Philo Vance is a snobbish art collector who happens to be the longtime friend of John Markham, the New York County District Attorney. When a wealthy Wall Street broker is found shot in his own home, Vance finds himself drawn into the case. Seeing both Markham and the police content to accept the superficial evidence of the crime scene, Vance must intervene, and elucidate an entirely different approach to solving the mystery.
S. S. Van Dine · Mystery · 30 ch
Wild Animals I Have Known, a collection of short stories published in 1898, was Ernest Thompson Seton’s most popular work and one of the most popular fiction books of its day. The stories are largely independent of each other, with each one following the life of a different animal. They explore themes of survival in a world populated by humans and other creatures, and the challenges that each animal faces in its efforts to thrive.
Ernest Thompson Seton · Drama · 9 ch
In Looking Backward, well-to-do Julian West of Boston falls asleep for 113 years and awakes to find the world of 2000 fundamentally changed. An old man and his daughter care for him and take him on a tour of the new world. In the new society, a single nationalized corporation-state under a single political party guarantees work, comfort, and luxury to everyone in the “industrial army.” Looking Backward is a watershed utopian novel following in the path laid by books like Thomas More’s Utopia, Margaret Cavendish’s The Blazing World, and Louis-Sébastien Mercier’s The Year 2440.
Edward Bellamy · Sci Fi · 29 ch
The Magnificent Ambersons, winner of the 1919 Pulitzer prize, is considered by many to be Booth Tarkington’s finest novel and an American classic. The story is set in the Midwest, where George, the spoiled and oblivious scion of an old-money family, must cope with their waning fortunes and the rise of industry barons in the automobile age. George’s antiheroic struggles with modernity encapsulate a greater theme of change and renewal—specifically, the very American notion of a small community exploding into a dark and dirty city virtually overnight by virtue of industrial “progress.” Tarkington’s nuanced portrayal of the often-unlikable Amberson family and his paradoxical framing of progress as a destroyer of family, community, and environment, make The Magnificent Ambersons a fascinating and forward-thinking novel—certainly one with a permanent place in the American social canon.
Booth Tarkington · Drama · 35 ch
Having spent his life roving faraway seas, Peyrol returns to his birthplace on the French coast to retire on a small fortune acquired through piracy. Meanwhile, the historical events of the French Revolution and France’s war with England make Peyrol reconsider his withdrawal to undertake a patriotic mission. The Rover, published in 1923, is the last novel Conrad completed before his death in 1924.
Joseph Conrad · Historical · 18 ch
John Ridd, a young yeoman farmer, chances upon a beautiful girl in an injudicious visit to a secret valley. It’s a brief but life-defining moment, for John falls in love at first sight. Yet there are complications.
R. D. Blackmore · Adventure · 76 ch
The iconic Tarzan, a man raised by apes in the African jungle, finds himself in the treacherous land of Pal-ul-don while searching for his abducted wife Jane. There Tarzan faces new challenges and dangers, including savage dinosaurs and powerful prehistoric creatures. As he navigates through this perilous world, Tarzan becomes embroiled in the conflicts between different tribal factions, as well as the intrigues of the cities that dot the landscape.
Edgar Rice Burroughs · Adventure · 26 ch
Robert Louis Stevenson’s fascination with the mid-18th Century Jacobite rebellion in Scotland led to the production of his classic Kidnapped, along with its later sequel, Catriona. The Master of Ballantrae —written only a couple years after Kidnapped —shares the same evocative historical setting. The story revolves around the fractious relationship of the two sons of the Lord of Durrisdeer: the elder and duplicitous James, and Henry, the stolid younger brother.
Robert Louis Stevenson · Adventure · 15 ch
Passengers and crew aboard a river barge trade stories that range from comedy to the uncanny. The collection includes Jacobs’s best-known tale, about a talisman that grants its owner three wishes.
W. W. Jacobs · Drama · 16 ch
Otto likes to hunt and enjoy life, while leaving the rule of his small kingdom in the hands of his wife and her trusted advisor. He hears talk of socialist revolution in his land, and when he tries to take charge, he finds that it’s not so easy to resume his rule. With intrigue and betrayal at every corner, all the players must figure out where they really stand.
Robert Louis Stevenson · Drama · 24 ch
Life at the writer Mr. Britling’s estate in the Essex countryside is idyllic. Guests arrive, games are played, and minor love affairs play out. During the early summer of 1914 Germany is discussed, but talk of war is dismissed as fanciful and less important than the situation happening at the same time in Ireland.
H. G. Wells · Drama · 148 ch
The Old Wives’ Tale, considered to be one of Bennett’s finest works, begins in the 1860s, in the industrial “Five Towns” of the English Midlands, where he set many of his partially autobiographical stories. The novel follows the prosperous Baines family, who live above the successful clothing shop they own in the town of Bursley (based on Burslem, in Staffordshire). Even when the two Baines daughters were still young, their characters are already formed.
Arnold Bennett · Drama · 107 ch
Grub Street is the name of a former street in London synonymous with pulp writers and low-quality publishers. New Grub Street takes its name from that old street, as it follows the lives and endeavors of a group of writers active in the literary scene of 1880s London. Edwin Reardon is a quiet and intelligent writer whose artistic sensibilities are the opposite of what the London public wants to read.
George Gissing · Drama · 37 ch
The Blacker the Berry, Wallace Thurman’s debut novel, follows the life of Emma Lou, a dark-skinned young woman from Boise, as she graduates high school and enters adult life as a college student. After being the target of colorist prejudice from her fellow African-American students at the University of Southern California, Emma Lou decides to drop out and move to Harlem—where she’s swept into a torrid love affair that only deepens her sense of color-consciousness. Written and set during the height of the Harlem Renaissance, The Blacker the Berry was one of the first African-American novels to address the themes of colorism and homosexuality.
Wallace Thurman · Drama · 6 ch
The narrator, a man from “back East” on his way to a cattle ranch, stops in Medicine Bow, Wyoming, and witnesses the enigmatic title character—the Virginian—rope a wild pony after many other cowboys failed. The Virginian is revealed to be the narrator’s escort to his destination, where the Virginian is employed. After getting a taste of the Western way of life in town, the two set off on the remaining 263-mile journey to the ranch, sparking a friendship.
Owen Wister · Adventure · 38 ch
Kipps is the story of Arthur “Artie” Kipps, an illegitimate orphan raised by his aunt and uncle on the southern coast of England in the town of New Romney. Kipps falls in love with neighbor friend Ann Pornick but soon loses touch with her as he begins an apprenticeship at a drapery establishment in the port town of Folkestone. After a drunken evening with his new friend Chitterlow, an aspiring playwright, Kipps discovers he is to inherit a house and sizable income from his grandfather.
H. G. Wells · Comedy · 20 ch
Grace Melbury, daughter of a rich local wood-trader, has been raised beyond her family through years of expensive education. Coming home, she finds herself pulled between her love for her childhood friend Giles Winterborne, and the allure of the enigmatic Doctor Fitzpiers. Giles and Edgar have their own admirers too, and the backdrop of the bucolic pastures and woodlands of an impressionistic take on south-west England provides the perfect setting for their story.
Thomas Hardy · Drama · 48 ch
Joseph Conrad’s Victory tells the story of Axel Heyst, a reclusive Swedish man who lives a solitary life on the island of Samburan in Southeast Asia. During a stay at a hotel on the nearby island of Java, Heyst encounters Lena, a young musician traveling with an orchestra. Witnessing Lena’s mistreatment by the orchestra’s conductor and his wife, as well as the sexual threats by the hotel’s owner, Schomberg, Heyst decides to help Lena escape the orchestra and brings her to his island, where they fall in love.
Joseph Conrad · Drama · 41 ch
Kirylo Sidorovitch Razumov is a student in St. Petersburg, applying himself to his studies and harboring ambitions of rising in Russian society. But his plans are shattered when a fellow student, Victor Haldin, assassinates a high-ranking Russian minister before turning to Razumov for help. Razumov is deeply conflicted, but in the moment acts to preserve his own self-interest rather than assist his friend.
Joseph Conrad · Drama · 12 ch
Catherine Sloper is a shy, plain, and not very clever young lady. She lives with her widowed father, a respected doctor, in Washington Square, a fairly new neighborhood in Greenwich Village. Catherine has a sizable income left by her mother, and stands to inherit a fortune from her father.
Henry James · Drama · 36 ch