Richard Hardy, a member of the British gentry, tries to resolve problems in his marriage as he travels with a psychiatrist. The book is to a great extent autobiographical. H. G. had read some brillliantly composed articles by a writer who wrote under the name Rebecca West. In one piece she called H. G. "pseudo-scientific." He contacted her and asked what she meant. When they met for lunch, it was the beginning of a very intense and volatile relationship. Soon she was pregnant, so he divided his time between her and his wife Jane with their two sons. After World War I, Rebecca became more demanding. She wanted him to divorce Jane. Finally, in 1923 Wells told Rebecca she should either get serious about her writing or break off their relationship. The criticism stung her. After a speaking tour in the U.S., she returned newly independent, and the two went their separate ways. In this novel H. G. based the character Martin on Rebecca, who both mesmerized and repelled him.
This serious, yet witty and hilarious, romantic comedy by Samuel Hopkins Adams is a must read/listen! From the very beginning it intrigues you with the troubles and feminine woes of young Miss Darcy Cole. Being a dowdy, unkempt fledgling lady, she finds herself in a mirthful fix after telling a whopper to her room-mates in order to save face from her severely lacking personal life. Resentful and jealous of most all other women, and contemplating suicide, she turns to actress Gloria Greene for guidance on how to become more attractive. Miss Cole had no idea what she was getting herself into! Was it even possible to make herself over? How on Earth would she get through the lie of being engaged to a “titled” man, no less! She had never even met Sir Montrose Veyze, let alone be engaged to him! And then there is the charming Jack Remsen, who seems to be in a pickle himself. Darcy knows he would never fall for someone like her; in fact, no man even looks at her! But perhaps he might be coerced into unwittingly helping her out of her predicament.
A true Ugly Duckling tale, Darcy experiences all the emotions that most ALL women have felt at one time or another throughout life. As quoted by the Proof Listener for this work, the narrator does a superb job of “capturing the spirit of the book!” Drawing the listener in and allowing the audience to live and feel the experience along with the characters. A highly entertaining and riveting book!
Aunt Jane's Nieces On The Ranch sees the reappearance of Louise and Arthur Weldon after the birth of their first child, Jane. The family lives in California and hire a nurse, a local Mexican woman, much to Uncle John's disapproval. Racial tension is explored as a New York woman is brought in to care for the child. Meanwhile, the Mexican nurse, Inez, is certain the ranch is haunted.
This work of fiction by Herbert Jenkins (1876-1923) features one of his best-loved comic characters, the affable Cockney, Joseph Bindle. It was Bindle who conceived the idea of forming ”The Night Club”, where people from different walks of London life would gather on Sunday evenings "for a smoke, a drink and a yarn" to socialize, reflect on their lives, and share tales and reminiscences. It was improbably chaired by Bindle and faithfully reported to us by a member of the club. --Lee Smalley
George Gissing was a prolific English writer of novels and short stories. Among his best known novels is The Odd Women, which was influenced by George Eliot, whose work he greatly admired. Another of his famous works, New Grub Street, entails a blunt critique of the working class life he knew by experience, especially during a number of the years he spent in the United States.
This collection of stories ranges from the humorous to the tragic. Throughout, Gissing pokes mild fun at his characters' human frailties: egotism, self-satisfaction, and pomposity, among others.
From Banjo Paterson, bush poet and favorite son of Australia, here is a collection of colorful stories from Australia that offer a window into the past and the culture of the region.
‘The Pretty Lady’ is considered to be one of Bennett's most revealing and under-rated works. It is the story of a French prostitute, Christine, who has escaped from wartime Ostend, and set herself up in business in London. Though a refugee, she demands no pity; she is self-sufficient, practical and realistic. Christine is not a harpy preying on innocent soldiers, but a canny businesswoman, doing the best she can with the opportunities life has given her. Her main relationship is with G.J. Hoape, a wealthy man above the military age. Bennett in this novel presents a disturbing image of wartime society, fragmented, uneasy and divided. There are references to industrial unrest and to social injustices, and hints that the British press is less than frank about the war.
John Linden is a very wealthy man. The people who should inherit his property are his nephew, Curtis Waring, his niece Florence Linden, and his long lost son - if alive. John thinks it would be best if Florence and Curtis were married, and makes it a requirement if Florence wishes to have any of the property.
A boy named Dodger was sent to steal one of the wills of John Linden so that Curtis would inherit all the property. But Florence prevents Dodger from stealing, and they become friends… To the shock of her uncle and cousin, she decides to leave her uncle's house with Dodger instead of marrying Curtis. And what then? Would she be able to get used to being poor? And will she be poor for ever? Adrift in New York?
The book revolves around the story of two love affairs. Miltoun (an aspiring politician) proposes to Mrs Audrey Noel, only to find that she is not a widow as everyone supposes, but that her husband is still alive and therefore the match is impossible. Meanwhile, Miltoun’s younger sister Barbara develops an equally unwise romance with the rebellious Courtier.
The story of what happens to these ill-matched pairs is played out against a brilliant portrayal of the Victorian upper class, its snobbery and its concerns. (The patrician in the title refers to Miltoun, who is thus called by Courtier, whose politics are the opposite to his.)
Summary by Simon Evers
A crack American flying troop has been sent to France, where they await further instructions. They are concerned that their extensive talents will not be put to good use in the war. Major Cowan introduces Lt. McGee as the British instructor for the crew. It turns out the Brit is actually an American, born in the U.S., even though his parents were British. McGee and Larkin are flying partners. Out on a mission, McGee spots a small enemy plane in a searchlight, probably intent on dropping flares to mark targets for bombers. He drives in for the attack successfully, as the enemy plane zooms earthward in flames. During another flight to Epernay, a fellow pilot, Siddons, fades back to a previous stop. McGee and Larkin suspect Siddons of aiding the enemy. Von Herzmann is preparing German pilots to fight Americans. Larkin and McGee defeat the enemy and force a retreat. In another battle, McGee must crash-land, where he passes out due to injuries. He spends weeks recovering in a hospital. When he is discharged, he cannot find his squadron. After diligent searching, he shows up at his old base. At the end, it is revealed that Siddons is not at all what he was suspected of being--in fact, the opposite. (Bill Boerst)
Frederick von Kammacher is a young doctor in Germany whose wife has gone insane, whose children are in a boarding school, and whose career has been destroyed by some faulty research he has done. He becomes infatuated with a teenage dancer, and on a whim he boards the the same steamship the dancer is on bound for New York. Hauptmann was heralded as a seer for his description of what happens to their steamship mid-ocean, and what in reality happened to the Titanic only months later.
Mary Louise Gay decided to spend the summer holiday in her family's cottage at Shady Nook. But an unknown arsonist has been setting the cottages on fire and it's up to Mary Lou, her best friend Jane, and their loyal pup Silky, to find out who the culprit is and save the houses and their summer holiday.
This 1905 tongue-in-cheek book is ostensibly the letters of a dutiful son to his Chinese father describing his encounter with and experience of Western civilization in late nineteenth century London. The author is delightfully humorous.
If you have heard of the Dickens novel, The Old Curiosity Shop, and remember Nell Trent, the beautiful and virtuous young girl of "not quite fourteen", an orphan, who lived with her maternal grandfather in his shop of odds and ends, then you will understand that these stories take place in the same time period as the book and have the same lovable and quirky characters. Not written by Dickens, of course, they try and succeed in my mind to carry on our enjoyment of hearing of the escapades of the people and England we love.
Windy McPherson's Son is the story of Sam McPherson's rise in the world of business and search for emotional enlightenment in later life. McPherson starts out as an ambitious newsboy in Caxton, Ohio, with drunkard of a father who constantly embarrasses him. Eventually, after his mother's death and an episode with a middle-aged schoolteacher, McPherson leaves Caxton for Chicago. In Chicago, he gets a job as a buyer of farm implements and establishes his reputation in business. While his professional life is blossoming, his personal life suffers. After meeting Sue Rainey, the daughter of his boss Colonel Rainey, they get married and twice fail to have children. Following a business deal that forces his father-in-law out of his own company, McPherson and Sue Rainey separate.One day, once McPherson had become quite wealthy, he gets a telegram saying that Colonel Rainey committed suicide. This causes Sam to realize that he is unhappy with his life. This feeling inspires him to leave Chicago and travel all over becoming involved in various adventures. Finally, McPherson's comes across a promiscuous and alcoholic mother of three children. A deal is made and McPherson gets custody of the children. Showing up with the children at Sue's current place of residence, the five of them become family. ( Wikipedia)
Marie Corelli's book The Life Everlasting examines the world of past lives, mysticism, secret societies and twin souls against a backdrop of a true love based on the highest ideals. The plot follows our heroine from a yachting trip around Scotland with eccentric characters such as an atheist millionaire and his hypochondriac daughter, to the entering of a secret society of ancient mystics where she is determined to achieve initiation. Ms. Corelli's beautiful, flowing, and descriptive writing style make this novel a joy of upliftment and inspiration.
The 1910s is historically considered the decade of greatest social change in history. It saw the advent and proliferation of the automobile, electricity, lighting, radio, telephone and cinema. Our present time of change is actually quite tame in comparison, though also breathless. His Family is a tale of a widowed father, working to manage this decade of change as it affects his family in New York City. His Family was the first winner of the Pulitzer Prize for literature in 1919.
In 1959, in the state of New Essex, a witch was on trial. Or so she seemed to many of the jurors who would ultimately decide her fate, and to the people who thronged the crowded courtroom, many of them friends of the murdered woman. On trial for poisoning her former lover's wife, she would--if found guilty--be executed.
Callista Blake is nineteen years old at the time of her trial. She has a very slight physical deformity, and the much greater mental ones of apparent aloofness, fierce independence of mind, a laconic and sometimes sarcastic wit, marked but unconventional artistic talent, avowed atheism, and a complete inability to compromise. Added to all this, although she is not beautiful by any of the usual criteria, men find her overwhelmingly attractive. No wonder the good people of Winchester and Shanesville dislike her, fear her, and, subconsciously, at least, think she is a witch. No wonder they do not believe Callista's story that she had mixed the deadly potion of Monkshood and brandy for herself at a moment of suicidal depression, and had been prevented by a miscarriage from saving Nancy Doherty, who had drunk the stuff accidentally. The circumstantial evidence against Callista could not be more damning, yet there are one or two people unshakeably convinced of her innocence.
This is the story of their struggle in the courtroom to save her. On her side are one witness--Edith Nolan, her friend and former employer--her defending counsel--Cecil Warner, a sick, aging man who loves her--and Terence Mann, who in his role as judge is obliged to attempt impartiality but, trying his first case carrying the death penalty, is appalled that the fate of a human being can be at the mercy of anything so haphazard as the adversary system and the whim of a jury. We see Callista's ordeal and the events that brought her to it from the viewpoints of all these people, as well as that of Callista herself. We see T. J. Hunter, the formidable District Attorney (they call him hunter Hunter), Jim Doherty, only too willing to accept his confessor's view that he was an innocent ensnared by a temptress of whom he is now happily free, Callista's well-meaning stepfather, hopelessly dominated by her overbearing, histrionic mother, the perfect Gertrude to Callista's Hamlet, and many others who indirectly hold Callista's life in their hands. We gradually learn the history of Callista's passionate affair with Jim, told with a compassion and insight which contrast poignantly with the chilling ritual of the courtroom. Edgar Pangborn knows and understands the people he writes about. And with irresistible force he shows that no one is good enough or wise enough to hold the power of life and death.
Inspector Hanaud is a member of the French Sûreté. He is said to have been the model for Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot, as well as the opposite of Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes. The Affair At The Semiramis Hotel (1917), a novella, is the second Hanaud mystery. Did the robbery/murder really happen or was it the mescal-induced hallucination of the witness? The first novel is At The Villa Rose (1910). The third is The House Of The Arrow (1924) (there are seven through 1949, available at project gutenberg Australia). In 1910, Mason undertook to create a fictional detective as different as possible from Sherlock Holmes, who had recently been resuscitated after his supposed death by Arthur Conan Doyle in 1903. Inspector Gabriel Hanaud was stout, not gaunt like Holmes; a professional policeman, not a gentleman amateur; from the French Sûreté, not Victorian England; and relying on psychological insights rather than physical evidence. His "Watson" is a retired London banker named Mr. Julius Ricardo.
What kind of secret could a mother be keeping that would keep long time lovers apart, and force her eldest daughter into a hasty marriage? Young Odalite and her cousin Leonidas have lived the past three years apart, with Leonidas at sea, and were planning on marrying when he came back. An old acquaintance turns up who knows something about Odalite’s mother’s past, and holds that secret over her, threatening dishonor to her and her family, unless she gives him what he wants. Will true love win the day? This story will be continued in the sequels "Love's Bitterest Cup" and "When Shadows Die". (Bridget Gaige)
"The Magnificent Adventure" in 1916 was set at the time of the Louisiana Purchase and the Lewis and Clark Expedition. This fictional story is brimming with adventure and action, having to do with a gallant gentleman and is written well as Emerson Hough was famous for writing stirring westerns.
Brief plot lines of these 16 stories by Nobel Prize winning author John Galsworthy:
01, 02, 03 "A Feud" The breaking of an engagement ignites a feud.
04 "The Man Who Kept His Form" Ruding’s financial prospects disappoint. He adjusts.
05 "A Hedonist" Still single at 55, Vaness declares his love to a woman, 26.
06 "Timber" Hirries takes a celebratory afternoon walk in his forest.
07 "Santa Lucia" Old Trevillian recalls a past attraction begun at a casino.
08 "Blackmail" Money given to a needy woman leads to a blackmail threat.
09 "The Broken Boot" An impoverished actor chances upon an old acquaintance.
10 "Stroke of Lightning" Besotted by an extramarital relationship, Frank goes to extremes.
11 "Virtue" Mellesh pays a “working girl’s” fine and tells his wife.
12 "Conscience" A staff writer refuses to continue to ghostwrite.
13 "Salta Pro Nobis" Terrified as her execution for treason nears, she dances.
14 "Philanthropy" A writer tries to cope with an insufferable alcoholic.
15 "A Long-ago Affair" When 16 he was infatuated with an attractive widow.
16 "Acme" A destitute author writes a movie script for his own amusement.
17 "Late--299" Released from prison, the doctor goes about with a “peculiar smile”.
18, 19 "Had a Horse" Jimmy, a bookie, accepts a racehorse in payment of gambling debts.
This novel opens in 1805, during the Napoleonic Wars between England and France. A retired sailor, Captain Acton, reminisces about his time at sea now he lives on shore and wonders about a ship seen burning at sea the previous night. But there is one more voyage for the Captain, this time taking his daughter Lucy. As all sailors know, a woman on board brings bad luck.
For those of you who enjoyed The Rosary by Florence Barclay, this one will come in as a close second. When Lady Myra Ingleby learns by telegram that her husband has been killed in the war, the sadness if not true grief that assails her along with the stress it involves, leads her towards a nervous breakdown. Her doctor convinces her that the best and only cure is for her to go away for a month, under an assumed name, preferably to a small seaside town. And there at the Moorhead Inn, begins a beautiful, spontaneous romance that will keep you in suspense and pull at your heart strings.
Coming to New York from the Russian Empire, Abraham Cahan founded the Jewish Daily Forward to help Yiddish-speaking immigrants adjust to life in New York. He also became a popular novelist, best known for his semi-autobiographical The Rise of David Levinsky, about a Russian Jew who emigrates to America and rises from rags to riches. - Summary modified from Wikipedia
Proof-listened by marinal88 and Mark Chulsky
At two years old, Timmy was an imbecile, incapable of talking or controlling his own body. At four years old, he abruptly stood up and began speaking in full sentences. Within a few years, he was a genius. But it was all a terrible mistake, one that might put the whole universe at risk.
Published in 1903, this selection of dialogues by Mary MacLane entails a mystery of wondering who she is speaking with. Is it the statue she describes at first? Is it an imaginary friend? Is it the author’s alter-ego? Or perhaps, is it a friend she knows in-the-flesh whom the author wished no one to recognize the identity of? These questions are never truly answered for how could a statue send word by postal mail or know some of the deeper vulnerabilities of the author without her knowing them herself? In these talks between herself and Annabel Lee come glimmerings of another time, discussions in the whimsy of personal stories, happenings in the neighbourhood, and the reflections in the deeper meaning of life as well as the bonds of friendship.
Deputy Sheriff Tug Blackstock wanted a dog to help with his work. As for Jim, at first glance he might almost have been taken for a slim, young black bear rather than a dog. They were a pair, indeed, to strike the most stolid imagination, let alone the sensitive, brooding, watchful imagination of the backwoods. Plus three other stories.
Published in 1916, this book collects eleven stories originally published in several different magazines. Beach’s adventure stories were immensely popular throughout the early 1900s.
This novel is the fourth in a series of eight books written about Miss Molly Brown of Kentucky during her education at Wellington College in the early years of the 1900's.
Bread by Charles G. Norris reads like a working class Great Gatsby with a tragic female main character. The author is said to have influenced F. Scott Fitzgerald. There is a kind of cadence to the writing, and arc to the story where this can be felt in both similarity and contrast. It follows the life of a woman from young adulthood to middle age between the years of 1905 to 1922 in New York City. She is a stenographer, has chosen the then taboo path of a “wage earner” as opposed to that of mother/wife/homemaker. The descriptions of the inner workings of a publishing house in a time when the printed word was still the apex of information technology are vivid. The social and domestic situations are touching and emotionally telling of how, however much things change, they also stay the same. The metaphor of “Bread” is quaintly heavy handed. “Dedicated to the working women of America”, Norris gives us the “straight dope” in this depiction of life in New York City in the early 20th century.
Per the author: "The book has one high ambition. It has tried to tell the sad story of the wilderness itself—to show, from the woodsman's view-point, the play of great forces which have been tearing down his home and turning it into the flesh and bone of cities."But this story is much more than that. It revolves around Silas Strong and his distaste for the modernization and destruction of his beloved forest surroundings, and how it pleases him to teach younger folk how to appreciate that which has been given us. He takes matters into his own hands, as only Silas Strong can do.
Addison Irving Bacheller was an American journalist and writer who founded the first modern newspaper syndicate in the United States. He was a graduate of St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York in 1882.
Selma Lagerlöf was born in Vaermland, Sweden, in 1858 and enjoyed a long and very successful career as a writer, receiving the Nobel-Prize in Literature in 1909. She died in Vaermland in 1940. The Emperor of Portugallia was first Published 1914 in Sweden, and 1916 in English, translated by Velma Swanston Howard. The Story i set in Vaermland around 1860 or 1870. In the centre is Jan of Ruffluck Croft. He loves his daughter more than anything, but when she moves to Stockholm and never sends a word home about her doings, he sinks into a dream-world where she is a noble Empress of Portugallia. And he believes himself to be Emperor too. His whole world and all his thoughts are dominated by the thoughts of her return and what will happen then. In the role of Emperor in the poor forest country where he lives he can question the social hierarchies around him, and dressed in his Royal regalia he sits in the frontbench in the Church, and he takes the place of honour at Parties etc. After 15 years his daughter returns home and is shocked to see what a mad clown her father has become and ....
A gentle reminiscence of a fictional country doctor as the year is drawing to a close. Unlike city doctors, the personal and professional life of a country doctor are closely intertwined.
If a thing is not sensibly true it may be morally so. If it is not phenomenally true it may be so substantially. And it is possible that one may see substance in the idiom, so to speak, of the senses. That, I take it, is how the Greeks saw thunder-storms and other huge convulsions; that is how they saw meadow, grove and stream—in terms of their own fair humanity. They saw such natural phenomena as shadows of spiritual conflict or of spiritual calm, and within the appearance apprehended the truth. So it may be that I have done. Some such may be the explanation of all fairy experience. Let it be so. It is a fact, I believe, that there is nothing revealed in this book which will not bear a spiritual, and a moral, interpretation; and I venture to say of some of it that the moral implications involved are exceedingly momentous, and timely too. I need not refer to such matters any further. If they don't speak for themselves they will get no help from a preface.
An idealistic American enlists and fights in The Great War. This novel focuses on his life after returning to the US “hard-boiled” and cynical, a disillusioned and embittered young man who has lost all interest in his family, his job, and his fiancé. Outraged by the fact of war, he takes refuge in apathy. It is the story of many others like himself who become lonely and discouraged and of their struggles to readjust to the changing world around them.
“It is a great book.” – William Allen White
“It has moments of rare vividness and power.” – Philadelphia Record
( Lee Smalley)
A charming tale of a small New England congregation preparing for Christmas and the unexpected arrival of a woman's long held hope.
Walpole’s first novel (1909), The Wooden Horse is the story of the Trojans, a family which accepted tranquilly the belief that they were the people for whom the world was created. But when Harry Trojan came home after twenty years in New Zealand, with the democracy learned by working his hands, he was the "wooden horse" who boldly carried into the Trojan walls a whole army of alien ideals, which made of that egotistic family a group of human beings content to be human. Interesting are his struggles against stubborn prejudice; dreamlike the pictures of the old Trojan house, rising from the edge of the gray Cornish cliff like an older cliff, yet surrounded by fragrant rose gardens; but what most distinguishes The Wooden Horse is its passionate adoration of the sea, the cliffs, the weather-worn old Cornish houses, where bearded men tell of haunted moors and the winds of the deep.
Herman Cyril McNeile, better known as Sapper, was one of England’s most popular fiction writers during the period between World Wars I and II. He was a soldier, and his early writings mostly concerned war and the way war influenced the lives of his main characters. Because British officers were prohibited from publishing under their own names, he used the pseudonym Sapper. His best known works are ten thrillers featuring Bulldog Drummond.
Sapper also wrote a great many other novels and short stories. The Dinner Club begins with each of six men, the members of the club, telling a gripping story that relates specifically to his particular line of work (the first six chapters). All but one of the chapters that follow feature different characters. Yet to greater and lesser degrees they develop themes introduced in the first half of the book by the members of The Dinner Club. (There's also not a little romance ...)
Times are hard in Frankfort. Defeat in war, weak leadership, trade blockades and a starving population lead to a restive and unhappy citizenry. The one thing Frankfort does have is the best three sword-makers in the country, who form a guild to try and find solutions to the economic problems assailing the city. One day, a stranger appears: an instructor in swordsmanship and the craft of sword-making. Despite not being licensed to carry a sword in the city, he promises the guild he can help them make their fortunes and lead the city out of the recession.
Readers of Miss Lagerlöf will observe that in this, her latest book, "The Girl from the Marsh Croft," the Swedish author has abandoned her former world of Romanticism and has entered the field of Naturalism and Realism.
This writer's romantic style is most marked, perhaps, in her first successful work, "Gösta Berling." How "The Story of Gösta Berling" grew, and the years required to perfect it, is told in the author's unique literary autobiography, "The Story of a Story," which is embodied in the present volume.
In "The Girl from the Marsh Croft" Miss Lagerlöf has courageously chosen a girl who had gone astray as the heroine of her love story, making her innate honesty and goodness the redemptive qualities which win for her the love of an honest man and the respect and esteem of all. (This novella is one of nine short stories included in this collection.)
To the kindness of the publishers of Good Housekeeping, I am indebted for permission to include "The Legend of the Christmas Rose" in this volume.
This book is translated and published with the sanction of the author, Selma Lagerlöf. - (Prefatory note from the etext)
Clodagh, 18 years old, is the eldest daughter of Dennis Asshlin, an Irish gentleman who lives in an area of Ireland called Orristown. Dennis is passionate, proud and indebted to no one. But, Dennis has an obsession with gambling that is leading the family to ruin. When tragedy strikes, Clodagh finds herself in a situation where she must defend the family honor because “no Asshlin is ever obliged to anyone”. She marries a man she does not love who is many times her age and is thrust from adolescence to adulthood literally overnight. Clodagh travels to Europe and mingles with people of society and fashion which through her immaturity, she believes is her right. She finds instead uncertainty, despondency, and deceit. Her emotions are constantly in battle with reality as she discovers her society acquaintances are not the “friends” she believes them to be. During her visit to Europe, Clodagh discovers that she too is burdened with the Asshlin curse for gambling which eventually leads to more heartbreak. A chance encounter seems to change her life and she returns to Ireland, only once again to be thwarted by the Asshlin curse. A surprise and tense ending is in store for the listener.
Four selected chapters from The Measure Of A Man; A Tale of the Big Woods, by Norman Duncan. What could be more Christmasy than: Babies, especially a homeless one; a woman who loves; a man who protects; a cold night; glittering stars; poor working-men witnesses; gifts. ( Title page and david wales)
It is 1904 and women's suffrage has hit the small town of Noonoon. Though the election campaigners preen themselves for the women's vote, the fight isn't entirely won, for the male residents are bristling at this threat to their supremacy. And down at Clay's there are other problems too: Dawn is now a young woman and in these days of slender chances Grandma Clay must keep an eye on the marriage market. But Dawn, lively and outspoken wants a career on the stage.
Following a failed love affair in England, Lady Bridget O'Hara accepts an invitation to travel to colonial Australia as companion to Lady Rosamund Tallant, the wife of the newly-appointed governor of Leichardt's Land. In Leichardt's Town, Lady Bridget, also known as Biddy, is reunited with her old friend and collaborator, Joan Gildea, special correspondent for The Imperialist newspaper. While visiting Joan, Biddy meets Colin McKeith, a roughly-hewn, Scottish-born pioneer, drover, miner, sometime-politician, and magistrate in the north-eastern colony. Biddy and Colin fall in love: she with the adventure a life with him promises, he with an ideal of her noble heritage. In spite of Joan Gildea's misgivings, Biddy and Colin are soon married and leave Leichardt's Town to travel several days north to Colin's cattle property in a region known as the Leura. As Biddy and Colin embark on their life together, the contemporary issues of colonial Australia are revealed: the extreme environment, labour shortages and organisation, police brutality, immigration policy, and the plight of Australia's First Peoples. The couple discover fundamental differences in their perspectives on many topics. When Bridget's former love, Willoughby Maule, newly-widowed and affluent, visits her in the Leura, the couple's strained relationship is further tested.
Mysterious old Captain Coffin not only has a wild story about a Honduran island where treasure lies, he has a map. But they must be wary because it also holds “a poison that kills a man and keeps him fresh as paint”. Nothing can hold Harry back from tagging along and meeting up with murder, intrigue, a collection of colorful characters, and a vociferous parrot.
The Pink Shop operates outside the limits of the law by a mysterious woman concealed under a black veil. Follow the twists and turns as you unravel the secrets hidden behind the closed doors of The Pink Shop.Ask yourself: what would you give to retain eternal beauty?
This riveting novel takes place on a whaling ship, where its captain, Black Pawl, has a troubled relationship with the first mate, his son. A minister is permitted aboard for the homeward-bound journey along with a young woman who is accompanying him. Before long, unforeseen complications and electrifying events ensue.
Williams, an American author, wrote hundreds of short stories, many appearing in popular magazines, and over 30 novels, several of which were made into motion pictures. ( Lee Smalley)
Phyllis is a lonely little rich girl who comes with her millionaire father and invalid mother to live in Byrdsville, Tennessee. There she meets and befriends the remainder of the Byrd family, now fallen on hard times, but determined to restore their fortunes via the inventing genius of the elder brother. But assorted disasters befall them, and everyone is very uncomfortable until, at last, everything is sorted out and the happy ending occurs.
Part romance, part mystery, part courtroom and quasi-courtroom drama. Young love reignites itself after a hiatus of some years. Or does it? Much can change in that time -- both to the people themselves, and to the events that shape their lives. The action moves from England to India, and back again, confronting the protagonists with problems they never dreamed they’d have to face. ( Nicholas Clifford)