Young Elfride falls in love for the first time with an architect who is sent to make plans to renovate the local church. She supposes Stephen to be a professional man from London, but finds he comes from more humble origins. Stephen must go away and make something of himself before he can claim her.
Thomas Hardy · Drama · 42 ch
The Country of the Pointed Firs was first published in serial form in 1896 in The Atlantic, then later expanded into a novel. The narrator, like Jewett, is a middle-aged female writer. She goes to the fictional coastal town of Dunnet Landing in Maine to find time and space to write.
Sarah Orne Jewett · Drama · 21 ch
The Conjure Woman is a collection of fantastical stories narrated by Julius, a former slave, about life on the nearby plantations prior to the Civil War. Each involves an element of magic, be it a vine that dooms those who eat from it or a man transformed into a tree to avoid being separated from his wife. Julius’s audience, a married couple who have just moved to the South to cultivate grapes, listen on with mixed sympathy and disbelief.
Charles W. Chesnutt · Drama · 12 ch
Alice Adams is Booth Tarkington’s second novel to win a Pulitzer Prize, just three years after his novel The Magnificent Ambersons won it. The novel tells the story of Alice, a Midwestern girl who grows up in a lower-middle-class family just after World War I. Alice meets a wealthy young man and tries to win his affection, despite her lower-class upbringing.
Booth Tarkington · Drama · 25 ch
High politics are not always centrally in view in Anthony Trollope’s Palliser novels, but parliamentary life comes to the fore throughout Phineas Finn, the second in the series. The hero of the tale is the young son of an Irish country doctor, now attaining manhood and striking out in life. Although training for the Bar, he feels the lure of Parliament and manages to secure a seat.
Anthony Trollope · Drama · 76 ch
Mr. J. G. Reeder, employed by the Department of Public Prosecutions, has developed a reputation for solving difficult criminal cases using his unique understanding of human nature, which he calls his “criminal mind.” After a notorious bank robber and murderer escapes from prison, Mr. Reeder must match wits with Crazy John Flack, the “cleverest crook in the world,” who previously vowed to kill the famous detective in revenge for his imprisonment.
Edgar Wallace · Adventure · 23 ch
Edith Nesbit was a popular children’s author of the late Victorian and early Edwardian eras in Britain. Though she was writing more than a century ago, her books nevertheless remain popular and are generally still in print. The House of Arden was published in 1908.
E. Nesbit · Fantasy · 14 ch
In Before Adam, an unnamed narrator describes the life of one of his ancestors, who lived during the transition from ape to human being. Written and published in the early 20th Century, the novel presents ideas that were common for the period, like scientific racism and racial memory, and has elements of eugenic thought. This makes the work outdated both scientifically and socially.
Jack London · Adventure · 19 ch
In Pollyanna Grows Up we follow the titular character as she “grows up” through a story told in two connected parts. The first part takes place in Boston when she is age 13, having just been rehabilitated from severe injuries sustained in an automobile accident. As she leaves the hospital, she is sent to stay with a nearby dowager, who has long withdrawn into grief, pining for her lost nephew.
Eleanor H. Porter · Drama · 49 ch
Published in 1919, Mr. Standfast is a thriller set in the latter half of the First World War, and the third of John Buchan’s books to feature Richard Hannay. Richard Hannay is called back from serving in France to take part in a secret mission: searching for a German agent. Hannay disguises himself as a pacifist and travels through England and Scotland to track down the spy at the center of a web of German agents who are leaking information about the war plans.
John Buchan · Adventure · 23 ch
Five friends are staying at a remote cottage in the Cornish countryside, where they’re joined by an American. While helping clean out a local well, the six discover an ancient cup buried within. This cup seems to have a long and mysterious history—could it even be the fabled Holy Grail?
Mary Butts · Drama · 33 ch
Framley Parsonage is the fourth novel in Trollope’s Chronicles of Barsetshire series. Originally a serial, it was first published as a book in 1861, and it has since been praised for its unsentimental depiction of the lives of middle-class people in the mid-Victorian era. As with the other books in the series, Framley Parsonage is set in the fictious English county of Barsetshire, and deals with the doings of a variety of families and characters who live in the region, several of whom have appeared in the previous books; but it primarily concerns the young Reverend Mark Robarts.
Anthony Trollope · Drama · 48 ch
“Bunny” Manders is drawn to fill the void left by A. J. Raffles’ absence at the end of The Black Mask with untold stories of the past adventures.
E. W. Hornung · Drama · 13 ch
A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder is perhaps James De Mille’s most popular book; sadly, De Mille didn’t get to see this novel grow in popularity, as it was first serialized posthumously, in Harper’s Weekly. De Mille had written the novel before the “lost world” genre had become saturated, meaning many of the ideas were fresh and original for the time in which it was written. But, since he didn’t succeed in publishing it during his lifetime, by the time the novel was made public other authors like H.
James De Mille · Sci Fi · 33 ch
The Lost Continent, initially published as a serial in 1899, remains one of the enduring classics of the “lost race” genre. In it we follow Deucalion, a warrior-priest on the lost continent of Atlantis, as he tries to battle the influence of an egotistical upstart empress. Featuring magic, intrigue, mythical monsters, and fearsome combat on both land and sea, the story is nothing if not a swashbuckling adventure.
C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne · Fantasy · 21 ch
On the day after visiting his friend Peters, Rector Driver learns that Peters has been murdered. The prime suspect seems clear: the alcoholic gardener Trethewy, who has a motive, an opportunity, and the murder weapon. But when a strange letter concerning the fate of the ship Eleanor arrives for his dead friend, the rector realizes the murder mystery is more complicated than it appears.
Godfrey R. Benson · Mystery · 23 ch
After having spent almost three years in prison Johnny Gray is released, only to be dismayed to find that his ladylove has been pressured by her father, an old friend of his, into marrying another man. Soon after, Johnny discovers that the bridegroom is actually a suspected counterfeiter and the son of a notorious criminal plotting to ruin his friend by exposing his nefarious past. Johnny is determined to foil the plot and bring the counterfeiter and his father to justice—but first he needs to rescue the new bride.
Edgar Wallace · Adventure · 34 ch
Plantagenet Palliser, now the Duke of Omnium, is a familiar character to the readers of the Barchester and Palliser series, but only now, at a moment of political crisis, does he take center stage. Neither the Liberals nor the Conservatives can command a majority in Parliament; the Duke is called upon as the only figure capable of forming a coalition government. He does so, but only with deep misgivings about whether the role of Prime Minister suits his character.
Anthony Trollope · Drama · 80 ch
The Water of the Wondrous Isles is a landmark in fantasy fiction. First published a year after Morris’s death in 1897 by Kelmscott Press—Morris’s own printing company—the novel follows Birdalone, a young girl who is stolen as a baby by a witch who takes her to serve in the woods of Evilshaw. After she encounters a wood fairy that helps her escape the witch’s clutches, Birdalone embarks on a series of adventures across the titular Wondrous Isles.
William Morris · Fantasy · 109 ch
The Old English Baron opens with Sir Phillip Harclay returning to England after years of foreign service to find his friend Arthur Lord Lovel dead, and the family castle sold to Baron Fitz-Owen. Among the baron’s children, Harclay takes notice of the adopted son Edmund, a peasant from the nearby village. The knight feels an immediate connection with the child and offers to adopt him as his own.
Clara Reeve · Drama · 7 ch