But he was afraid. He had failed twice already. He could not afford to fail a third time. If he failed ruin faced him, and disgrace. His father had warned him that the money he had saved for his education had come to an end. Ruin for his father and his little sister! He had no idea how deeply Rupert was in debt. Rupert himself had only just realised it. And in desperation he had gambled to save himself. (Excerpt from 1st chapter by Arthur Applin)

"Herbert West—Reanimator" is a story by American horror fiction writer H. P. Lovecraft that was first serialized in February through July 1922 in the amateur publication Home Brew. The story was the basis of the 1985 horror film Re-Animator and its sequels, in addition to numerous other adaptations in various media. You want zombies? Listen to this because Lovecraft was one of the very first and he got zombies right: scary, evil, implacable and out to get you.

This is what people were reading in 1903, short stories, poetry, and non-fiction articles.

In 1918, Anthony Trent, a well-educated young man in his late twenties, lives an unsatisfactory life in a New York boarding house. He writes successful crime fiction stories, but this doesn't pay enough for him to do the things he wants. Things change when he starts to put his knowledge of crime to a practical use... It gets him into serious trouble before long. (This work was first published in the USA in 1918, and falls under the Rule of the Shorter Term). The sequel to this book, The Secret of the Silver Car, is also available on Librivox.

Titus: A Comrade of the cross is a book full of suspense and drama, but more importantly truth. It is about Titus, a young man living in the time of Christ. He is a part of the lowest class of society, his father is a thief, and Titus' brother, whom He is very attached to, is a cripple. Titus and his brother, Stephen, abhor the life of their father, yet Titus has no choice but to join him and the rest of the group of law breakers and thieves occasionally. He yearns for somthing better. One day he hears of Jesus...

Student Lucile Tucker works part-time at the library of the large university she attends in Chicago to help pay her tuition. One night, while closing the library for the evening, she glimpses a small child – a girl – in the stacks. Carefully following her, Lucile can’t believe her eyes when the child, unaware that she has been seen, manages to steal a valuable book from the collection and practically disappear from the library right before Lucile’s eyes. This is only the beginning of her search for why this child took this book (and others)...

Originally entitled A frutefull pleasaunt, and wittie worke of the beste state of publique weale, & of the newe yle, called Utopia: written in Latine, by ... Syr Thomas More knyght, and translated into Englishe by Raphe Robynson ...The first book tells of the traveller Raphael Hythloday, to whom More is introduced in Antwerp. The second book consists of Hythloday's description of the island and people of Utopia, their customs, laws, religions, economy, language and relations with other nations. Hythloday...

What has Manton gotten himself into? His impersonation has broader implications -- and more dangerous ones -- than he had imagined.

Humans have expanded to myriads of worlds throughout the galaxies but they have found that the only way for colonies to be self sustaining, was to reproduce the total ecology of their home world; the original Earth. This meant bringing the entire ecosystem, the good, the bad and the ugly. Viruses as well as grass, goats as well as stink bugs and allowing the whole mixture to ultimately produce an inhabitable world for humans. But what happens when this system is not properly supervised? Moran and the others in the space yacht Nadine find a world where strange things have been brewing for over a hundred years and may or may not survive an environment gone mad.

Science fiction is a genre encompassing imaginative works that take place in this world or that of the author’s creation where anything is possible. The only rules are those set forth by the author. The speculative nature of the genre inspires thought, and plants seeds that have led to advances in science. Many people chose to become scientists because science fiction sparked their interest. It is a playing field to explore social perspectives, predictions of the future, and engage in adventures unbound into the richness of the human mind.-

A collection of twenty stories featuring ghoulies, ghosties, long-leggedy beasties and things that go bump in the night. Expect shivers up your spine, the stench of human flesh, and the occasional touch of wonder.

A dark tale of adventure, piracy, murder, and revenge set on a rugged Cornish island in the mid-1700s. Told with the literary excellence to be expected from the author of The Four Feathers, the tale begins with a dangerous youth who sat in the stocks, and a girl named Helen, and a gang of men watching a granite house at the edge of the sea. NOTE: Contains some language that would be considered offensive to the modern ear. (Christine Dufour)

Taken from Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes, Switzerland and Austria: Vol. XVI, edited by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

Eleven stories of war by the author of The Red Badge of Courage. Stephen Crane was an American author. He is recognized by modern critics as one of the most innovative writers of his generation. Crane's writing is characterized by vivid intensity, distinctive dialects, and irony. Common themes involve fear, spiritual crises and social isolation. His writing made a deep impression on 20th-century writers, most prominent among them Ernest Hemingway, and is thought to have inspired the Modernists and the Imagists.

William – an Englishman is a 1919 novel by Cicely Hamilton. The novel explores the effect of the First World War on a married couple during the rise of Socialism and the Suffragette movement. It was originally published by Skeffington & Son before being reprinted by Persephone Books in 1999. Described as 'a passionate assertion of the futility of war' by The Spectator, William - an Englishman won the first Prix Femina-Vie Heureuse Anglais prize in 1920.

A collection of twenty stories featuring ghoulies, ghosties, long-leggedy beasties and things that go bump in the night. Expect shivers up your spine, the stench of human flesh, and the occasional touch of wonder.

This is a collection of P.G. Wodehouse's short stories published in The Strand from 1918 to 1922. (kirk202) Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, KBE (15 October 1881 – 14 February 1975) was an English humorist, whose body of work includes novels, short stories, plays, poems, song lyrics and numerous pieces of journalism. He enjoyed enormous popular success during a career that lasted more than seventy years, and his many writings continue to be widely read.

Idomen (1843) is the creative-nonfiction memoir of the beautiful and brilliant American poetess Maria Gowen Brooks, who was compared in the 19th century to Byron and Swinburne. In it she tells the story of an ill-fated love affair she had twenty years earlier while traveling with her young son in Canada following the death of her much older husband. The traumatic breakup led to suicide attempts on her part, which romantic masochist Brooks byronically relates in full, albeit changing everybody's name...

A young man of good family with a long distinguished military tradition indicates that he will not follow his ancestors' path into the army. Dire results ensue. Benjamin Britten in 1970 wrote an opera based on this story. (

The House of the Dead is a novel published in 1861 by Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky, which portrays the life of convicts in a Siberian prison camp. Dostoyevsky himself spent four years in exile in such a camp following his conviction for involvement in the Petrashevsky Circle. This experience allowed him to describe with great authenticity the conditions of prison life and the characters of the convicts. The narrator, Aleksandr Petrovich Goryanchikov, has been sentenced to penalty deportation to Siberia and ten years of hard labour...

It is Paris sometime after the Franco-Prussian War (1870--Germany won--the French Second Republic collapsed--France embittered). A French poet and a German composer come to admire one another's work and decide to collaborate on an opera. There are costs to pay. ( david wales)

Eamont was an opium clipper built in Cowes. It was the subject of an 1891 book, A cruise in an opium clipper, by Captain Lindsay Anderson. Eamont was involved in the opening of Japan to foreigners in 1858, serving as a dispatch boat between Nagasaki and Shanghai, and was one of the first vessels to open up a trade with Formosa…. The Eamont was sent on some very dangerous trips. She was one of the first vessels to open up a trade with Formosa, and made the first survey of the port of Taku, which she entered by bumping over the reef in spite of a tremendous surf beating upon it at the time, a most daring performance...

Ellis Parker Butler was an American author. He was the author of more than 30 books and more than 2,000 stories and essays. These are eight of his humorous short stories about life.

Iracema (translated as Iracema, the Honey Lips: a legend of Brazil) is considered one of the most important books of Brazilian romanticism, but also of Brazilian literature as a whole. It's been called a poem in prose, a poetic novel, a fictional-historical novel, an indianist novel, an epic-lyric narrative, a mythic poem. The obvious difficulty in defining this work shows its many facets: legendary, narrative, poetic, lyric, mythic. The story revolves around the unexpected appearance of a Portuguese warrior in the lands of the Tabajara indians, on the shores of Ceará, Brazil, in the early years of the 16th century...

The Return of Sherlock Holmes is set three years after the detective fell to his death in the Reichenbach Falls in his final struggle with Moriarty. Or did he? In the first story of the series Holmes explains to Watson what really happened that day, followed by twelve more adventures of the dynamic duo including two of Doyle's own favourite stories: The Dancing Men and The Second Stain. Other notable characters in this book include Black Peter and Charles Augustus Milverton. Watson: Cori SamuelHolmes:...

An 1881 comic story by Nikolai Leskov, presented in the form of a traditional skaz or folk-tale, but entirely of Leskov's invention. It tells the story of a left-handed Russian artisan required to impress Tsar Nikolas I with his craftsmanship by outdoing some famous Englishmen who have created a tiny mechanical flea. The Russian smith barricades himself with two skilled colleagues in his workshop until finally forced to come out and reveal the brilliant result of his labor. Far more famous in Russia than in the West, the story of The Steel Flea reveals much about nineteenth-century Russian attitudes toward the West and toward their own country, but is difficult to categorize...

The Power-House is a novel by John Buchan, a thriller set in London, England. It was written in 1913, when it was serialised in Blackwood's Magazine, and it was published in book form in 1916. The narrator is the barrister and Tory MP Edward Leithen, who features in a number of Buchan's novels. The urban setting contrasts with that of its sequel, John Macnab, which is set in the Scottish Highlands. The Power-House of the title is an international anarchist organization led by a rich Englishman named Andrew Lumley...

Messrs. Mallalieu and Cotherstone were outsiders who had built a prosperous business in Highmarket and even been elected as Mayor and Treasurer of the borough. But when an ex-detective moves to town, 30 years of respectability is suddenly threatened by revelations from the past.

The Metamorphosis (German: Die Verwandlung, also sometimes translated as The Transformation) is a novella by Franz Kafka, first published in 1915. It has been cited as one of the seminal works of fiction of the 20th century and is studied in colleges and universities across the Western world. The story begins with a traveling salesman, Gregor Samsa, waking to find himself transformed (metamorphosed) into a large, monstrous insect-like creature. The cause of Samsa's transformation is never revealed, and Kafka never did give an explanation...

The Letters of a Portuguese Nun (Les Lettres Portugaises) were first published anonymously in Paris in 1669. The five passionate letters in book form were a publishing sensation since their appearance, with five editions in the first year, followed by more than forty editions throughout the 17th century. A Cologne edition of 1669 stated that the Marquis de Chamilly was their addressee, but, aside from the fact that she was female, the author's name and identity remained unknown. The letters were...

Probably the most famous allegory ever written of the Christian life, The Pilgrim's Progress follows the journey of Christian from his first encounter with the Evangelist, through his trials and doubts and as he meets various people who help and hinder him in his journey towards the Celestial City to meet his King. Part 2 follows the journey of Christian's wife and sons as they follow him along the same path past the Slough of Despond, the Castle Despair and Vanity Fair. This version was edited in 1909 by the Rev...

The Randolphs is the sequel to Household Puzzles, and opens shortly after the previous book ends. It follows the "leadings of the Randolph family", as Tom puts it in the last chapter. Helen's discontent with life, Grace's ill-matched engagement, and Maria's self-sufficiency -- how God works all of it out despite the stubbornness of the participants.

Young peoples book of adventure in aviation with young women in the lead rolls. This is in the earlier days of aviation.

In science-fiction, as in all categories of fiction, there are stories that are so outstanding from the standpoint of characterization, concept, and background development that they remain popular for decades. Two such stories were Murray Leinster's The Mad Planet and Red Dust. Originally published in 1923, they have been reprinted frequently both here and abroad. They are now scheduled for book publication. Especially for this magazine, Murray Leinster has written the final story in the series. It is not necessary to have read the previous stories to enjoy this one...

The Blazing World by Margaret Cavendish is, all at once, a satire, a treatise on natural philosophy, a work of proto-science fiction, and a defiant venture into a scientific world where women were not usually allowed. It tells the tale of a young Lady who is kidnapped by a man that tries to sail away with her. Through divine interference, however, the ship is tossed into a storm and everyone but the Lady perishes. Blown up to the North Pole, she inadvertently passes into to another world, the Blazing World, where she is almost immediately made supreme ruler...

The short stories of Giovanni Verga, one of the leading authors of Italian verismo, or realism, tell mostly of working-class characters in rural, 19th-century Sicily. One of these stories, "Rustic Chivalry," or "Cavalleria rusticana," was the basis for the opera of the same name by Mascagni.

A lawyer is leaving his office on the top floor of an office building. He sees the shadows of two men fighting through the clouded glass of an office door followed by a shot from the office across the hall. He goes to investigate. He finds no sign of either victim or assailant despite the fact that no one could have passed him in the hallway without being seen. A murder has been committed, that of the banker. Who is the murderer? A business associate, the banker’s beautiful ward, or a mysterious...

Bill Nye was a respected journalist who also became known as a humorist. His short pieces range from a description of a visit to a friend residing in Ludlow prison, to “advice” to a son, to a wry commentary on his visits to Oakland, California. From real estate “investments” to accounts of less than ideal train passengers, Mr. Nye had his eye trained on the ironies of life, addressing them in the only sure way to preserve sanity, with humor.

In this detective novel, the young doctor Humphrey Jardine stumbles upon a corpse during a walk near Hampstead Heath in the middle of the night. However, when he returns to the spot with a police officer, the corpse has disappeared. And this is just the start of a series of strange and sometimes life threatening events. Had it really been a dead man he had seen? And if so, who was it? And what is the role of the mysterious Mrs. Samway, who keeps popping up wherever he goes? He will need the help of Dr...

This is the first book written by Homer Greene, whose primary occupation was lawyer. It tells of 14-year-old Tom Taylor, and his 12-year-old blind brother Bennie, who work in the Pennsylvania coal mines in the late 1800s, earning money for an operation for the younger lad. A story of strikes and mine "falls" (cave-ins) along the way.

Frey and his Wife is a Nordic Saga, but written in a saga style by a 20th Century Englishman. It tells the tale of Gunnar, a Norwegian wrongly accused of murder who flees across the mountains to the pagan forests of Sweden. There he meets 'Frey' a Norse god, and a young woman who has become his wife. Animosity develops between Frey and Gunnar over the local ritual of human sacrifice which leads to an interesting outcome. The tale develops themes of religion, idolatory, and love, set in the time when Christianity was starting to displace pagan religion in Scandinavia. (Kevin Green)

When the veteran captain of the St. Mary's baseball team is forced to resign at the beginning of the season, the choice for his replacement falls quickly upon the star pitcher. But can the new captain manage to rally the team, cope with detractors, and win the coach's confidence--all while still keeping his pitching arm in shape? And when fresh disasters threaten to wreck the big game, is there anything he can do to save it?

"Deadwood Dick", the straight shooting, hard riding hero of the dime novel series "Deadwood Dick" takes on train robbers and other villans in this rip-snotrin', tale of the old west. Deadwood Dick has made his way through many dangerous escades before his, but has he met his match this time? Why is there a horseshoe brand burned into this chest? Will he save the heroine? Listen to this dashing story as our hero puts himself in danger to protect the innocent and right wrongs in each exciting chapter.

Two temple statues, one with the most beautiful of features, the other a hideous sight, are at the core of this tale of adventure and the supernatural. Carved by Chinese craftsmen, they have stood to either side of the great Buddha for hundreds of years, worshipped and protected by generations of priests.Taken together, they represent human nature in balance, the spiritual with the bestial, the Soul with the Body. But what if they are separated? Ancient legend warns of disaster to anyone who disturbs that balance...

A collection of twenty stories featuring ghoulies, ghosties, long-leggedy beasties and things that go bump in the night. Expect shivers up your spine, the stench of human flesh, and the occasional touch of wonder.

Science fiction is a genre encompassing imaginative works that take place in this world or that of the author’s creation where anything is possible. The only rules are those set forth by the author. The speculative nature of the genre inspires thought and plants seeds that have led to advances in science. The genre can spark an interest in the science and is cited as the impetus for the career choice of many scientists. It is a playing field to explore social perspectives, predictions of the future, and engage in adventures unbound into the richness of the human mind.

Fifteen short stories by Algernon Henry Blackwood, CBE (1869 – 1951), an English short story writer and novelist, one of the most prolific writers of ghost stories in the history of the genre. He was also a journalist and a broadcasting narrator. S. T. Joshi has stated that "his work is more consistently meritorious than any weird writer's except Dunsany's…"

John Ackworth was the pen name of the Rev. Frederick R. Smith, a Methodist minister who was born in Snaith, Yorkshire, but spent much of his career as a circuit preacher in Lancashire. Beckside Lights is the sequel to his popular collection of stories Clog Shop Chronicles. Set in the fictional village of Beckside (said to be somewhere between Manchester and Bolton), the book consists of 12 tales of everyday life in a close-knit Methodist community, which continue with a third volume, Doxy Dent (1899)...

This is the tenth collection of our "coffee break" series, involving public domain works that are between 3 and 15 minutes in length. These are great for work/study breaks, commutes, workouts, or any time you'd like to hear a whole story and only have a few minutes to devote to listening. The theme for this collection is "war and conflict" - From battles to pub brawls to divorce, studying human conflict has produced some of the most powerful pieces of writing.

Charles Felix was the pseudonym of Charles Warren Adams, an English Lawyer and publisher and is now known to have been the author of "The Notting Hill Mystery", thought to be the first full length detective novel in English. The story first appeared as an eight part serial in a weekly magazine in 1862, and was subsequently published as a single volume novel in 1865. The story deals with the then newly emerging field of 'mesmerism' which we now know as hypnotism, and its use in the planning and execution of three truly devious crimes...

Joel, a crippled boy, cannot play with the children and has nothing to care about. Rabbi Phineas helps him to find something he can do and tells him the reason that he is so kind is because of a boy from his hometown of Nazareth. Soon stories are going about everywhere of miracles, and some people think that the Messiah has come. Then someone tells Joel he should ask for his back to be healed. Will Joel be able to find the miracle worker?

Hagar Stanley, a beautiful young Gypsy, is driven by sexual harassment to leave her tribe and seek refuge with her uncle Jacob, a miserly London pawnbroker. He dies after teaching Hagar the business, and she takes over running the popshop till the legitimate heir can be traced. In the odd assortment of objects that pass across her counter, Hagar uncovers one mystery after another. Some items are linked to actual crimes, others to iniquitous acts of human deceit and betrayal. Whether investigating independently or alongside the police, Hagar combines her native shrewdness with woman's intuition to help untangle the webs of wickedness she encounters, that justice might prevail in the end...

The way we feel about another person, or about objects, is often bound up in associations that have no direct connection with the person or object at all. Often, what we call a "change of heart" comes about sheerly from a change in the many associations which make up our present viewpoint. Now, suppose that these associations could be altered artificially, at the option of the person who was in charge of the process.... (from the Blurb )

When the God-fearing Herzog of Thuringia dies, the Irish missionary settlements face the wrath of his bitterly heathen wife, Geila, and her son, now Herzog Hedan. But when Hedan falls in love with Bilihild, a young Christian maiden, he offers peace to his Christian subjects if Bilihild will become his wife. As Bilihild strives to love her new husband and protect her people, she faces increasing difficulty and danger, especially from her jealous mother-in-law. As the clouds thicken around her, Bilihild must put her entire reliance on the God whom she honors and loves.

"The storm had descended swiftly, sweeping in suddenly from the sea, driving across the downs to the hills at high speed, blotting out the faint rays of a crescent moon and hiding the country-side beneath a pall of blackness, which was forked at intervals by flashes of lightning." - Book's opening sentence

World War I stories, as told through the eyes of someone who was there, but leavened with humour and an eye for the ridiculous side of human nature. This is a collection of McNeile's early short stories, drawing on his experiences with the Royal Engineers Corps. These are the memoirs which describe the experiences that made him who he was, and gave him his famous name "Sapper". The first half is made up of separate stories, the second half is selected accounts from the life of "Jim Denver" in Ypres and France.

CLARA VAUGHAN, the young heroine, narrator, and namesake for R. D. Blackmore’s early detective novel, is determined to solve the mystery of her father’s murder—a crime that occurred when she was only 10 years of age. The third volume of the trilogy concludes the account of Clara’s adventures, romances, and encounters with many eccentric characters while she finally unravels the mystery. As Clara explains to the reader in an early chapter: “How that deed was done, I learned at once, and will tell. By whom and why it was done, I have given my life to learn.” R. D. Blackmore, undoubtedly better known for his later novel Lorna Doone, published this book anonymously in 1864.

"The Machine Stops" is a science fiction story by E. M. Forster. After initial publication in 1909 the story was republished in Forster's The Eternal Moment and Other Stories in 1928. After being voted one of the best novellas up to 1965, it was included that same year in the populist anthology Modern Short Stories. In 1973 it was also included in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume Two. The story is particularly notable for predicting new technologies such as instant messaging and the Internet...

In "An Anonymous Story," Chekhov continues to explore his favorite themes of superfluous men, ironic rakes, exploited women, and the dangers of social conventions to human happiness. The Anonymous Narrator is a feckless, would-be revolutionary who gets himself hired on as a flunkey in the household of the young useless aristocrat Orlov, hoping to spy out some useful information for the Cause. Orlov seduces the beautiful Zinaida Fyodorovna away from her husband but quickly tires of her. The Narrator, another in the long line of Russian literary superfluous men, allows Orlov to use him to deceive Zinaida Fyodorovna, hating himself for it all the while...

A provincial youth of wealth and noble status refuses to employ himself in the typical occupations of the higher classes, thus acquiring a reputation as a lazy good-for-nothing. In reality, he is intensely sensitive to the injustices perpetrated by his social class upon the working classes of town and country, and resolves to become a common laborer, taking employment as a house painter and ikon gilder. All classes of society around him respond to this revolutionary action with bewilderment and ridicule, even the lowest workmen feeling threatened by this insolent shaking of the cosmic structure...