Dick Hunter is a shoeshiner working and living on the streets of New York City in the mid-19th century. Despite being dealt a bad hand, Dick attempts to extricate himself from his situation and become respectable. But it won’t be easy, thanks to the bullies, con men, and thieves that roam the city.
Horatio Alger Jr. · Drama · 28 ch
The Little White Bird is generally divided into three sections: the first chronicles the narrator’s life in London, beginning with how he came to know a little boy named David (who joins him on his adventures), and describes other matters of his everyday life. The second section tells the story of how Peter Pan came to be a “betwixt-and-between” and his adventures in Kensington Gardens, including his interactions with the birds as well as the fairies hidden in the park. Finally, the third section of the book revisits London with the narrator and David.
J. M. Barrie · Fantasy · 26 ch
It’s 1913, and war is on the horizon. The disgraced English aristocrat, Everard Dominey, is stumbling through East Africa when he comes across his old classmate and lookalike—the German Baron von Ragastein. Shortly after their chance encounter, Dominey returns to England.
E. Phillips Oppenheim · Drama · 29 ch
In the third published installment of her Scarlet Pimpernel stories, Baroness Orczy brings back Chauvelin, the French official unable to catch the Pimpernel in the first novel. This time he is more determined, more ruthless, and more devious. He plans to capture both the Pimpernel and his wife, threatening an entire town in the process.
Baroness Orczy · Adventure · 35 ch
The titular Freckles is an orphan missing his right hand who runs away from the future the orphanage set for him in favor of making his own. After finding his way to the Limberlost, an area of swamp land in Indiana, he finds a job, conducts himself with honor, and finds love, family, and joy. The swamp, however, is not without its dangers, and he must stay vigilant to protect those who are dear to him.
Gene Stratton-Porter · Drama · 21 ch
In the booming American Midwest of the 1920s, an innovative auto manufacturer decides to retire early at the age of fifty, having achieved the American Dream through his hard work and ingenuity. With his younger, socially ambitious wife, he embarks on a long-dreamed-of European tour—a seemingly perfect capstone to a successful life. But what begins as a leisurely vacation opens up profound questions about identity, marriage, and the nature of fulfillment.
Sinclair Lewis · Drama · 36 ch
The narrator of The Inferno —ostensibly August Strindberg himself—has not had an easy recent past, and a move to Paris is not helping. As his mania overtakes his ability to function in the society of artists, writers, scientists and philosophers he’d like to be part of, he turns to more unconventional methods to help make sense of his world. Written in diary form, The Inferno is a semi-autobiographical work that blends self-deprecating humour with a whirl of neurosis and attempted rationalisation.
August Strindberg · Drama · 19 ch
The Shaving of Shagpat isn’t just George Meredith’s first published novel, it’s also his only foray into fantasy literature. Shagpat sold poorly in its day despite good reviews, and after its disappointing sales Meredith pursed a career as a writer of romantic fiction instead. Despite its poor financial reception, Shagpat enjoys a good modern reputation and remains a classic of fantasy literature, with George Eliot going so far as to call it a “work of genius.” The book is set in the medieval fantasy-Persia of the Arabian Nights and other oriental romances.
George Meredith · Fantasy · 27 ch
Flora de Barral is the daughter of a successful banker. When he’s tried and convicted of fraud, her prosperous life turns miserable. While on the brink of suicide, she meets an older sea captain and marries him as a means of escape.
Joseph Conrad · Drama · 18 ch
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
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 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
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
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
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
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
A cold-blooded adventurer schemes, swindles, and seduces his way across Europe without a shred of remorse. A dark early novel about a villain told entirely from the villain's side of the table.
Tobias Smollett · Drama · 68 ch
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
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
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