Reginald in Russia is the title story in a collection of fifteen witty and satirical stories, sketches and one "playlet" by that master of the short story H. H. Munro, better Known as Saki. The stories are: Reginald in Russia -- The Reticence of Lady Anne -- The Lost Sanjak -- The Sex That Doesn't Shop -- The Blood-feud of Toad-Water -- A Young Turkish Catastrophe -- Judkin of the Parcels -- Gabriel-Ernest -- The Saint and the Goblin -- The Soul of Laploshka -- The Bag -- The Strategist -- Cross Currents -- The Baker's Dozen (A Playlet) -- The Mouse.

The Unbearable Bassington was the first novel written by Saki (H. H. Munro). It also contains much of the elegant wit found in his short stories. Comus (The Unbearable) Bassington, is a charming young man about town. His perversity however thwarts all his mother’s efforts to advance his prospects and lands him in hot water. Like many a “black sheep” he ends up being sent off to one of the colonies to fend for himself. This book showcases Saki’s wonderful writing and that ability to be so very funny and terribly sad at the same time.

LibriVox volunteers bring you 9 recordings of Eliza Crossing the River by Harriet Beecher Stowe. This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for April 27th, 2014.Harriet Beecher Stowe was an American abolitionist and author. Her novel Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) was a depiction of life for African Americans under slavery; it reached millions as a novel and play, and became influential in the United States and United Kingdom. It energized anti-slavery forces in the American North, while provoking widespread anger in the South...

Seven very short sweet stories by Pansy that you will not soon forget! They are stories children will love, and everyone can enjoy. They will make you smile and laugh and bring tears to your eyes. And each one teaches an important lesson in a sweet, encouraging way.

This is a small volume with short poems about flowers. Listeners may wish to refer to the online text, which includes very neat illustrations.

"The Roll-Call" is the sequel to the Clayhanger trilogy. This book concerns the young life of Clayhanger's stepson, George. George Edwin Cannon (he quickly dropped the surname Clayhanger), is an architect, in many ways representing the ambitions held by his stepfather, Edwin. However, he possesses an arrogance endowed by family wealth and Bennett examines with some aplomb the difficulty of bringing up children without spoiling them. George eventually joins the army and this is a fitting finale to this fine series.

The eyes of the Légionnaire, now grown accustomed to the glow of the light, made sure that the figure had not moved, nor was aware of his silent and furtive approach. Two plans of action suggested themselves, one to move behind the foliage to the right and intercept the monk with the lantern should he attempt to flee toward the lights of the house nearby, the other to risk all in a frank statement, a plea for charity and asylum. (A selection from Chapter 1. )

The second book by Huysmans concerning the religious development of the novelist Durtal, who in the first book experienced depravity and Satanism. In this book he struggles desperately to find a foothold in the Catholic faith. He is aided by his aesthetic sensitivities and the support of an understanding priest. But it is not until he undertakes a retreat in a Trappist monastery that he achieves depth of spiritual transformation.

This is a 1913 collection of ten short detective stories by a not well known writer. Jack Lanagan is a police reporter for a daily newspaper in San Francisco, who has the confidence of the chief of police and access to all sorts of levels of city life. - Summary by David Wales

Sequel to Miss Dee Dunmore Bryant. Being 20 minutes late after a day out with the Kedwins and Ben and Daisy, her siblings, starts a series of events in motion that lead Caroline Bryant to Philadelphia...and to people and situations she could never have foreseen. - Summary by TriciaG

One of a series of exciting adventure stories featuring Leroux's criminal mastermind Chéri-Bibi. When the story starts the "astonishing bandit", Chéri-Bibi, is languishing in a penal colony, somewhere in the darkest regions of the French empire. In the colony he has befriended a more noble type of prisoner, Raoul de Saint-Dalmas, known colloquially as the Nut. The dastardly forces of the Parisian, the Burglar, the Joker and the Caid get their enjoyment from interfering in our heroes' lives. Then there are the Chief and his warders, Pernambouc the Executioner and his assistant Monsieur Desiré, for Chéri-Bibi and the Nut, to contend with...

...he went over to a cracked mirror in the corner and examined his face, grinning at his image and touching the red marks with his fingers. "That was a love-tap for fair," he said. "I reckon I deserved it. But she oughtn’t to push a man too far. She was sure angry. Won’t speak now for a while." He turned with a confident air. "She’ll come around, though," he laughed. "You just bet she will." (From chapter 1 of The Forbidden Way)

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)...

Young and beautiful Helen Eskdale and fabulously wealthy Lord Teviot seem to be the perfect match. But when they marry, they find that misunderstandings and jealousies continually drive them apart. The machinations and intrigues of a large supporting cast surround the central question of whether their marriage will survive. Emily Eden's comedy of manners is reminiscient of Jane Austen's witty and ironic novels.

Olive Schreiner was a South African writer and intellectual born in 1855 to missionary parents in the Eastern Cape. She was one of the earliest campaigners for women's rights. She was also very critical of British Imperialism in her homeland and particularly of their racist policies against the Boers, Jews, Indians and the Black races of South Africa. As a result of her public support for the Boers, all her manuscripts and her house were burned during the Anglo-Boer War and she was interned in a concentration camp for several years...

It is early in the days of radio, and amateurs are using it more and more, and using it illegally. Enter Curlie Carson, who has the job of tracking down the miscreants. Sounds boring. You wouldn't expect high speed car chases, kidnapping, double dealing, and maybe even murder.

In the summer of 1921, a disenchanted journalist escapes the rat race for a drive in the country. But Mr. Barnstaple's trip exceeds his expectations when he and other motorists are swept 3,000 years into the future. The inadvertent time travelers arrive in a world that corresponds exactly to Barnstaple's ideals: a utopian state, free of crime, poverty, war, disease, and bigotry. Unfettered by the constraints of government and organized religion, the citizens lead rich, meaningful lives, passed in pursuit of their creative fancies...

A film company shooting a movie in Egypt becomes embroiled in events that happened in ancient Egypt. A supernatural adventure story about a pharaoh's curse and reincarnation... but with film directors and movie stars as our protagonists. (Written 5 years before King Tut was found!)

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.

This is a unique sequel to the book Titus: A Comrade of the Cross written in a very different style, though none the less memorable, full of excitement and suspense! The author combines several stories together with great skill and ease, creating tension, making you wonder how things can play out until the very climax is reached. A blind girl and her brother just barely surviving in Egypt, threatened by the slave trade, almost without hope, one day hear about miracles happening in Jerusalem. They fly for their lives, hoping against hope and when they finally get there they find themselves at the foot of the cross. Is it too late? Was all their suffering for nothing?

From the Preface - In these modern times of breathless hurry and great combines, when birth counts for nothing; when fortunes are made in a day and credit Is lost in an hour, men’s secrets are sometimes very strange ones. It is one of these which I have here revealed; one that will, I anticipate, both startle and puzzle the reader. The mystery is, in fact, one taken from the daily life about us, the truth concerning it having hitherto been regarded as strictly confidential by the persons herein mentioned, although I am now permitted by them to make the remarkable circumstances public.

As the title suggests, this work does flirt with the supernatural. Yet it is essentially a political novel—a utopian experiment in a fictitious Balkan country, the Land of the Blue Mountains. The story spans the years from 1892 to 1909. It includes a beautiful love story and an adventure tale—a double rescue requiring strength, cunning, and cutting-edge technology. These various aspects are unified by the character of the hero, a purely admirable individual whom we love and admire from the very first and who acquires immense power...

An abandoned young white woman dies with a baby in her arms in rural Japan. The child is raised by a Japanese woman. This child sees herself only as Japanese. As she grows older, necessity forces her into a racial awakening. And a romantic one.

After a night of drinking and gambling, John Ferguson has a terrifying dream of his neighbor being violently torn to shreds by an unknown attacker. When he wakes up, he sees a strange and bloodied woman climbing through his window, suffering from amnesia. These strange occurrences are brought to a chilling climax when, the next day, Ferguson learns that his dream came true, and his neighbor was indeed brutally murdered during the night! With suspicion mounting against the mysterious woman, Ferguson sets out to uncover her true identity and find the vicious killer in the process...

Two shorter stories in one book. In "Miss Priscilla Hunter," the church has been carrying debt for years. It's an embarrassment, and it is hindering them from doing necessary work. They've tried to chip away at it in the past with festivals and fundraisers, but it seems like it will never go away. Miss Hunter, a poor seamstress, finally takes matters into her own hands and works to KILL that debt once and for all! In "My Daughter Susan," we tag along with Susan in what is apparently a typical day for her, seeing how she works for others and her Lord, within the context of temperance.

Cross Currents: The Story of Margaret, to give it its full title, is delightful story about a little girl’s resilience and a mother’s unwavering love, from the beloved author of Pollyanna. Margaret Kendall (the Margaret of the story) has known nothing but love, wealth and privilege for the first five years of her life. An accident during a visit with her mother to New York City leaves little Margaret alone and fending for herself. While her mother searches desperately for her, Margaret has to do the best she can by herself...

Young Azerole Montoux and her brother Leon find themselves separated from their family by the religious persecutions of 1686. Threatened by the authorities and forced to depend on strangers, they must decide whether they can trust God to make sense out of the riddle of their lives.

Another remarkable World War I novel by Romer Wilson, "If All These Young Men" is a character study of a group of young 20-something friends in England dealing with the looming, grey presence of the War in their lives. The story begins on Good Friday 1918, and centers on Josephine Miller, a restless, strong-minded young woman who cannot tolerate trivialities or frivolities so long as the War goes on, and who agonizes over how to go on living in its shadow. The characters of Josephine and her friends...

A one-act play which describes the setting and writing of the Magna Carta, including the famous line "now is justice bought and sold" in the Prologue.

This story ran as a serial in 1852 in the New York Sunday Dispatch, and for more than 160 years was buried in obscurity, unknown to the world as novel written by Walt Whitman. Zachary Turpin, a graduate student specializing in Whitman's works, had seen in his notes a sketch of a novel including the characters Covert, Wigglesworth, Smytthe and Jack Engle, but no work including these characters had ever been found. After poring over endless pages of newspapers of the era however, Turpin found this advertisement for an upcoming serial: “A RICH REVELATION...

Here are 10 humorous short stories by Ring Lardner , an American sports columnist and short-story writer best known for his satirical writings on sports, marriage, and the theatre. His contemporaries Ernest Hemingway, Virginia Woolf, and F. Scott Fitzgerald all professed strong admiration for his writing.