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The Adventurous Simplicissimus

The horrors of the Thirty Years’ War hadn’t yet touched the life of the young boy living in the Spessart in seventeenth-century Germany, but when he accidentally leads a group of Landsknechte back to the family farm, disaster strikes, leaving him homeless and wandering the forest. A chance meeting with a hermit gives him a name—Simplicius Simplicissimus—and a new-found appreciation for the Christian faith; but this comparative calm is but a brief respite before he’s thrown back into the wider context of the ongoing war. Now a soldier, Simplicissimus is tossed from one adventure to the next, each more incredible than the last.

Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen · Drama · 28 ch

Murder in the Maze

After twin brothers Neville and Roger Shandon are both found murdered on the same afternoon in the hedge maze on the grounds of their country estate outside London, the local county’s Chief Constable must solve the mystery of their deaths and bring the perpetrator to justice. Murder in the Maze is the first of seventeen detective novels by J. J.

J. J. Connington · Mystery · 18 ch

When the World Shook

When the World Shook tells the story of Humphrey Arbuthnot, a writer of adventure stories, and the deathbed promise of his wife that the two would meet again. Arbuthnot, along with his friends Bickley and Bastin, set sail for the Pacific where they promptly encounter a storm and abandon ship. When they awaken they find themselves on the island of Orofena, where they anger the island natives and are soon forced to flee after making an astounding discovery.

H. Rider Haggard · Adventure · 29 ch

The Airlords of Han

The Airlords of Han, the sequel to Armageddon 2419 A.D., continues the adventures of Buck Rogers, the famous sci-fi adventure hero of early comics and radio shows. Originally published in Amazing Stories in 1929, in the 1960s this novella was later combined with Nowlan’s original piece and re-published under the title Armageddon 2419 A.D.

Philip Francis Nowlan · Sci Fi · 16 ch

The Grand Babylon Hotel

When Theodore Racksole—one of the richest men in America, and consequently the world—sits down in London’s Grand Babylon Hotel and orders a beefsteak and a bottle of beer, he isn’t aware that he’s about to become part of a plot involving blackmail, espionage, murder, the royal families of Europe and his daughter Nella. As he’s sucked in to the inner workings of the hotel and its staff he has to make a series of stark choices for the safety of his family and guests. The Grand Babylon Hotel proceeds at a pace that betrays the novel’s roots: it was originally serialized in 1901 in the Golden Penny.

Arnold Bennett · Drama · 30 ch

The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft

Henry Ryecroft is an older English man of letters who, upon inheriting a small legacy, retires to a small cottage in the countryside. There he writes a diary, his “private papers,” which George Gissing purports to have edited and published in this volume. In reality Ryecroft is a fictional character, and his diary is a semi-autobiographical account of Gissing’s own career as an author and literary critic, and of his personal philosophical musings.

George Gissing · Drama · 104 ch

The Secret House

T. B. Smith, Assistant Commissioner of Police, suspects that the murder of two foreigners is connected to Montague Fallock, a notorious blackmailer of prominent British citizens.

Edgar Wallace · Adventure · 21 ch

Phineas Redux

At the end of Phineas Finn, the second of Anthony Trollope’s Palliser series, Phineas has abandoned his parliamentary career, accepted a sinecure in the civil service in Dublin, and married his Irish sweetheart. As Phineas Redux begins, he is a widower and tired of Dublin life. Fortunately for him, his friends in London believe he might be enticed back to take a role as a member of Parliament in the face of the latest political crisis.

Anthony Trollope · Drama · 81 ch

His Family

Roger Gale, a media-monitoring business owner nearing retirement, observes life in early 20th century New York City through the eyes of his three daughters. The youngest, Laura, is a social butterfly always going to the latest excitements the city can offer. The middle, Edith, is a mother to four children, on whom she dotes.

Ernest Poole · Drama · 44 ch

I Will Repay

The young Vicomte de Marny rashly challenges a French official to a duel, and dies as a result. The Vicomte’s father, the ancient Duc de Marny, insists that his daughter, Juliette, swear an oath before God to seek revenge on the man who killed her brother. Years later, as the French Revolution rages, Juliette insinuates herself into the official’s household, and quickly discovers a way to anonymously accuse him before the National Convention.

Baroness Orczy · Adventure · 32 ch

The Mystery of Orcival

A murder is discovered. The authorities quickly arrest an obvious suspect. A detective spends hours at the scene in disguise before making himself known, and proceeds to minutely examine the evidence with the assistance of a doctor, among others, before proclaiming the answer lies in a completely different direction.

Émile Gaboriau · Mystery · 34 ch

He Knew He Was Right

While on travels in the Mandarin Islands, Louis Trevelyan meets and then, on return to England, marries Emily Rowley, the eldest daughter of the governor of the Islands. They seem ideally suited, but Emily’s mother spots a potential sore spot: they both like to have their “own way.” For two years, and with the birth of their child, all goes well. But when the philandering Colonel Osborne—a lifelong friend of Emily’s father—comes calling in the Trevelyan home, their equilibrium is disastrously unsettled.

Anthony Trollope · Drama · 99 ch

Blue Hand

Jim Steele, a clerk for a prominent London attorney, has the distasteful task of assisting a notorious client, Digby Groat, who stands to inherit the Jonathan Danton fortune. Danton’s infant daughter and closest heir, Dorothy, was thought to have died in a boating accident twenty years ago. Adding to the mystery, Dorothy’s mother, Lady Mary Danton, also disappeared around the same time.

Edgar Wallace · Adventure · 49 ch

The Triumph of the Scarlet Pimpernel

At one of Robespierre’s “Fraternal Suppers,” a young man denounces Robespierre but is saved by an asthmatic vagabond. The young man flees to the home of his friend Theresia Cabarrus, who is engaged to one of the most important men in the government, and who is also desired by Robespierre himself. When the young man disappears from her home, allegedly at the hands of the Scarlet Pimpernel, the ever-present Chauvelin enlists her help in trying to capture the elusive Pimpernel.

Baroness Orczy · Adventure · 89 ch

El Dorado

In the Scarlet Pimpernel’s fourth outing, he and his league want to free the orphaned Dauphin of France from his captors. But someone else has the same idea, although for very different, and selfish, reasons. In addition to trying to outflank his rival, the Pimpernel also has to deal with a member of his inner circle whose romance has caused him to disobey orders and put the entire plan in jeopardy.

Baroness Orczy · Adventure · 50 ch

Such Is Life

Such Is Life is an Australian novel written by Joseph Furphy under a pseudonym of “Tom Collins” and published in 1903. It purports to be a series of diary entries by the author, selected at approximately one-month intervals during late 1883 and early 1884. “Tom Collins” travels rural New South Wales and Victoria, interacting and talking at length with a variety of characters including the drivers of bullock-teams, itinerant swagmen, boundary riders, and squatters (the owners of large rural properties).

Joseph Furphy · Drama · 30 ch

Man and Wife

Man and Wife is the ninth novel by Wilkie Collins, and was published in serial form in 1870. Like many of his other novels it has a complex plot and tackles social issues, in this case the then-lax state of the marriage laws, particularly in Scotland and Ireland. As always, Collins deals carefully but frankly with human personal behavior.

Wilkie Collins · Drama · 61 ch

The Titan

Frank Cowperwood, a disgraced robber baron, has just been released from prison. After some canny investments pay off, he decides to head west to Chicago, where he can rebuild his fortune and his good name. He takes his mistress, Aileen, with him, and quickly learns how to use his wealth and machine politics to take over the Chicago streetcar system.

Theodore Dreiser · Drama · 64 ch

Behind That Curtain

Behind That Curtain, published in 1928, finds Charlie Chan in San Francisco preparing to return to Honolulu after a working holiday. He meets a Sir Frederic Bruce from Scotland Yard, who is following the trail of a woman who disappeared fifteen years before. The two attend a dinner party together—where Sir Frederic is murdered.

Earl Derr Biggers · Adventure · 22 ch

The Mucker

Billy Byrne, a rough and unpolished young man, finds himself entangled in a series of unexpected events that lead him from the urban jungle of early 20th century Chicago to the high seas and, eventually, to revolutionary Mexico. When he and a wealthy heiress named Barbara Harding become shipwrecked on a remote island, the harsh realities of survival force Billy to reevaluate his values and confront his own identity. He undergoes a profound transformation, discovering hidden depths of courage, compassion, and integrity within himself.

Edgar Rice Burroughs · Adventure · 36 ch