Three male explorers set out to reach a legendary land where only women live, and find—to their surprise—that the legends are true. This country hidden in the mountains is a feminist utopia. There are no men, nor is there war, poverty, or crime.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman · Sci Fi · 12 ch
Originally published as a serial, Nostromo is set in a fictional South American country where the outbreak of civil war puts the mining town of Sulaco in turmoil. Giovanni Battista Fidanza, known as Nostromo, is given the task of smuggling out a large amount of silver to keep it from the revolutionaries. Conrad was inspired to write the book when he read, in a sailor’s memoir, the tale of a man who singlehandedly stole a boatload of silver.
Joseph Conrad · Adventure · 32 ch
The King of Upmeads has four sons who are tired of living in the peaceable kingdom, and yearn to adventure abroad. Three are sent out, but the fourth, Ralph, is chosen to stay home. He can’t stand being left behind, and so he runs away, wandering to the many lands beyond Upmeads.
William Morris · Fantasy · 119 ch
Dorothy Gale, accompanied by her cat, Eureka, is traveling to visit her Uncle Henry and her other relatives in California, when she encounters her second cousin, Zeb. While en route in a horse-drawn buggy, an earthquake strikes, creating a vast crevasse into which Dorothy, Zeb, Eureka, and a cab-horse named Jim fall. While underground, they encounter the Wizard, who was last seen flying off in a balloon at the end of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
L. Frank Baum · Fantasy · 21 ch
A baby is deposited in the bed of Squire Allworthy, a wealthy widower in Georgian England. The baby is given the name of Tom Jones and given to Allworthy’s live-in sister to raise. She soon marries and has her own son, and the two boys are raised together, with the usual household rivalries and jealousies.
Henry Fielding · Comedy · 213 ch
In this first full-length Arsène Lupin novel the gentleman-thief remains a shadowy figure for most of the novel, working two steps beyond the law with a hidden aim. To fight against this anti-hero, Leblanc introduces Isidore Beautrelet, the prodigious school-boy detective. Also making an appearance are old foes Detective Ganimard and (in a copyright-defeating name change) Herlock Sholmes.
Maurice Leblanc · Mystery · 10 ch
Dead Souls is Nikolai Gogol’s last novel, and follows the tale of Pavel Chichikov, a down-on-his-luck gentleman determined to improve his lot in life. The story charts his scheme to purchase dead souls—the titles of deceased serfs—from wealthy landowners. The novel’s satirical take on the state of Russian society at the time leads Chichikov into increasingly difficult circumstances, in his attempts to cheat both the system and the cavalcade of townspeople he meets along the way.
Nikolai Gogol · Comedy · 20 ch
In a desire for better sheep-farming land on an unnamed British colony, Higgs decides to traverse the distant mountain range. On the other side he discovers not the empty rolling plains of his imagination but an entirely new civilization: the land of Erewhon. Inducted into the ways of their culture, he attempts to transcribe as best he can their thoughts on birth, death, machines, the production of food, their financial system, and many more subjects that on first glance seem absurd to the narrator but often end up revealing absurdity in his own thinking.
Samuel Butler · Comedy · 32 ch
Mr. Bedford, an aspiring playwright, moves to the British countryside in hope of writing a successful play that will cure his financial troubles. There, he becomes acquainted with Mr. Cavor, an eccentric and reclusive scientist, who hopes to create an anti-gravitational material. After the two men accidentally create the material, they decide to use it to land on the Moon—Cavor motivated by expanding the realms of knowledge, and Bedford by the prospective mining of lunar minerals.
H. G. Wells · Sci Fi · 26 ch
Fifteen year old Harvey Cheyne is heir to a vast fortune. He’s also a spoiled, obnoxious brat, well on his way to becoming a spoiled, obnoxious adult. But Harvey’s fate is changed forever during a trans-Atlantic ocean voyage with his parents when he falls overboard and, against all odds, is rescued by a fishing boat on the Grand Banks.
Rudyard Kipling · Adventure · 10 ch
Having just survived the horrors of the First World War, Great Britain faces a new, more insidious threat: all across the country, clandestine groups of radicals are committing acts of sabotage and terror, with the ultimate goal of bringing about a Communist revolution in Britain. But these terrorists face a new terror of their own as their plans are foiled, their meetings raided, and their members kidnapped—all by a mysterious band of men dressed in black. Who’s behind the so-called “Black Gang”?
H. C. McNeile · Adventure · 18 ch
Father Brown, G. K. Chesterton’s crime-solving Catholic priest, is back in this second collection of Father Brown short stories.
G. K. Chesterton · Mystery · 12 ch
In the early twentieth century, two scientists develop a substance to promote continuous growth in plants and animals. In testing it on poultry at an experimental farm, the “Food of the Gods” is carelessly scattered about, resulting in giant insects, giant rats, and so on. When anxious parents give it to sickly children, it creates a race of giant humans.
H. G. Wells · Sci Fi · 12 ch
The Road to Oz tells the story of Dorothy Gale as she escorts a shaggy traveler who appears outside her farm. They soon find themselves transported to a fantasy land. Upon realizing this, Dorothy and the Shaggy Man travel down the road with the assumption that it will lead them to Oz, revealing a way for Dorothy to return home.
L. Frank Baum · Fantasy · 25 ch
A lonely young woman in a Styrian castle befriends a beautiful stranger who arrives after a carriage accident nearby. A slow, dreamlike tale of fascination that turns toward dread.
J. Sheridan Le Fanu · Horror · 17 ch
As a poor cabbie and his wife eke out a meager existence in Victorian London, their little boy, Diamond—named after his father’s horse—is befriended by the North Wind. While Diamond learns much about life through his travels with North Wind, his visit to the country at her “back” proves to be transformative. As life in London grows especially hard, that moment provides Diamond with the resources to touch those around him with beauty and truth.
George MacDonald · Fantasy · 38 ch
Initially published in The Strand Magazine, which explains its episodic nature, Five Children and It was later collected into a book. Like many of E. Nesbit’s works, it has proven popular with children and adults to this day.
E. Nesbit · Fantasy · 11 ch
The Gods of Mars is Burroughs’ sequel to A Princess of Mars. After ten long years, John Carter is again transported to Mars to try and determine the fate of his wife Dejah Thoris, but finds himself in the forbidden Valley Dor, from which no man may return. Published serially in five parts between January and May 1913, this sequel appeared a year after the initial serialization of its predecessor.
Edgar Rice Burroughs · Fantasy · 23 ch
Lady Audley’s Secret was the most successful of a long series of novels written by Mary Elizabeth Braddon in what was then called the “sensation” genre because of the inventive and slightly scandalous plots of such works. Published in 1862, Lady Audley’s Secret was immediately popular and is said to have made a fortune for its author. It has never been out of print and has been the basis for a number of dramas and movies.
M. E. Braddon · Mystery · 41 ch
In the Days of the Comet, first published in 1906, is one of H. G. Wells’ “scientific romances.” Though it’s clearly a work of science fiction in that it features the collision of a huge comet with Earth, it has a greater than usual emphasis on Wells’ typical social commentary and criticism.
H. G. Wells · Sci Fi · 13 ch