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
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
A letter from a sea captain, signed only with cryptic initials, directs an experienced sailor to built and outfit a ship, and to assemble a crew to sail on a dangerous adventure. The voyage starts towards a northerly destination with, as far as anyone knows, no captain aboard. After some time at sea, the captain finally appears and announces his identity, and his plan to sail to the North Pole.
Jules Verne · Adventure · 61 ch
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, 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 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
Lieutenant Hobson is an officer employed by the Hudson’s Bay Company, tasked with the mission of traveling to the Arctic Circle and building an outpost there in order to collect valuable furs. After a long voyage, the Lieutenant and his party settle on a small peninsula and build a modest fort. Though initially successful, the colony soon finds itself in grave danger when an earthquake severs their settlement from the mainland.
Jules Verne · Adventure · 51 ch
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, 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
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
Told entirely in letters, a Welsh family and their servants bicker, court, and blunder their way through the spas and cities of Georgian Britain. A comedy of manners written from inside the mailbag.
Tobias Smollett · Adventure · 84 ch
Published in 1818, Peacock’s novella Nightmare Abbey is a gentle satire of the then-popular gothic movement in literature. He pokes fun at the genre’s obsessions and most of the book’s characters are caricatures of well-known personages of the time. Young Scythrop is the only son of Mr. Glowry, living in the semi-ruined Nightmare Abbey on his estate in Lincolnshire.
Thomas Love Peacock · Drama · 154 ch
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
Benjamin Disraeli was a remarkable historical figure. Born into a Jewish family, he converted to Anglican Christianity as a child. He is now almost certainly most famous for his political career.
Benjamin Disraeli · Drama · 72 ch
The narrator and his friends, Tad, Skippy, and Wampus, enjoy a calm but playful life in the small community of Birch Island along the Mississippi River. One day, a strange boy who has come to live on their island tries to make their acquaintance. Introducing himself as Oliver Parmenter Jones, or “Jibby Jones” due to his prominent nose, he quickly joins the group after fixing a motorboat and sharing incredible stories of the places he’s been.
Ellis Parker Butler · Adventure · 24 ch
Robert “Bobby” Merrick, a college-aged only child from a wealthy Michigan family, is neither expected nor inclined to do anything with his life except “loaf.” But when he indirectly causes the death of an esteemed Detroit brain surgeon, Bobby decides to change his ways dramatically to compensate for his role in the tragedy. In the course of this he discovers the deceased surgeon’s secret journal, which reveals a spiritual obsession that will transform Bobby’s life even further. Lutheran Christian minister Lloyd C.
Lloyd C. Douglas · Drama · 22 ch
A young Scotsman with no fortune ships out as a surgeon's mate and endures press-gangs, quacks, and rogues across sea and land. A rough, funny adventure about making one's way in an unforgiving world.
Tobias Smollett · Adventure · 71 ch
Trying to escape from her boring life, Hortense Daniel meets the mysterious Prince Rénine (or should we say Arsène Lupin?) who enlists her help to solve eight mysteries, starting with one that is for her very close to home. The pair’s travels take them across northern France as they help ease the path of true love, bring thieves and murderers to justice, and eventually to recover something very dear to Hortense’s heart. The Eight Strokes of the Clock is an Arsène Lupin novel by any other name, with Maurice Leblanc admitting as much in an opening note.
Maurice Leblanc · Drama · 9 ch
Adam Jeffson, the narrator of The Purple Cloud, is recruited to join a polar expedition after the suspicious death of another crewmate. Jeffson and the rest of crew of the Boreal are hoping to claim a multimillion dollar prize for the first expedition to reach the North Pole. During the long voyage, Jeffson discovers an ominous purple cloud which transforms his Arctic adventure.
M. P. Shiel · Sci Fi · 18 ch
Set in the early 1890s, The Special Correspondent tells the story of Claudius Bombarnac, special correspondent from the Parisian newspaper Twentieth Century, assigned to travel the newly completed Grand Transasiatic Railway running from Uzun Ada (on the eastern coast of the Caspian Sea) to Peking (Beijing), China. Over his thirteen-day journey he meets an eclectic cast of characters, including an impatient American businessman, a detached English lady, a Russian major, a French actor and actress, a young Chinese noble accompanied by an eccentric Doctor, and a German baron racing to circle the globe in thirty-nine days—perhaps a nod to Verne’s Around the Word in Eighty Days, published twenty years earlier. As he meets them, Bombarnac assigns each a number in his notebook, and seeks to get to know them as they travel together.
Jules Verne · Adventure · 29 ch