary ways, getting into scrapes, getting dirty and their clothes torn, making decisions which seem right to them at the time but which are generally wrong-headed.

E. Nesbit · Fantasy · 14 ch

The Moon Pool

The Moon Pool, in novel form, is a combination and fix-up of two previously published short stories: “The Moon Pool,” and “Conquest of the Moon Pool.” Initially serialized in All-Story Weekly, Merritt made the interesting choice of framing the novel as a sort of scientific retelling, going so far as to include footnotes from fictional scientists, to give this completely fantastic work an air of authenticity. In it we find the adventuresome botanist William T. Goodwin embarking on a quest to help his friend Throckmortin, whose wife and friends have fallen victim to a mysterious temple ruin on a remote South Pacific island.

A. Merritt · Sci Fi · 36 ch

Tarzan and the Golden Lion

Tarzan, the legendary ape-man living in the African jungle, adopts the orphaned lion cub Jad-bal-ja, raising him to become a powerful and loyal companion. Meanwhile, a former housemaid of his devises a scheme to steal the treasures of the lost city of Opar. She engages a Tarzan lookalike to deceive the high priestess of Opar, Queen La, and gain access to the city’s vaults.

Edgar Rice Burroughs · Adventure · 26 ch

Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar

Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar, the fifth work in the Tarzan series, was published in 1918 and features a return to the city of Opar and its priestess, La. After having lost his fortune, Tarzan sets out to loot some of the riches of the ancient city of Opar. This results in his wife, Jane, falling into the hands of slavers and a renegade Belgian officer, which leads Tarzan into further conflict with both man and beast.

Edgar Rice Burroughs · Adventure · 24 ch

The Voyage Out

Miss Rachel Vinrace, aged twenty-four and previously interested only in music, is on a voyage both literal and metaphorical. An ocean cruise with her father leaves her for the summer at her Aunt’s villa in an unnamed South American country, where she meets the English inhabitants of the local town’s hotel. As the season progresses she starts to become entangled in their own lives and passions, and through those burgeoning acquaintances and friendships the discovery of her own nature grows.

Virginia Woolf · Drama · 27 ch

The Lodger

The Lodger is the first known novelization of the Jack the Ripper story. It follows the lives of Mr. and Mrs. Bunting, a maid and butler. An eccentric lodger, Mr. Sleuth, arrives at their lodging-house just as a wave of horrific murders begins to sweep London.

Marie Belloc Lowndes · Mystery · 28 ch