George Arthur Rose aspired to the priesthood, but after being much abused and taken advantage of for many years by his Catholic brothers, he finds himself disillusioned with humanity. But just as the secret conclave in Rome is deadlocked in the election of the next Pope, he finds himself rediscovered. A compromise in the election results in Rose being chosen for the office, and he styles himself as Hadrian the Seventh.
Frederick Rolfe · Drama · 13 ch
Three men, working as artists in Paris, enjoy their days and evenings together in artistic and musical activities. A mysterious character named Svengali often visits their workshop and plays the piano. He is talented and thinks very highly of himself.
George du Maurier · Drama · 19 ch
When Dr. Marjoribanks’s wife dies, his teenage daughter makes it her purpose in life “to be a comfort to dear papa.” At least, Lucilla thinks, ten years of such devotion might suffice, by which time she might have begun to “go off.” But beneath this grand intention lies a yet more ambitious plan: to revolutionize the moribund and constricted social life of Carlingford. She is remarkably well-endowed for such an aspiration, being of able mind and otherwise ample proportions. As Lucilla’s plans unfold, her Thursday evenings become a great success, and draw into her sphere characters whose lives now become deeply entwined with her own.
Margaret Oliphant · Drama · 52 ch
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
On a foggy morning in the Bow district of London, a popular labor organizer is found in his bed with his throat cut. It seems impossible for the wound to be self-inflicted, but it seems equally impossible that anyone could have entered his room during the night. The crime and its bizarre circumstances become the talk of the town, as retired Scotland Yard detective George Grodman finds himself pitted against his younger successor, not only to identify the perpetrator but also to explain how the murder was committed.
Israel Zangwill · Mystery · 24 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
After twin brothers Neville and Roger Shandon are both found murdered on the same afternoon in the hedge maze on the grounds of their country estate outside London, the local county’s Chief Constable must solve the mystery of their deaths and bring the perpetrator to justice. Murder in the Maze is the first of seventeen detective novels by J. J.
J. J. Connington · Mystery · 18 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
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