The King in Yellow is a fascinating, almost two-faced work. The first half consists of five legendary weird tales, loosely tied together by a fictional play—the eponymous King in Yellow —that drives those who read it mad. Celebrated by authors like H.
Robert W. Chambers · Horror · 11 ch
A pretty American implores wine enthusiast Ricardo to alter his plans for an upcoming visit to vineyards in France to protect her friend, who she fears is threatened by ominous occult forces. He tries to evade responsibility, only to find that his plans have been switched for him. Thrust unanticipated among unfamiliar guests at the chateau, including, unexpectedly, the pretty American, he witnesses odd events and senses sinister intrigue.
A. E. W. Mason · Mystery · 29 ch
Young Pyotr Stepanovitch returns to the small town of his father and attempts to start a revolution that will ultimately remake the very fabric of society and bring forth a new social and political order. In order to realize his plan, Pyotr recruits a few men into his group, who are believed to be one cell among many spread throughout the country. Demons is told by a semi-omniscient narrator, and focuses mainly on the lives of middle- and upper-class Russians.
Fyodor Dostoevsky · Psychological · 34 ch
In response to the upcoming abolition of slavery in the British Empire, Charles Montfort, an English planter in Bermuda, decides to move his family (and his human chattel) to the southern United States in order to free his slaves on his own schedule. However, Montfort’s arrival arouses the jealousy and anger of his neighbors, who murder Montfort and capture his wife and sons as slaves. Several decades later, Charles Montfort’s lineage survives in the Smiths, a family of Black Bostonians headed by the matriarch Ma Smith, who keeps a boarding house alongside her daughter Dora and her son Will.
Pauline E. Hopkins · Drama · 23 ch
The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes, published in 1927, collects the final set of Sherlock Holmes stories authored by Arthur Conan Doyle. All of the included stories appeared previously in The Strand Magazine between October 1921 and April 1927. As usual, the mysteries generally purport to be accounts written by Holmes’s friend Dr. John Watson.
Arthur Conan Doyle · Mystery · 13 ch
The Return of Sherlock Holmes is the third collection of Holmes stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, published in 1905. It includes stories published in The Strand Magazine in 1903 and 1904, bringing Holmes for the first time into the twentieth century. Doyle had memorably “killed off” Holmes in a struggle with his nemesis Professor Moriarty in the story “The Final Problem,” which had appeared in 1893 (and which is included in the collection The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes ).
Arthur Conan Doyle · Mystery · 13 ch
The Valley of Fear is the final novel in the Sherlock Holmes series by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The story originally appeared over several issues of the monthly Strand Magazine in late 1914 before being published as a standalone work. While Doyle would continue to publish Sherlock Holmes short stories until 1927, The Valley of Fear remains Holmes’ final long-form appearance.
Arthur Conan Doyle · Mystery · 15 ch
His Last Bow: Some Reminiscences of Sherlock Holmes is the fourth collection of Sherlock Holmes stories published by Arthur Conan Doyle. It begins with a preface by Dr. John Watson, supposedly written in 1917, assuring the reader that Holmes is still alive but living in quiet retirement in Sussex. This collection contains the well-known stories “The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans,” in which Holmes has to track down stolen plans for a new kind of submarine; and “The Adventure of the Devil’s Foot” in which a Cornish family is found one morning driven mad or dead, with expressions of horror on their faces.
Arthur Conan Doyle · Mystery · 8 ch
A draper’s assistant takes to the road on a cycling holiday and falls in with a young woman riding alone along the English coast. A comedy of runaways, rescuers, and mistaken motives that turns into a gentle story of freedom and first love.
H. G. Wells · Comedy · 26 ch
Aubrey, a young gentleman moving in London society of the early 1800s, meets the mysterious Lord Ruthven, recently arrived to London, at a party. Aubrey finds himself intrigued by the cold and expressionless Ruthven, and soon finds himself agreeing to travel with him on a trip across the continent. As their trip progresses, Aubrey is shocked at Ruthven’s sadistic and degenerate behavior, and can’t help but note how anyone who Ruthven meets ends up debauched and ruined.
John William Polidori · Horror · 3 ch
Choirmaster John Jasper has two secrets: an addiction to opium, and a burning love for Rosa, the fiancée of his nephew, Edwin Drood. When Edwin vanishes without a trace one night, his uncle becomes just one of the suspects in Edwin’s disappearance, as it turns out that several other residents of the town of Cloisterham also seek Rosa’s affections. Who’s the real murderer?
Charles Dickens · Mystery · 24 ch
Lewis claimed to have written The Monk in just ten weeks, when he was twenty-one years of age. He published the first edition anonymously, sensing that the controversial and then-pornographic nature of the novel would stun society. And so it did—the book was so sensational, so salacious, and so scandalous, that after he put his full name (and title, as a member of Parliament) on the second edition, his reputation hardly recovered for the rest of his life.
M. G. Lewis · Horror · 19 ch
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court is one of Mark Twain’s most enduring novels. During a stay at a modern-day English castle, the narrator meets a mysterious stranger. The stranger, Hank Morgan, is an engineer from Connecticut, and proceeds to weave a satirical, biting, and hilarious tale of how he traveled back in time to find himself in the court of the legendary King Arthur.
Mark Twain · Comedy · 47 ch
In the fictional town of Roulettenberg, Germany, a Russian tutor to the children of a seemingly wealthy general is enticed to play roulette at the local casino. First playing for others (including his beloved Polina Alexandrovna), he soon gets a taste for the experience himself, which can lead in only one direction. Dostoevsky wrote this story based at least partially on personal experience.
Fyodor Dostoevsky · Drama · 17 ch
Sometimes described as thrilling, sometimes as comic, and sometimes as metaphysical or spiritual, The Man Who Was Thursday is perhaps a little of each. The tale begins when an undercover policeman infiltrates a mysterious Anarchist group. As the novel progresses, things become more comic and improbable, and eventually evolve in to a sort of abstract, dreamlike state.
G. K. Chesterton · Thriller · 16 ch
Father Brown is a Catholic priest, but a slightly unusual one in that he’s also an amateur detective. Unlike his more famous literary cousin Sherlock, Father Brown takes a less analytical and more intuition-oriented approach to solving the many murders that he happens to come across. This collection of short murder mysteries is Brown’s first appearance on the literary stage.
G. K. Chesterton · Mystery · 12 ch
The Portrait of a Lady is widely held to be the outstanding work of Henry James’s “early” period, and among the finest novels of his entire career. When the eccentric Mrs. Touchett “takes up” her charming American niece, Isabel Archer, and returns with her to England, her husband and son, the invalid Ralph, are first mystified, then bemused. Soon, however, they are smitten, as also is their aristocratic neighbor, Lord Warburton.
Henry James · Drama · 56 ch
Charles Dexter Ward is the heir of a wealthy family from Providence, Rhode Island, whose family wealth allows him to dedicate himself to scholarly pursuits. As a young man, he starts to research antiquarianism and architecture. During his genealogical research, he comes across the name of Joseph Curwen, a man who lived in the early 18th century and to whom Ward discovers he is related.
H. P. Lovecraft · Horror · 6 ch
An ambitious young man of humble birth tries to rise in Restoration France by talent, love affairs, and calculated hypocrisy. A sharp portrait of desire colliding with a society built to contain it.
Stendhal · Drama · 76 ch
The Last Man chronicles the last days of humanity in the 21st century as it is slowly obliterated by a global pandemic. Radical changes and events across Europe—the king abdicates, turning England into a Republic; war erupts between Greece and Turkey—weaken the fabric of society, allowing an unknown and deadly disease to quickly spread across the world. Political leaders are disorganized; spiritual figures offer little comfort; science yields no answers.
Mary Shelley · Sci Fi · 31 ch