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An Antarctic Mystery

An Antarctic Mystery follows Mr. Jeorling, a wealthy American naturalist whose research has led him to the remote Kerguelen Islands, located in the southern Indian Ocean. Jeorling begins his adventure on the Halbrane after being admitted aboard by the reluctant captain Len Guy, who believes the events in The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym to be true. In that novel, Pym persuades Len Guy’s brother, William Guy, to lead a voyage to the Antarctic.

Jules Verne · Adventure · 26 ch

An Outback Marriage

The posh, English daughter of an Australian pastoralist is sent to Kuryong station to learn the ropes. At the same time, a search is underway across the desolate innards of regional New South Wales for the lost son of a wealthy uncle. These stories collide to give a humorous take on the values of family, marriage and hard work, set in the beautiful backdrop of the Australian Outback.

Banjo Paterson · Drama · 29 ch

An Outcast of the Islands

Peter Willems is a successful clerk in a Dutch East Indies trading company until he’s caught for embezzlement. He turns to Tom Lingard, his erstwhile benefactor, who sends him to work in a commercial outpost on a river settlement. There, Willems meets a young and beautiful native girl.

Joseph Conrad · Drama · 27 ch

Anna Karenina

Anna Karenina is certainly somewhat unhappy in her life, but presents a strong and vivacious character when called in to smooth over a major crack that’s appeared in her brother’s marriage. Unfortunately, the very visit designed to help her brother introduces her to Count Alexei Vronsky and sets in motion a chain of events that will ripple through families and the unforgiving society of wealthy Moscow and St. Petersburg. Initially serialized over five years in The Russian Messenger, Anna Karenina was first published as a two-volume novel in 1878.

Leo Tolstoy · Drama · 239 ch

Anna of the Five Towns

Anna of the Five Towns, first published in 1902, is one of Arnold Bennett’s earliest published works. It’s his first novel to take place in the Five Towns, a fictional district in Middle England based on the real Stoke-on-Trent, and the setting for many of his later books. The story takes place in an industrial district in late nineteenth-century England, where the rigid social structures and morals of the Methodist church define the area’s way of life.

Arnold Bennett · Drama · 15 ch

Anne of Avonlea

Anne Shirley, now 16, is moving from childhood into adulthood. As she begins teaching at Avonlea school she is determined to treat the children as she wishes she had been treated, and has many theories as to how that should be accomplished. She also enters the grown-up world of Avonlea in typical Anne fashion by working to beautify the landscape, and helping to form the Avonlea Village Improvement Society.

L. M. Montgomery · Drama · 30 ch

Anne of Green Gables

Anne of Green Gables established the career of Canadian writer Lucy Maude Montgomery. When Matthew Cuthbert sends away for an orphan boy to help on his farm, he is surprised to instead meet the captivatingly imaginative Anne Shirley. What ensues is one of the most enduringly popular coming-of-age stories, bringing the pastoral beauty of Prince Edward Island to the world.

L. M. Montgomery · Drama · 38 ch

Anne of the Island

Anne Shirley leaves home to attend Redmond College and pursue a degree. Some of her classmates are going with her, including her childhood enemy turned friend Gilbert Blythe, while other childhood friends are staying in Avonlea to work, get married, and start families. She is also leaving behind her friends and family, but will stay in touch with them through letters and visits home during winter breaks and summer vacations.

L. M. Montgomery · Drama · 41 ch

Armageddon 2419 A.D.

Armageddon 2419 A.D. features the introduction of Buck Rogers, the famous sci-fi adventure hero of early comics and radio shows. Originally published in Amazing Stories in 1928, this novella was later combined with Nowlan’s sequel, The Airlords of Han, and re-published under this same title in the 1960s.

Philip Francis Nowlan · Sci Fi · 13 ch

Armed with Madness

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

Around the World in Eighty Days

Jules Verne’s most-acclaimed novel remains a cultural cornerstone to this day. The story of Phileas Fogg’s spectacular journey by then-novel technologies is a fast-paced, colorful, and thoroughly enjoyable portrait of the British empire at the height of its power. Originally published as a serial so believable that readers at the time placed bets on whether Fogg would succeed or not, Verne’s adventure epic continues to inspire travelers and adventurers even in modern times.

Jules Verne · Adventure · 37 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

At the Back of the North Wind

As a poor cabbie and his wife eke out a meager existence in Victorian London, their little boy, Diamond—named after his father’s horse—is befriended by the North Wind. While Diamond learns much about life through his travels with North Wind, his visit to the country at her “back” proves to be transformative. As life in London grows especially hard, that moment provides Diamond with the resources to touch those around him with beauty and truth.

George MacDonald · Fantasy · 38 ch

At the Earth’s Core

At the Earth’s Core, published in 1914, is the first of a series of science fiction novels written by Edgar Rice Burroughs set inside a hollow earth with a central “sun,” a land called Pellucidar. However unlikely this scenario, it allowed Burroughs free play to create heroic adventures in yet another alien environment in addition to his fantastic version of Mars in his Martian series. The story’s hero, David Innes, is recruited by an old man, Perry, to help fund his invention, a “mechanical subterranean prospector,” and then to test it out.

Edgar Rice Burroughs · Sci Fi · 16 ch

At the Villa Rose

When the wealthy widow Madame Dauvray is found murdered at the Villa Rose in Aix-les-Bains, suspicion falls on her young companion Celia Harland, who has gone missing—along with Dauvray’s valuable jewels. The famous French detective Inspector Hanaud is called in to solve the mystery, which involves a séance, a missing chauffeur, and a web of deceit. A.

A. E. W. Mason · Mystery · 21 ch

Babbitt

George F. Babbitt is a middle-aged realtor, family man, and resident of Zenith, a fictitious Midwestern city. His main preoccupation is to climb the social ladder by conforming to the norms of his environment.

Sinclair Lewis · Drama · 135 ch

Barchester Towers

Barchester Towers, published in 1857, is the sequel to Trollope’s The Warden and continues the story of the clerical doings in the fictional cathedral town of Barchester. As this novel opens, the old Bishop of Barchester lies dying, and there is considerable doubt as to who will replace him. The Bishop’s son Dr. Grantly, the Archdeacon, has high hopes of succeeding him, but these hopes are dashed and a new Bishop, Dr. Proudie, is appointed.

Anthony Trollope · Drama · 53 ch

Barnaby Rudge

Barnaby Rudge opens in the English village of Chigwell in 1775, where an unsolved double murder casts a long shadow over the local community, and in particular Barnaby Rudge, the son of one of the victims. Five years later, London is consumed by the Gordon Riots of 1780, when Lord George Gordon led the Protestant Association in a protest against increased rights for Catholics that descended into days of mob violence. Into this maelstrom wanders Barnaby, a guileless young man with an intellectual disability, recognized across the countryside by his eccentric dress and by Grip, the raven riding on his shoulder.

Charles Dickens · Historical · 83 ch

Barriers Burned Away

Dennis Fleet is a hard-working and pious young Christian man who’s come to the big city of Chicago in order to earn money for his poor family. As he braves his first icy winter, he quickly moves up the rungs of business until he finds himself working for the prosperous art dealer Mr. Ludolph. Ludolph’s beautiful daughter Christine quickly catches Dennis’s eye—but much to his chagrin, she’s a non-believer.

Edward Payson Roe · Drama · 51 ch

Basil

Basil, published in 1852, is Wilkie Collins’ second novel. In writing it, Collins took a very different approach from his first novel, a historical romance: Basil is his first venture into “sensation fiction.” It features themes of adultery, fraud, betrayal, and vengeance; themes certainly sensational by the standards of the early Victorian era in which it was written. The novel begins with Basil, an aristocratic young man who sees a beautiful young woman on an omnibus, and instantly falls in love with her.

Wilkie Collins · Drama · 30 ch