Frank Fenwick is in many ways a model clergyman. He takes seriously the cure of souls in his Wiltshire parish, extending to the material as well as spiritual well-being of his flock, while upholding his convictions without doctrinaire excess. But in his ministry, as well as his friendships, his good intentions embroil him in unwonted controversy.
Anthony Trollope · Drama · 56 ch
Philo Vance, the snobbish art collector turned amateur detective, finds his curiosity piqued by the shootings of two members of the Greene family household. Initially judged to be a burglary gone wrong, careful examination reveals the murders must have been carefully planned, and the perpetrator remains wholly elusive. As Vance and the New York police struggle to bring order to the Greene mansion, the murder attempts continue relentlessly.
S. S. Van Dine · Mystery · 30 ch
Three young members of the crew of a merchant ship sailing in the South Pacific are the sole survivors of its wreck in a storm. Swept ashore an uninhabited island, their initial efforts to survive soon lead them to a settled life in what seems to be a tropical paradise. However, their enjoyment of their new island home doesn’t dampen their desire to return to England, their homeland.
R. M. Ballantyne · Adventure · 37 ch
The Small House at Allington was originally serialized in Cornhill Magazine between July and December 1862. It is the fifth book in Trollope’s Chronicles of Barsetshire series, being largely set in that fictious county of England. It includes a few of the characters from the earlier books, though largely in very minor roles.
Anthony Trollope · Drama · 61 ch
Wet Magic was the last novel for children published by E. Nesbit. It was originally serialized in The Strand Magazine in 1912, with a book version published in 1913.
E. Nesbit · Fantasy · 15 ch
McTeague is an enormously strong but dim-witted former miner now working as a dentist in San Francisco towards the end of the nineteenth century. He falls in love with Trina, one of his patients, and shortly after their engagement she wins a large sum in a lottery. All is well until McTeague is betrayed and they fall into a life of increasing poverty and degradation.
Frank Norris · Drama · 22 ch
On a foggy night a doctor accidentally visits the wrong house and finds a man dying of a gunshot wound. He quickly calls Chief Constable Sir Clinton Driffield for help, and further murders are discovered as the case unfolds. The mystery deepens when advertisements in a secret code appear in the local paper, a witness is blackmailed, and possibly fabricated evidence comes in from an anonymous source.
J. J. Connington · Mystery · 19 ch
At the end of the nineteenth-century, a group of wheat growers in California’s San Joaquin Valley fights back when the railroad monopoly attempts to take possession of their farms. United in the local Farmer’s League, they try to retain the land that they’ve been improving for years, while the railroad company threatens them with increased shipping rates and eviction from their homes. When political opposition, court cases, and bribery all fail, the conflict comes to an explosive conclusion.
Frank Norris · Drama · 27 ch
Bellarion, a young orphan, leaves the abbey he was raised in to attend university and learn Greek. He quickly learns the dangers of life in fifteenth-century Italy, as he is robbed, caught in a riot, and chased through town by the authorities. He tangles himself in a plot against the local regent, plays one side against the other, and declares his service to the beautiful but uninterested Valeria.
Rafael Sabatini · Adventure · 47 ch
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