This is H. G. Wells' 1915 novel, 'The Research Magnificent'. The story is presented as the efforts of one Mr. White to compile, collate, and preserve the life's work of his deceased academic friend, William Porphyry Benham. The tale centers around the recounting of Benham's attempts to live a noble life-an endeavor that brings him into conflict with his friends, his mother, and his wife. The Research Magnificent is widely considered as being among...

When "Lord Jim" first appeared in 1900, many took Joseph Conrad to task for couching an entire novel in the form of an extended conversation - a ripping good yarn, if you like (one critic in The Academy complained that the narrator 'was telling that after-dinner story to his companions for eleven solid hours'). Conrad defended his method, insisting that people really do talk for that long, and listen as well. In fact his chatty masterwork requires...

This collection of Japanese supernatural stories is a classic work in the field of Japanese horror. Known primarily as an early interpreter of Japanese culture and customs, the famous writer Lafcadio Hearn also wrote ghost stories-delicate, transparent, ghostly sketches-about his adopted land. Many of the stories found in Kwaidan, stories and studies of strange things, are based on Japanese tales of long ago told to him by his wife; others possibly...

The Japanese have two kinds of ghosts in their folklore-the spirits of the dead, and the spirits of the living. This classic of Japanese literature invites you to take your choice, if you dare. In Ghostly Japan collects twelve ghostly stories from Lafcadio Hearn, deathless images of ghosts and goblins, touches of folklore and superstition, salted with traditions of the nation. While some of these stories contain nightmare imagery worthy of a midnight...

To Baree, for many days after he was born, the world was a vast gloomy cavern. During these first days of his life his home was in the heart of a great windfall where Gray Wolf, his blind mother, had found a safe nest for his babyhood, and to which Kazan, her mate, came only now and then, his eyes gleaming like strange balls of greenish fire in the darkness. It was Kazan's eyes that gave to Baree his first impression of something existing away from...

Excerpt: "The writer of this Narrative was hired by his master to a "soul-driver," and has witnessed all the horrors of the traffic, from the buying up of human cattle in the slave-breeding States, which produced a constant scene of separating the victims from all those whom they loved, to their final sale in the southern market, to be worked up in seven years, or given over to minister to the lust of southern Christians. Many harrowing scenes are...

Curwood loved the outdoors and is known for his conservation efforts. This is a story about a girl that goes on a journey of adventure weaved with many fateful coincidences. She solves a mystery, gets to know many new people and helps her father outfox his enemy.(Goodreads)

The Bishop of Princhester has come to doubt the Trinity, as well as a number of other things relating to the Creed. Not only this, but he has come to realize that there are others within the church with doubts-some who even doubt the existence of God. Although the Bishop believes fervently in God, his disagreements with the dogma, creating an inner turmoil that throws his life into chaos. H. G. Wells, "The Father of Science Fiction", was also a staunch...

I don't know whether I ought to offer an apology for this collection which has more to do with life than with letters. Its appeal is made to orderly minds. This, to be frank about it, is a process of tidying up, which, from the nature of things, cannot be regarded as premature. The fact is that I wanted to do it myself because of a feeling that had nothing to do with the considerations of worthiness or unworthiness of the small (but unbroken) pieces...

A child of privilege plunges into a world of oppression, violence, and danger in this gripping indictment of the coal-mining industry from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Jungle College leaves young Hal Warner feeling incomplete, with no sense of the "real" world outside its ivy-covered walls. So he leaves his life of privilege behind and signs on to work in a coal mine owned and operated by the General Fuel Company. But Hal finds out that...