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The Master of Ballantrae

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

The Lady of the Barge

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

Prince Otto

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

Mr. Britling Sees It Through

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

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

New Grub Street

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

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 Virginian

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

The Water-Babies

Uneducated and regularly mistreated by his master, his filth only matched by his moral and spiritual baseness, Tom is a typical Victorian chimney sweep. While on a special job at a noble’s estate, prejudice pins a crime on him and he flees in fear of retaliation. The chase eventually takes him to a stream in which he bathes for the first time and, doing so, finds himself reborn as a water-baby.

Charles Kingsley · Fantasy · 10 ch

Kipps

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

The Woodlanders

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

Victory

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

Under Western Eyes

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

Washington Square

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

Tarzan the Untamed

Tarzan the Untamed continues the adventures of Tarzan, the orphaned child raised by apes in the African jungle. It is the seventh book in the Tarzan series and was first published as a six-part serial in The Red Book Magazine from March through August, 1919, with the story continued as “Tarzan and the Valley of Luna” in a five-part serial in Argosy All-Story Weekly in March and April, 1920. The novel was later compiled and published as a complete book in 1920 by A.

Edgar Rice Burroughs · Adventure · 24 ch

The House Without a Key

Published in 1925, The House Without a Key introduces the kindly detective Charlie Chan, conceived by Earl Derr Biggers as a counter to the “Yellow Peril” stereotypes common in the era’s society. John Quincy Winterslip, having been sent by his family to convince his aunt to return to Boston, arrives in Honolulu to find that a rich family member with a shady past has been murdered. Detective Charlie Chan of the Honolulu Police Department recruits John to aid in the investigation.

Earl Derr Biggers · Adventure · 23 ch

The Story of the Amulet

In this conclusion to the Psammead Trilogy, Cyril, Anthea, Robert, and Jane are reunited with the cantankerous Sand-fairy. While the old creature can’t grant them wishes anymore, it points them towards an old Egyptian amulet that can grant their hearts’ desire—in this case the return of their parents and baby brother. While their amulet is only half of a whole, it still acts as a time portal which they use to visit locales like Ancient Egypt, Babylon, Atlantis, and even a utopian future in search of the missing other half.

E. Nesbit · Fantasy · 14 ch

Arrowsmith

Martin Arrowsmith, the titular protagonist, grows up in a small Midwestern town where he wants to become a doctor. At medical school he meets an abrasive but brilliant professor, Gottlieb, who becomes his mentor. As Arrowsmith completes his training he begins a career practicing medicine.

Sinclair Lewis · Drama · 195 ch

Summer

Edith Wharton’s controversial novel Summer is the story of Charity Royall, an ambitious young woman trapped in a stifling small town by both her gender and her social class. When a visiting stranger arrives in town, Charity is awakened to a wider world of possibilities and to the realities that constrain her. Published in 1917, the novel was both attacked and ignored for openly acknowledging female sexuality and its many inequities.

Edith Wharton · Drama · 18 ch

The Sundering Flood

Young Osberne seems destined for greatness. As a fearless boy, he shows a willingness to fight. He’s helped at key times in his life by a mysterious friend who appears briefly to give aid or to provide magical gifts.

William Morris · Fantasy · 68 ch