Penny Parker is a teen-aged sleuth and amateur reporter with an uncanny knack for uncovering and solving unusual, sometimes bizarre mysteries. The only daughter of widower Anthony Parker, publisher of the "Riverview Star," Penny has been raised to be self-sufficient, outspoken, innovative, and extraordinarily tenacious. Her cheerful, chatty manner belies a shrewd and keenly observant mind. Penny was the creation of Mildred A. Wirt, who was also the author of the original Nancy Drew series (under the pseudonym Carolyn Keene)...

In THE CLUE OF THE SILKEN LADDER, Penny investigates multiple mysteries. What is the purpose of the singular silken ladder made by the secretive and somewhat sinister old Japanese curio shop owner? How can the "Riverview Star" obtain evidence that a popular troup of spiritualists really are heartless con artists? Last, who is perpetrating the gravity-defying burglaries that have rocked the town ? Meanwhile, the Parker housekeeper, Mrs. Weems, has come into an inheritance and plans to leave Riverview, much to the Parkers' dismay...

Late entry in the Penny Parker teen girl mystery series (1939-47) by one of the early ghostwriters (as Carolyn Keene) of Nancy Drew concerns an escaped embezzler, his revenge on the reporter whose articles helped convict him, and a long missing $50 grand.

Nancy 'Nance' Olden, a young and very pretty woman, is an accomplished liar and thief. Raised in a horrific orphanage, called the Cruelty by its occupants, Nance and her criminal boyfriend, Tom Dorgan, are pulling a con when the book begins. The results of their act propel Nance into a series of events that she could never have imagined. This was Miriam Michelson's first novel and it was considered a 'blockbuster' in its day. Ranked fourth on the list of bestsellers of 1904 by "Publishers Weekly," Michelson's book was a source of controversy due to the dubious ethics and morals of its heroine.

Rhoda Massey is a young, sharp reporter for a daily newspaper in San Francisco. After proving herself an astute and fearless investigator on her first big story, she spends most of her waking hours running down leads and doing (almost) anything it takes to produce headline grabbing tales and to be the first one to do so. She must compete with her male colleagues where she works but also with those from other newspapers. Rhoda discovers it useful to be pretty and small in stature (great for eavesdropping from tight and unusual locations) but it's her shrewd mind and her nose for news that propel her to pursue stories in dangerous places and, sometimes, from dangerous characters...

Play Ball!!! It's the start of another baseball season at Oakdale Academy. But there is a rivalry brewing between the pitchers. One wants to be a starting pitcher, but he is inconsistent. Another, a new kid from Texas, has been mentored by last year's starter, and is proving to have talent. And don't forget that starting pitcher from last season, he wants to continue to take the rubber for the team. This should prove to be an exciting season for the boys!

Kathleen O’Hara is a young pretty girl sent to school in England from Ireland by her father to get a good education, but Kathleen has other ideas. She quickly become friends with the girls of the school who don’t pay for their education and in turn these girls consider Kathleen to be their Queen. What trouble will Kathleen and her friends get into? And what will the school do with the naughty, “Rebel of the School?”

Joe Kenmore heard the airlock close with a sickening wheeze and then a clank. In desperation he turned toward Haney. “My God, we’ve been locked out!” Through the transparent domes of their space helmets, Joe could see a look of horror and disbelief pass across Haney’s face. But it was true! Joe and his crew were locked out of the Space Platform. Four thousand miles below circled the Earth. Under Joe’s feet rested the solid steel hull of his home in outer space. But without tools there was no hope of getting back inside. Joe looked at his oxygen meter. It registered thirty minutes to live.

It is 30,000 years following dramatically changed climate conditions on earth which had let massive amounts of carbon dioxide belch from the interior of the planet into the atmosphere. Over the millenia this would have quite devastating effects on life as it had once been known. Much of the human and animal population would not survive the climate change, and indeed those few humans who did survive knew nothing of all which their predecessors had learned and built. Indeed, they knew not even of their existence...

Jed Cochrane is about to take off on man's first interstellar voyage. His mission: Make sure it's good television! (Introduction by Mark Nelson)

Murder Madness! Seven Secret Service men had completely disappeared. Another had been found a screaming, homicidal maniac, whose fingers writhed like snakes. So Bell, of the secret "Trade," plunges into South America after The Master--the mighty, unknown octopus of power whose diabolical poison threatens a continent!

SPACE PLATFORM tells the exciting story of a young man helping to build this first station. With scientific accuracy and imagination Murray Leinster, one of the world's top science-fiction writers, describes the building and launching of the platform. Here is a fast-paced story of sabotage and murder directed against a project more secret and valuable than the atom bomb!

A 1919 pulp-press tale of deepest darkest Africa.

Nat Love was born a slave, emancipated into abject poverty, grew up riding the range as a cowboy and spent his maturity riding the rails as a Pullman Porter. For me, the most amazing thing about him is that despite the circumstances of his life, which included being owned like a farm animal solely because of the color of his skin and spending later decades living and working as an equal with white coworkers, he was an unrepentant racist! Convinced that the only good Indian was a dead one, and that...

Join Angelo Daily and his chums during a fun filled summer at Killgloom Park, a Coney Island, New York amusement park in the 1930's. A runaway tiger! Tracking down a wanted thief! Climbing down a ferris wheel in the middle of the night! These are just a few of the exciting things that happen during this adventurous summer!The author grew up in the world of amusement parks, providing first hand material for two of his boys books – “On the Sands of Coney” and its sequel, this title - “Killgloom Park”...

The novel details the lives of three characters, first as children and then as adults - Waldo, Em and Lyndall - who live on a farm in the Karoo region of South Africa. The story is set in the middle- to late Nineteenth century - the First Boer War is alluded to, but not mentioned by name. The book is semi-autobiographical: in particular, the two principal protagonists (Waldo and Lyndall) display strong similarities to Schreiner's life and philosophy. The book was first published in 1883 in London, under the pseudonym Ralph Iron...

"Down South" is the fifth and last volume but one of the "Great Western Series." The action of the story is confined entirely to Florida; and this fact may seem to belie the title of the Series. But the young yachtsman still maintains his hold upon the scenes of his earlier life in Michigan, and his letters come regularly from that State. If he were old enough to vote, he could do so only in Michigan; and therefore he has not lost his right to claim a residence there during his temporary sojourn in the South...

A parody of its famous predecessor, this short piece was written by Owen Wister for the Harvard Lampoon

A novel, The Dragon of Wantley, was written by Owen Wister (best known as the author of The Virginian) in 1892. Published by Lipincott Press, the story is a comic "burlesque" (in the author's words), concerning the "true" story of the Dragon. It is a romantic story set at Christmastime in the early 13th century. The book was a surprise success, going through four editions over the next ten years. This is the 1895 edition.

These eight stories are made from our Western Frontier as it was in a past as near as yesterday and almost as by-gone as the Revolution; so swiftly do we proceed. They belong to each other in a kinship of life and manners, and a little through the nearer tie of having here and there a character in common. Thus they resemble faintly the separate parts of a whole, and gain, perhaps, something of the invaluable weight of length; and they have been received by my closest friends with suspicion. ...When...

Members of the Family is a collection of eight short stories about people in the Wyoming Territory in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

This is the classic story of William Tell - Swiss patriot and great apple-shooter - as seen through the eyes of English humorist P.G. Wodehouse. No Swiss were (permanently) injured in the telling of this story; however, results differed for Austrian tyrants. The original volume also included a humorous poem encapsulating the whole Tell legend, written by John W. Houghton to accompany the sixteen color illustrations. For this audiobook, the stanzas have been collected and read as a single poem. (Introduction by Mark F. Smith)

Also known as “The Children’s Homer,” this is Irish writer Padraic Colum’s retelling of the events of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey for young people. Colum’s rich, evocative prose narrates the travails of Odysseus, King of Ithaca: his experiences fighting the Trojan War, and his ten years’ journey home to his faithful wife Penelope and his son Telemachus.

"Well, Robin, on what folly do you employ yourself? Do you cut sticks for our fire o' mornings?" Thus spoke Master Hugh Fitzooth, King's Ranger of the Forest at Locksley, as he entered his house.Robin flushed a little. "These are arrows, sir," he announced, holding one up for inspection.Dame Fitzooth smiled upon the boy as she rose to meet her lord. "What fortune do you bring us to-day, father?" asked she, cheerily.Fitzooth's face was a mask of discontent. "I bring myself, dame," answered he, "neither more nor less...

In this short novel the narrator is a superintendent on the K. & A. railroad, sometime in the late nineteenth century. The train is robbed somewhere in the Arizona desert. Various adventures involve this young superintendent. Romance is provided by a comely passenger.

Bertram Greene, brilliant student, aesthete, intellectual and shy, decides to make his military father proud of him at last and joins the colonial Indian Army Reserve as a second Lieutenant at the start of Great War. Feeling a complete fish out of water, he is dispatched to India without any training whatsoever, and is expected to take charge of a company of native soldiers. He is then posted to East Africa to join the British fighting force there, and finds out what real soldiering means. This amusing, and at times harrowing tale gives a comprehensive description of the life and conditions of a soldier in the tropics, obviously written by someone who has experienced them...

Christopher Quarles is a professor of philosophy and a private consulting detective. Quarles, along with his granddaughter Zena, assists Police Detective Murray Wigan in solving various crimes and mysteries in Victorian England. Whereas the police look for facts and then form a theory of a case, Quarles first forms a theory, often seemingly absurd and based on little more than intuition, then seeks facts in support of it. Of course, to the astonishment of all concerned, Quarles' theories usually...