A young carpenter falls in love with the village beauty. She, however, has set her sights on a dashing army captain who's the son of the wealthy local squire. Meanwhile, a beautiful and virtuous young woman preacher arrives in the village. What happens to these people and the strange twists and turns that their lives take are described in the rest of the book. Adam Bede was George Eliot's first published novel. Published in 1859, the book has remained a firm favorite with readers and academicians alike and is still taught in many English literature courses all over the world...

A king and queen are in despair. After years of marriage, they are yet to be blessed with a child. Finally a lovely daughter is born to them. They plan a grand christening ceremony for the baby, but as destiny would have it, they forget to invite the nastiest lady in the kingdom, who also happens to be the king's sister, the evil Princess Makemnoit. Now if all that seems distinctly familiar to you, it was meant to! Using the Sleeping Beauty/Briar Rose fairytale as a starting point, Scottish writer George MacDonald creates a story that's even more enchanting and gives it a nice little twist...

George MacDonald’s fairy stories and fantasy have inspired a number of writers including C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien and of this popular fairy story, which as you might suspect concerns a little princess plotted against by a race of goblins, G.K. Chesterton said that it “made a difference to my whole existence.”

Written by the man who mentored Lewis Carroll and encouraged him to submit Alice for publication, At the Back of the North Wind is today a forgotten classic of Victorian children's literature. The story tells of a young boy named Diamond, the son of a coachman in an English country mansion. Diamond sleeps in the hayloft above the stables and at night he finds he's disturbed by the wind blowing through the holes in the wall. He tries to plug them but one night, he hears an imperious voice scolding him for doing this! It is the magnificent North Wind that speaks to him and tells him that he's closed up her windows...

George MacDonald is mainly known for his fantasy works and fairy tales such as At the Back of the North Wind and The Princess and the Goblin. However, during his life he was more famous for many more realistic novels. . . among them the somewhat autobiographical Ranald Bannerman’s Boyhood. This story of a young motherless boy growing up with his brothers in a Scottish manse is full of delightful characters. There is Kirsty, an enchanting Highland storyteller, Turkey, the intrepid cowherd, the evil Kelpie, and the lovely Elsie Duff...

The Princess and Curdie is the sequel to The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald. It’s been a year since the Princess Irene and Curdie first met, and a year since the goblin incident and all appears to be going well in the Kingdom. Or is it? After a visit from Irene’s great-great-grandmother, Curdie finds himself on a mission to save the kingdom, with a rather strange companion in tow.

George MacDonald claimed that he did not write for children, but for the child-like. Some of his longer works are clearly intended for adults, and this fantastic fiction influenced later writers such as G.K. Chesterton, J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. But you can find some of his best writing in the stories aimed squarely at children, and these are three of the finest.The Light Princess. A wicked aunt curses her baby niece so that gravity has no effect on her, and she floats through the air as if it were water...

Joe Carstairs is a boy on a farm in Australia. His father is a keen naturalist who, some years before had set off for New Guinea in search of specimens, and never been heard of again. Joe is old enough to mount a search expedition, and takes with him a local doctor and an aboriginal worker on his farm. They find themselves joined by a stowaway, Jimmy, whose father is a squatter (farmer) nearby, together with his dog, Gyp.This team sets off, arrive in New Guinea, hire some more porters, and travel guided by some sixth sense straight to where Mr...

If you have read any accounts of adventure in Africa, you will know that travelers never mention animals of any kind that are gifted with the faculty of speech, or gazelles that are overseers for native princes, or hares that eat flesh. No, indeed; only the native-born know of these; and, judging by the immense and rapid strides civilization is making in those parts, it will not be long before such wonderful specimens of zoölogy will be as extinct as the ichthyosaurus, dinornis, and other poor creatures who never dreamed of the awful names that would be applied to them when they were too long dead to show their resentment...

Three children sent to stay the night with their Aunt Jane find themselves sharing an enormous bed. So enormous is it, that when they make a tent of the bedsheets and crawl in, they never make it to the foot of the bed, crawling instead into a dreamworld of caves and pirates and adventures.

H.G. Wells had so much fun playing with his children on the floor of their playroom, he decided to write a jovial little book to inspire other parents in their pursuit of quality time with the kids. While the raw materials available from hobby stores of his day were woefully short of the variety and quality of what can be bought easily now, he and his sons created their own worlds to rule. This short work describes two games of imagination played out upon the floor of his home – an archipelago of islands, and a thoroughly integrated city, conveniently organized with two mayoral positions for his sons “G...

This is satirical look at the English educational system and society in the early twentieth century and the effect of World War I on them by following the lives of Peter Stublands and the orphaned Joan. It is a sad indictment, and Wells includes "An Apology of a Schoolmaster" to explain the constraints of the system.

Ah, the wonderful adventures of Marian after she meets the strange Mr. Jugg. "And who are you, Mr Jugg?" she inquired. "I'm the King of the Bumpies," he replied. When Marian was puzzled there came a little straight line, exactly in the middle, between her two eyebrows. "What are bumpies?" she said. "My hat!" he gasped. "Haven't you ever heard of bumpies?" Marian shook her head. "Oh dear, oh dear!" he sighed. "Have you ever heard of angels?" "Well, of course," said Marian. "Everybody's heard of angels...

This is a collection of well known fairy tales by various authors, including the Brothers Grimm, Charles Perrault and many others.

The group of stories brought together in this volume differ from legends because they have, with one exception,no core fact at the centre, from myths because they make no attempt to personify or explain the forces or processes of nature, from fairy stories because they do not often bring to the stage actors from a different nature from ours.... The stories which make up this volume are closer to experience and come, from the most part, nearer to the every-day happenings of life.

We have always loved stories. people have always entertained each other by telling tales around the campfire; traveling storytellers were huge crowd-pullers. Many of these stories were passed down through the generations, largely unchanged. "The stories made by the people, and told before evening fires, or in public places and at the gates of inns in the Orient, belong to the ages when books were few and knowledge limited, or to people whose fancy was not hampered by familiarity with or care for...

Lisbeth Longfrock - (Sidsel Sidsærkin in its original Norwegian) was seen by the author as a book written for adults, telling the story of a young girl growing up in a farming district in a steep-sided Norwegian Valley. It was first written when the author's daughter was 8 years old, the age of Lisbeth when the book begins, so she would know about his childhood spent in similar surroundings, living on a farm and spending summer in charge of the cows and goats on the mountain pastures.

The Little Mermaid, The Ugly Duckling, The Snow Queen, The Real Princess and a host of other wonderful tales which form so much a part of childhood are part of Andersen's Fairy Tales, by Hans Christian Andersen. This volume contains eighteen selected stories. Some of them are old familiar friends, while others maybe new to some readers, but all of them equally enchanting and enthralling. Today, these stories are known almost everywhere in the world and have been translated into hundreds of languages...

Every boy and girl—and for that matter every man and woman, too—rejoices when the winter snows have vanished and the earth once more puts on her beautiful dress of green, for then the flowers wake from their sleep and clothe the earth with beauty. Because all boys and girls love flowers, those of them who read this book will be interested in the beautiful stories they have to tell, loving them even more when they know something of their past history and some of the events with which they are associated.

Hienrich Hoffmann was a German psychiatrist and doctor. He had written poetry and sketches for his son, and was persuaded to have a collection of these printed.The stories were not perceived as cruel or overly moral by Hoffmann's contemporaries.This American version contains a few of the stories from the original German "Struwwelpeter" publication.

Letters from a Cat: published by her mistress for the benefit of all cats and the amusement of little children is a collection of letters that a little girl receives from her pet while she is away from home. They tell of her pet’s adventures and misadventures. The book includes a preface which gives a little biography of the cat including its sad demise. H.H. was the alias of Helen Maria Hunt Jackson (1830 –1885) who is better known for her novel Ramona in which she dramatized the mistreatment of Native Americans and which formed part of her campaign for improved treatment of Native Americans by the U.S. Government.

History made interesting for young readers—This Country of Ours by Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall provides a simple and easy to comprehend way of looking at the history of the United States. Arranged chronologically in seven long chapters, it presents events in a story form, making them memorable and very different from other formats. One of the challenges that writers of history face is about fleshing out the characters and making the bland repetition of dates and dynasties seem relevant to modern day readers...

Christmas Eve. Guests round a fireside begin telling each other ghost stories. One of them relates a true incident involving the governess of his little nephew and niece. Strange events begin to take place, involving the housekeeper, a stranger who prowls round the grounds, a mysterious woman dressed in black and an unknown misdemeanor committed by the little nephew. The Turn of the Screw by Henry James was published in 1893 and it remains one of the best-known and admired works of this great American writer...

Tales of very tall men of myth, legend, history, and science - Summary by Henry Wysham Lanier

Parmenter and Lee are good friends who attend Concord College. But a hazing incident tears the friendship apart, and affects the lives of both the hazers and the hazee. And the whispering tongues of classmates of falsehoods, jealousy and rumor, serve only to make matters worse. Another heart-warming tale of disgrace and redemption from Homer Greene.

A tale of the Riverpark Academy for cadets, in which there is growing discontent leading to a revolt against the academy's leaders. The rebellion takes the form of an unauthorized "holiday" in which a number of cadets leave the grounds for a some fun, including attending a circus. The story follows one cadet's descent into dishonor and disgrace, and how he strives to become an honorable boy again. - Summary by Donald Cummings

Ernest Ray is a young boy who sets out to reclaim the inheritance that was unjustly with held from his father and given to a cousin. (Introduction by Abigail Rasmussen)

In this third installment from the “Ragged Dick” series by Horatio Algers, Jr., the reader is reacquainted with some old friends and meets young Mark Manton. Mark is a match boy plagued by bad luck and an even worse guardian. But, with new friends, hard work, and smart choices, Mark may just find his luck taking a turn for the better. summary by tfaulder