Not until after his death in 1918 was it revealed that Henry Adams was the anonymous author of Democracy, which had been published to great acclaim in 1880. Though the book avoids dates and the characters are fictitious, the setting is no doubt that of Washington in the 1870s, the age of Presidents Grant and Hayes. The young widow, Madeleine Lee, wealthy and independent, is the protagonist, who leaves her New York for Washington to turn her intelligence to politics and to see what makes her country tick. There she meets (among others) Senator Silas P. Ratcliffe of Illinois, one of the most powerful and influential (if somewhat uncultured) men of the capital, who is considering a run for the presidency, and who needs a wife to act as First Lady, a position that (he thinks) Mrs. Lee would admirably fill.
Through the book Adams plays with the themes of political necessity, compromise, corruption -- particularly the kind of corporate domination of national politics that he saw becoming all too powerful. Should honest and intelligent men keep their integrity by avoiding politics? Or would that simply mean turning over the governance of the country to power-hungry, scheming, and none too honest hacks? For all the witty conversations in his novel, this was a theme that plagued Adams (a presidential grandson) in life as well as literature, and it is a theme that has by no means disappeared today.
A young idealistic civil servant, Arvid Falk, leaves the drudgery of bureaucracy to become a journalist and author. As he explores various social activities — politics, publishing, theatre, philanthropy, and business — he finds more hypocrisy and corruption than he thought possible. He takes refuge with a group of "bohemians", who meet in a red dining room in Berns Salonger to discuss these matters. (Introduction adopted from Wikipedia)
Margaret leaves her family home and security to become a school teacher in the wilds of early Arizona. Accidentally getting off her safe and warm train at the wrong place, she encounters first hand the wildness and beauty of the vast West and its interesting inhabitants.
Honath the Pursemaker is a heretic. He doesn’t believe the stories in the Book of Laws which claims giants created his tree-dwelling race. He makes his opinion known and is banished with his infidel friends to the floor of the jungle where dangers abound. Perhaps he’ll find some truth down there. – The Thing in the Attic is one of Blish’s Pantropy tales and was first published in the July, 1954 edition of If, Worlds of Science Fiction magazine.
When Patty Went to College is Jean Webster's first novel, published in 1903. It is a humorous look at life in an all-girls college at the turn of the 20th century. Patty Wyatt, the protagonist of this story is a bright, fun loving, imperturbable girl who does not like to conform. The book describes her many escapades on campus during her senior year at college. Patty enjoys life on campus and uses her energies in playing pranks and for the entertainment of herself and her friends. An intelligent girl, she uses creative methods to study only as much as she feels necessary. Patty is, however, a believer in causes and a champion of the weak. She goes out of her way to help a homesick freshman Olivia Copeland who believes she will be sent home when she fails four subjects in the examination.
Athelstan King is a British Secret Agent stationed in India at the beginning of WWI. He is attached to the Khyber Rifles regiment as a cover, but his real job is to prevent a holy war. "To stop a holy war single-handed would be rather like stopping the wind--possibly easy enough, if one knew the way." King is ordered to work with a mysterious and powerful Eastern woman, Yasmini. Can King afford to trust her? Can he afford not to? Introduction by Brett W. Downey
A few years before the great Civil War, a young English woman and her father, having left the security of their wagon train, are lost in the unforgiving Californian desert, looking in vain for the landmark that marks the short-cut across those last western mountains which would lead them to the home of an old friend. George Castlewood gives all the water and rations he has to his daughter, Erema, and dies just a short distance from help. Rescued by kind Sampson “Uncle Sam” Gundry, the family friend they had been seeking, Erema lives for a time at his saw mill. One day, one Mr. Goad, a bounty-hunter from England, arrives at the mill, offering $10,000 for proof of Lord Castlewood’s death and custody of his young daughter. Lord Castlewood had been accused of the crime of patricide 15 years earlier, escaped from jail and been on the lam ever since. Erema, believing her father’s innocence and determined to clear his good name, returns to England to discover the long-lost secrets of her family and the cloudy circumstances of the murder of her grandfather.
Told by Erema herself, this is a grand story of mystery and the coming of age of an independent and courageous woman. Set in Victorian England and the throes of the Civil War, the story is replete with twists and turns of plot in every chapter.
The Seventh Man by Max Brand, tells part of the story of the larger-than-life western character, Dan Barry, known as “Whistling Dan,” and his alter-ego companions, Black Bart, the wolf-dog, and Satan, the indomitable black stallion. It’s also the story of Kate Cumberland and the incredible five-year-old daughter of Kate and Dan, Joan. We first see Dan as a gentle, caring man with a deep sense of fairness. But then, after six years of a peaceful life in their mountain cabin Dan, more feral than human, sets out to revenge an injustice by killing seven men. Ultimately, it is his devotion to his daughter and Kate’s love for the child that brings about the climax of the tale.
Warning: don’t look for a typical cowboy story here – it’s far deeper and stronger than that.
This is the fifth published book of Owen Wister, author of the archetypical Western novel, The Virginian. Published in 1900, it comprises eight Western short stories.
This is volume is a collection of 50 of de Maupassant's short stories. Summary by James K. White.
“Who can help laughing when an ordinary journalist seriously proposes to limit the subject-matter at the disposal of the artist?”
“We are dominated by journalism.... Journalism governs for ever and ever.”[/i]
One of the nastiest of the British tabloids was founded a year too late to join in the moral panic generated to accompany Oscar Wilde’s court appearances in 1895. Yet there was no shortage of hypocritical journalists posing as moral arbiters to the nation, then as now.
This compendium work - skilfully assembled by the editor, Stuart Mason - ends with transcript of Wilde’s first appearance in the Old Bailey, when he was cross-examined on the alleged immorality of his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. The disastrous outcome of these trials provides an ironic conclusion to the earlier knockabout exchanges between Oscar and his reviewers. In these he is at his flamboyant best, revelling in the publicity he pretends to disdain. His brave performances in the dock did nothing, however, to save him from hard labour, the treadmill and complete physical and moral breakdown which the law found it necessary to inflict on him.
In contrast to the hacks and lawyers, two refreshingly open-minded Americans write perceptively about the novel, as does Walter Pater, the grand old man of Aestheticism.
This solo Librivox project complements a new dramatised reading of The Picture of Dorian Gray, currently in preparation, featuring the present reader as Narrator.
The US Government is very smartly letting Tom Swift Jr. handle the recovery of its probe to Jupiter. But a mystery missile suddenly intercepts the probe and splashes it in the South Atlantic.
Faced with a huge search task to find the probe on the ocean bottom, Tom soon realizes that the same shadowy group that attacked the probe is competing to find it, and no holds are barred: kidnap, coercion, and lethal force are all in play.
Under such circumstances, what can Tom do? What he does every time, of course! He invents some utterly cool device to get the job done! And his Electronic Hydrolung is just the beginning!
The love that develops between Luke Rowan and Rachel Ray is not universally welcomed. Mrs. Tappitt- a rich, influential, and bad woman - wishes him to marry one of her own daughters, while Rachel's mother and older sister are not sure he is worthy of her. After many adventures, everybody gets what they deserve. Characteristically to Trollope's works, there is also a secondary plot involving the election of parliament in Baslehurst."
Summary by Stav Nisser.
The book lives still because of its delicate little scenes of comedy, the meeting of the lovers, Mrs. Tappitt's ball, the bedroom confidences of the Tappitts, Rachel's talks with her mother. -Walpole
Set in late Victorian England, “Consequences” follows the life of Alexandra Clare, a girl born into an upper class Catholic London family. Raised from birth for the privileged life of a wife and mother, Alexandra never quite fits in with her or her family’s expectations and fails at seemingly everything she tries – school, the marriage market, family life.
Go on a journey to the coast of Maine and immerse yourself in the picturesque community on Orr’s Island. See the raindrops glistening on the pine needles and hear the waves crashing on the rocks. This is a tale of romance, tragedy, crusty sea captains, an impetuous boy, a loving girl, complete with village gossips and twists in the plot.
With the exception of the terrible retreat from Afghanistan, none of England's many little wars have been so fatal--in proportion to the number of those engaged--as our first expedition to Burma. It was undertaken without any due comprehension of the difficulties to be encountered, from the effects of climate and the deficiency of transport; the power, and still more the obstinacy and arrogance of the court of Ava were altogether underrated; and it was considered that our possession of her ports would assuredly bring the enemy, who had wantonly forced the struggle upon us, to submission. Events, however, proved the completeness of the error. The Burman policy of carrying off every boat on the river, laying waste the whole country, and driving away the inhabitants and the herds, maintained our army as prisoners in Rangoon through the first wet season; and caused the loss of half the white officers and men first sent there. The subsequent campaign was no less fatal and, although large reinforcements had been sent, fifty percent of the whole died; so that less than two thousand fighting men remained in the ranks, when the expedition arrived within a short distance of Ava. Not until the last Burmese army had been scattered did the court of Ava submit to the by no means onerous terms we imposed.
While a columnist for The Chicago Record humorist George Ade penned numerous “fables” which were subsequently collected into books. Fables in Slang is the first of these collections. It contains 26 satirical stories that lampoon phrenologists, idealists, snobs, fanatics and other ignorant fools of the day, most of which still wander through our modern lives. Jean Shepherd considered Ade a predecessor who made writers like James Thurber, Mike Royko, and himself possible. Fables in Slang was first published in 1899 by Herbert S. Stone and Company.
A 1908 NaNoWriMo forerunner, told in twelve chapters, each with a different author. The basic plot was to show how an engagement or marriage would affect and be affected by an entire family. The project became somewhat curious for the way the authors' contentious interrelationships mirrored the sometimes dysfunctional family they described in their chapters. The collaboration may have been an uncomfortable one, but a final product did emerge with some clever and entertaining contributions from its often squabbling authors.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman opens a window of history through which we can see a small part of the determined efforts made by women to elevate the circumstances of women in the early 20th century.Diantha Bell is a normal young woman desiring marriage and a home, but also a challenging career in a new territory which raises many eyebrows and sets malicious tongues wagging. Her effort to elevate housework and cooking to a regulated and even scientific business, for the relief of homemakers, is a depiction of the late 19th century movement to promote Domestic Science, or Home Economics, as a means of providing more healthful home life, as well as career paths for women.Diantha's business prospers as she shows her excellent gifts of administration, organization and homemaking. She grows an empire, and brings happiness and wholesomeness to every area of endeavor which she carefully attempts.The improvements in women's opportunities have not been available very long, indeed.This is a good reminder.
Carl Stanton is an invalid suffering from an unusual bout of rheumatism. His fiancee is gone for the winter and though he begs her to write to help ease his boredom and pain she is stingy with her letters. She sends him what she calls a 'ridiculous circular' which she states is very apropos of his sentimental passion for letters. In a sudden fit of mischief, malice and rheumatism, Carl decides to respond to the circular which results in bringing about the necessary distraction in a flurry of letters that do ease Carl's boredom and pain but also bring him something else that he never quite expected.
Mr. Stanley Fulton is worth millions, but he has no one to leave his money to except some unknown distant cousins. In order to find out how they would handle a fortune, he decides to give each of them $100,000 dollars during his life, and go – incognito - to live in their midst! Who will prove worthy to inherit his millions and will his deception be discovered?
Eleanor H. Porter was an early 20th century author of children’s literature and novels. Her most well known book was “Pollyanna” and it’s sequel, “Pollyanna Grows Up”.
Our hero, Jimmy Torrance, Jr., has a hard time finding suitable employment after a brilliant (athletically, at least) college career, despite all kinds of assistance from his friends in the underworld and the wealthy and sophisticated young woman with whom he falls in love. Set in contemporary America, mostly Chicago, this 1921 short novel is one of a handful of Burrough’s works that does not take us to a fantasy or an exotic setting. (Delmar H. Dolbier)
A collection of Twain short stories including:
The Loves Of Alonzo Fitz
Clarence And Rosannah Ethelton
On The Decay Of The Art Of Lying
About Magnanimous-Incident Literature
The Grateful Poodle
The Benevolent Author
The Grateful Husband
Punch, Brothers, Punch
The Great Revolution In Pitcairn
The Canvasser's Tale
An Encounter With An Interviewer
Paris Notes
Legend Of Sagenfeld, In Germany
Speech On The Babies
Speech On The Weather
Concerning The American Language
Rogers
Foreword from the author, Edna Ferber - "And so," the story writers used to say, "they lived happily ever after."
Um-m-m—maybe. After the glamour had worn off, and the glass slippers were worn out, did the Prince never find Cinderella's manner redolent of the kitchen hearth; and was it never necessary that he remind her to be more careful of her finger-nails and grammar? After Puss in Boots had won wealth and a wife for his young master did not that gentleman often fume with chagrin because the neighbors, perhaps, refused to call on the lady of the former poor miller's son?
It is a great risk to take with one's book-children. These stories make no such promises. They stop just short of the phrase of the old story writers, and end truthfully, thus: And so they lived. E. F.
Mr. Lester, a private investigator, and his friend Godfrey are caught up in a strange case that takes them to a large estate in the country where at midnight they witness a mysterious "falling star" that appears to burst into a shower of sparks over two white robed figures standing in the air. There is a young lady in a flowing white dress and many more twists and complications before the mystery is solved.
How to describe this book? In a word – savage. For those regular Librivox Le Queux mystery listeners, this book is a step in a different direction by the author. The book starts out like most Le Queux. Our hero, Richard Scarsmere, befriends an individual (Omar) at an English boarding school who turns out to be an African prince from a kingdom called Mo. Omar receives a visit from one of his mother’s trusted advisers. His mother, the Great White Queen, seeks him to return home immediately. Omar convinces Scarsmere to return to Africa with him since there is little opportunity awaiting him in London. What follows is a tale of deceit, treachery, barbarity, and mystery.
Every status-quo-caste society in history has left open two roads to rise above your caste: The Priest and The Warrior. But in a society of TV and tranquilizers--the Warrior acquires a strange new meaning...
Starting with a summary of the 1922 novel The Head of the House of Coombe, which followed the relationships between a group of pre-WWI English nobles and commoners, this sequel, called Robin, completes the story of Robin, Lord Coombe, Donal and Feather.
The Getting of Wisdom tells the story of Laura Rambotham, a 12-year-old girl who is just starting at her boarding school. This is based on Henry Handel Richardson's experiences of her own school, the Presbyterian Ladies College in central Melbourne. The story goes through her friends and enemies and all the life of a boarding school in early 20th century Australia, and all the subjects and learning too. Laura learns a lot but her education does not satisfy her, and her social life is thrown upon her as very different from her peers.
In Jack London's first novel, he tells the story of Frona Welse, a strong and interesting heroine, "a Stanford graduate and physical Valkyrie," who heads to the Yukon gold fields after creating a stir in her hometown by being strong and forthright and by befriending the town's prostitute. In the course of her adventures, she finds herself at the distaff point of a love triangle. This novel contains very overt racial and gender stereotypes and as such reflects the attitudes growing in society at the time it was written. It is the practice at LibriVox to record works as they stand, without judgment.
Join Rough and Ready for his adventure on the streets of New York City. Working as a newsboy, Rough and Ready tries to support himself and his sister on his meager earnings. Unfortunately, their stepfather is seeking to kidnap little Rose, getting an education is hard work, swindlers are trying to trick him out of his money, and thieves are planning nefarious deeds. Luckily for Rough and Ready, he makes some good friends along the way
Another full-length mystery story featuring Hamilton Cleek, whom we met first in Cleek: The Man of the Forty Faces. This time, Cleek investigates the sinister disappearance of people and the mysterious appearance of flames at night in the desolate Fens, and his friend Superintendent Narkom of Scotland Yard tries to solve some tricky cases of bank robberies in London.
While not quite up to the standard we have come to expect from previous Cleek adventures, it is still quite a jolly romp, and Cleek's cockney sidekick Dollops is always good fun.
Detective Ebenezer Gryce tells the story of the case with which he begun his career in 1840. Several wealthy men were drowned and washed ashore in New York City, and the first clue leads to a dubious money lender...
This is one of the Victorian “Sensationist” Mary Elizabeth Braddon's many novels (best known among them: “Lady Audley’s Secret”). It is extremely well written, fluid, humorous and, in places, self-mocking: one of the main characters is a Sensation Author. The motifs of the-woman-with-a-secret, adultery, and death are classic “sensationist” material. Yet this is also a self-consciously serious work of literature, taking on various social themes of the day. Specifically, Braddon presents the psychological struggle and cognitive dissonance which are the inevitable plight of the married middle-class woman with a strong sense of self, who is essentially constrained to live the life of her husband. In this, it echoes Flaubert’s “Madame Bovary.”
The heroine, Isabel Sleaford, was driven early in her childhood to bury herself in, and develop her sense of self through, romantic novels and poetry. She is thus ill-adapted to the conventional, provincial structures and strictures laid upon her when she marries the very good and adoring, but also boring and unimaginative, Dr. George Gilbert. Isabel forms friendships with men (including her husband's best friend) who are more amenable to her romantic inclinations, and inevitably encounters social condemnation as a result. The book shows how life’s tragedies and the world’s cruel judgments shape Isabel, as she grows more mature, somewhat embittered, but also – true to her nature – beautifully resilient.
The Girl Who Had Nothing is about a young orphan girl in desperate circumstances, who throws herself on the mercy of an elderly stranger. By her own intelligence and wit, she manages to survive, and very nicely at that!
Rachel Louise Fleckring works for the elderly Mrs Maldon, and although with the woman for only a short time, she is taken into the heart of the family. She falls in love with one of Mrs Maldon's descendents, but along the way, she has to come to terms with the fact that he isn't, perhaps, the perfectly honest man she thought he was.
What if figures of animals had lives of their own? If the figures of a lion and a unicorn at the shop across the street could talk, what would they say about the little things in life that they see every day on the streets of London? This short story describes the love story of Philip Caroll and Helen Cabot, as witnessed by these two figures..
Charles K. Spencer is a well-to-do young American mining engineer. Drinking his water in a hotel in London one day, he overhears a conversation between two young women, one of whom is to go to Switzerland. He decides to play "fairy godfather" and send the other girl there as well, also to further her career as a writer for a scientific journal. However, the girl is shadowed on her journey by the mysterious Mr. Bower. Convinced that Bower is a rogue, Mr. Spencer decides to follow them to protect the girl...
'The Regent' is, if not a sequel to 'The Card', then a 'Further Adventures of' the eponymous hero of that novel.
Denry Machin is now forty-three and begins to feel that he is getting old, that making money and a happy home life are not enough and that he has lost his touch as the entrepreneur and entertainer of the 'Five Towns'.
In fact, as he says to himself 'What I want is change - and a lot of it too!'. A chance meeting at the local theatre leads to his going to London and then...
Aurora Floyd is the spoiled, impetuous, but kind hearted daughter of Archibald Floyd, a wealthy banker and his wife, an actress who died shortly after Aurora's birth. As a teenager she is sent away to finishing school in Paris. This is volume two of the story which tells of Aurora's life with her husband John Mellish. This is a story of love, murder and the search for justice.
Aunt Jane's Nieces and Uncle John picks up the continuing story of the three cousins Patsy Doyle, Beth De Graf, and Louise Merrick, and their family; the plot of the book begins three days after the wedding of Louise and her fiancé Arthur Weldon, the event that concluded the sixth book in the series, Aunt Jane's Nieces in Society. Uncle John hires a touring car and the party makes a tour of the South West, visiting New Mexico and Arizona.
Cavanagh becomes involved in the adventurous search for a precious relic in the mysterious East.
The Princess Priscilla of Lothen Kunitz finds court life stifling and runs away to England with the elderly court librarian. Her intention is to live a pure and simple life filled with good works. But life among ordinary people in an English village is not what she expects it to be...
Friedrich de la Motte Fouque, also the author of Undine, was a German Romantic writer whose stories were filled with knights, damsels in distress, evil enchantments, and the struggle of good against overpowering evil. 'My strength is as the strength of ten, Because my heart is pure.' Fouque blends the Romantic love for nature and ancient chivalry while telling a powerful story about a young man who yearns for that which he can never attain.
Edith Wharton's 1907 novella explores the milieu of Americans living abroad in Paris. New Yorker John Durham travels to Paris to woo an old flame, Fanny Frisbee, now the Marquis de Malrive. Fanny is separated from her husband and wants to marry John and return to America, but she doubts whether her Catholic husband will grant her a divorce. When John meets Fanny's sister-in-law, the enigmatic Madame de Treymes, he hopes she may be able to help them in their quest for happiness.
The Wit and Humor of America is a 10 volume series. In this, the eighth volume, 40 short stories and poems have been gathered from 35 authors. This volume is sure to delight listeners.
Best known for his literary work The Blue Lagoon, which has been made into film several times over, H. De Vere Stacpoole’s first publication was a book titled The Intended in 1894. Stacpoole was disappointed at its lack of commercial success, and felt the story was too good to let go. He eventually re-worked the book, culminating in The Man Who Lost Himself, a light-hearted story of a luckless American visiting London on yet another of his failed business ventures, when he happens upon a gentleman of status and wealth, who also just happens to be his exact look-alike.
To get away from city life periodically, New Yorker Roger Locke purchases an abandoned farm house in rural Connecticut, and with the assistance of his cousin Phillida and her beau Ethan Vere, he sets about fixing up the place.
Immediately however, an unseen mysterious woman begins giving him warnings during nocturnal visits to leave the house at once. Soon he begins hearing strange ominous sounds emanating from the tiny lake at the back of the house coupled with a permeation of sickly odors. An evil presence then begins to visit him during the witching hours of the late night, challenging him to a battle of wits from which there can be only one victor.
Is his mysterious female visitor there to help and encourage him to flee from the house, or is she working in tandem with The Thing From the Lake?
A gripping, occasionally frightening tale, Ms. Ingram wastes no time in grabbing the reader into the story and manages to weave a tale that will leave the reader guessing at every turn of events.
When published in 1907, this novel about the lives of a wealthy mill owner, her socially progressive husband and friends caused a stir due to its treatment of drug abuse, mercy killing, divorce and second marriages.
With seven children and a home to take care of, Margaret wondered how her Mother could be so happy living a life that seemed all drudgery. As Margaret has new experiences, she comes to realize that "her mother was not only the truest, the finest, the most generous woman she had ever known, but the happiest as well".