Gertrude Barrows Bennett was the first major female writer of fantasy and science fiction in the United States, publishing her stories under the pseudonym Francis Stevens. Bennett wrote a number of highly acclaimed fantasies between 1917 and 1923 and has been called "the woman who invented dark fantasy". Citadel of Fear is considered Francis Stevens' masterpiece, by Lovecraft's acclaim. Two adventurers discover a lost city in the Mexican jungle. One is taken over by an evil god while the other falls in love with a woman from the ancient Mexican city of Tlapallan...

An early werewolf novel, praised by H.P Lovecraft. The only weird fiction from an author of mainly crime fiction. Two strange disappearances occur on a road in Sussex. The second involved a member of the aristocracy and a famous actress, so a large, but fruitless investigation is held by Scotland Yard. An American, visiting an old friend, who is of the local gentry, suspects something horrible and begins to investigate to verify his fears..

I am inclined to rank Count Tolstoy not among the realists or naturalists, but rather as an impressionist. He is often careless about accuracy. Numberless incongruities can be pointed out. He is as willing to adopt an anachronism as a medieval painter. I would defy an historian to reconstruct the battle of Austerlitz from Count Tolstoy's description. And yet what a picture of a battle was ever more vivid! It is like a painting where the general impression is true, but a close analysis discovers...

The best of science fantasy meets the best of science fiction as Tedric battles his way through two universes of adventure: In one universe...Tedric the Ironmaster wields the mightiest sword his world has ever seen - and swears to break the power of the evil god Sarpedion, or die in the attempt. This is the second in a series and takes place when Tedric, now a Lord, begins learning how to plan and observe instead of just rushing in to kill. In another universe...only Tedric's strength and daring stand between the dwindling power of the Terran Empire and total alien conquest...

The Dark is a novella about a desperate young man, a “terrorist and nihilist”, trying to avoid arrest by taking refuge in a brothel. The story focuses on his unfolding relationship with a prostitute in the brothel and the internal conflict which torments him. The author, Leonid Andreyev, an acclaimed Russian playwright and writer of short fiction, was noted for the darkness in his work. This book was published by Leonard and Virginia Woolf. ( Lee Smalley)

A collection of fiction, non-fiction and poetry on travels in Lancashire, England, with occasional sorties into adjacent counties.

While riding a stage back to the city late in the summer, a youngster had no money to spend, and so gives his lucky piece as payment to a young girl selling berries by the roadside. As time passes, in the Adirondack mountains of northern New York state, a tale unfolds involving two young women, two young men, and a bevy of characters the likes of which lend to a series of events which make up a fascinating story. Constance was one not to be controlled, she was a free spirit, as in fairy tales, wont to follow the moment rather than ideas presented to her by others...

Twenty stories originally published in the Christmas editions of the magazines “Household Words” and “All The Year Round”. Some of the stories have little holiday sentiment and exhibit much of the indignation Dickens felt at the social and economic injustices of his day. Some of the stories were written in collaboration with other authors. The editor of this volume chose to omit those other chapters and include only Dickens' work. The result is that some of the stories are a bit choppy, not to say confusing.

There was no life on the asteroid, but the miles of rock-hewn corridors through which the earth party wandered left no doubt about the purpose of the asteroid. It was a mighty fortress, stocked with weapons of destruction beyond man's power to understand. And yet there was no life here, nor had there been for untold centuries. What race had built this stronghold? What unimaginable power were they defending against? Why was it abandoned? There was no answer, all was dead. But—not quite all. For in a room above the tomb-like fortress a powerful transmitter beamed its birdlike, fluting sounds toward earth...

A novel written in three volumes. In the golden age of steam, the London train wends its way across the Tamar into the strange and mystic land that is Cornwall, having left most of its length at Plymouth. A weary doctor gazes at the countryside, when the train grinds to a halt and his professional attention is demanded. A young woman. An apparent suicide. Who was she? What brought her to Cornwall? What drove her to kill herself? Or did she?

From 1843 to 1848, Charles Dickens wrote a series of five novellas to be published at Christmas. Most people are familiar with the first, "A Christmas Carol." The others are "The Chimes," "The Cricket on the Hearth," "The Battle of Life," and "The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain."

Mrs Armytage is a widowed landowner, spirited, independent and very much used to having her own way and exercising total dominance over her family. She is acutely aware of social distinctions, proud of her power and prestige, and stands on her dignity to the point of becoming cold, judgemental and aloof. Her character flaws bring her into conflict with her children when her son Arthur announces his choice of a wife who is very much below their rank, and much will happen before Mrs Armytage learns to repent her behaviour...

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...

In a rundown farmhouse near isolated, rural Dunwich, a bizarre family conjures and nurtures an evil entity from another realm, with the purpose of destroying the world and delivering it to ancient gods to rule, and only an aged university librarian can stop them. The Dunwich Horror was first published in 1929 in Weird Tales.

Haedaecker’s Theory claims that real-time communications across space is impossible. Paul Grayson believes that Z-wave technology will make real time communication possible. Paul sets out to prove his theory but there are those who don’t want him to succeed. Follow Paul’s adventures while he tries to prove his theory correct in the face of stiff opposition from those who do not want him to succeed.

A manhunt for a bank robber takes a determined and fixated New York City detective on a gripping, globe-spanning adventure, with many plot twists along the way. Arthur Stringer was a novelist, screenwriter and poet. He published 45 works of fiction and 15 other books in addition to writing numerous film scripts and articles. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Stringer_(writer) This book is unrelated to the 1930s and 1940s pulp magazine and radio series of the same name. (Lee Smalley)

A 1919 pulp-press tale of deepest darkest Africa.

An amusing but deeply poignant story, “The Last Ditch” describes the wartime experiences of a British aristocratic family who gradually realize that their old feudal perquisites are passing away in the trenches of the Great War and that unprecedented new forces are pushing out the comfortable old ways. Lady Arles is the matriarch determined to resist to her last breath. Her bohemian young daughter Venice is set on a career as a poet and even dallies with a Socialist lover, but in some ways is the family member who seems the most helpless without her old aristocratic privileges...

There's nothing that sly troublemaker Sammy Jay likes better than stealing corn - unless it's playing tricks on the other animals in the forest. Yet Chatterer the Red Squirrel would like to keep his corn, thank you very much, and while he's at it prove he is just as smart as Sammy Jay! Thornton Burgess takes us once again into the charming world of the Green Forest and Green Meadows in this delightful story.

The Tale of Genji (Genji Monogatari) is a classic work of Japanese literature attributed to the Japanese noblewoman Murasaki Shikibu in the early eleventh century, around the peak of the Heian Period. It is sometimes called the world's first novel, the first modern novel, the first romance novel, or the first novel to still be considered a classic... The Genji was written for the women of the aristocracy (the yokibito) and has many elements found in a modern novel: a central character and a very...

One of the so-called "Chronicles of Carlingford", of which there were two short stories and five novels written from 1861 to 1876 by Margaret Oliphant Wilson Oliphant. The Chronicles originally appeared in the famous Blackwood's Magazine. Mrs. Oliphant wrote prolifically in her career, and many of her main characters were independent, resourceful women. In fact, Miss Marjoribanks has been occasionally cited as the successor to Jane Austen's Emma, albeit Miss Marjoribanks is more focused, less pliable and a decidedly more strategic thinker than dear Emma.

The year is 2353. Tom Corbett is a cadet with the Space Academy, training to become a member of the elite Solar Guard. Sent on a top-secret mission across the stars, Tom and his fellow crew members discover the nature of true loyalty, as they battle against danger in deep space.

This book is set in 1980 in the Republic of Britannula, which is a fictional island near New Zealand. It deals with euthanasia as a radical solution to the problem of the aged. The novel is in the form of a personal account written by the President of Britannula about the island's recent history. It has often been said that when the book came out Trollope had reached the age of 67. Interesting is the fact that this is the exact age at which all Britannulans are required by law to retire from their worldly affairs and begin a year of preparation for death.

Annie Elfrida McLane lives in a little brown house of the South Dakota prairie, within sight of the Black Hills. Her father is a widower and prospects for gold there; Annie lives at home with her grandmother and the servants, Marthy Stubbs and Pete Pumpernickle. Annie has no neighbours, no other children to play with, and no school to attend; she is sometimes lonely and despondent. She is dependent for company on her black cat Silvertip, the farm animals around her, and creatures of the surrounding fields and meadows that she sometimes makes her pets...

François-Dominique Toussaint L’Ouverture (1743-1803) rose to fame in 1791 during the Haitian struggle for independence. In this revolt, he led thousands of slaves on the island of Hispañola to fight against the colonial European powers of France, Spain and England. The former slaves ultimately established the independent state of Haiti and expelled the Europeans. L’Ouverture eventually became the governor and Commander-In-Chief of Haiti before recognizing and submitting to French rule in 1801...

When Ronald Mervyn from Devonshire is falsely accused of murder he emigrates to South Africa. He takes part in the Kaffir war and during this time he rescues a family from death. The family then return to England and try to establish Ronald's innocence.

An introverted, kind-hearted book collector befriends a mad scientist, who isn’t exactly a good friend. When the scientist falls in love with the book collector’s fiancée, he concocts an evil plot to have her for his own. Edgar Fawcett was a prolific author of standard fiction. With Douglas Duane he stepped out of his genre and created an unusual weird fiction work.

To follow up on the heels of volumes 1 and 2 of "The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes" released on Librivox, here is a collection of stories starring his contemporary American rivals. Brought together and re-published in a single volume by Hugh Greene in 1979, this set of readings goes back to and uses the original source material.

Arthur Kipps, an orphaned draper’s assistant of humble means, unexpectedly inherits a large sum of money and that is when all his troubles begin. Wanting to marry above his social class, he has to learn how to lead a genteel life, but that is too much for him. You would think that his decision to revert to Ann, his boyhood love, would solve his problems and bring him back to earth and contentment. But even now the consequences of being wealthy are not easy to live with. A poignant tale about ambition and social class in England in the early 20th century by H.G. Wells, a master of this genre, who drew on features of his own life to provide some of the material

A fine adventure set in 10th-century England at a time when everyday life in north was made hazardous by wars and shifting alliances among Saxon, British and Norse rulers. Thorstein, like his father Swein before him, is a peaceful Norse settler but brave and ready for battle when the time comes. His adventures as child and man will appeal to younger listeners, while older listeners can enjoy a history lesson into the bargain. W. G. Collingwood, artist and antiquarian, set the story in his adopted...

A collection of some of Hans Christian Andersen's works. He is a Danish author and poet most famous for his fairy tales.

Madge and Ella have lived at Clover Cottage for six weeks when a series of strange events begin to occur. A gentleman who arrives asking for a piano lesson from Madge, suddenly bolts out the back door and over the hedge when he sees a rough-looking character watching him from the street in front of the cottage. This man in turn, runs away when he sees a shabbily dressed woman come around the corner. The woman, marches into the cottage, declaring that the cottage is haunted, and she is the wife of the ghost! An attempted burglary, and a cryptic note left at the scene, just add to the mystery.

Collection of 32 essays by American authors ranging from Benjamin Frannklin to Emerson to Whitman to Henry James to Theodore Roosevelt. On subjects from the gout to insects with a 24 hour life span to old bachelors to leaves of grass to the odes of Horace. It seems to be an attempt to show off the Americans as writers.

This is a collection of science fiction short stories.

Vairagya Shatakam is one of the best books that gives the true picture of Renunciation. The book talks on how a common man gets lured by the endless desires which when satisfied fetches him nothing but the desires again. It concludes saying how these unsatiable desires mislead the man from knowing his real nature-omnipotence, omnipresence and omniscience!

This is a collection of international fairy tales clocking in at 5-15 minutes apiece, suitable for childrens' winter cocoa breaks, or other times when quality entertainment is needed.

The value of the honey bee in cross pollinating the flowers of fruit trees makes it desirable that exact information be available concerning the actions of the bee when gathering and manipulating the pollen. The results recorded in this manuscript are also of value as studies in the behavior of the bee and will prove interesting and valuable to the bee keeper. The work here recorded was done by Dr. Casteel during the summers of 1911 and 1912.

Mary Fortune is best known for The Detective's Album, the longest-running early detective serial anywhere in the world. Written under the name Waif Wander and narrated by detective Mark Sinclair, The Detective's Album was serialized for forty years in the Australian Journal from 1868 to 1908. (Wikipedia) These stories were read from scans from the University of Queensland library - there is no online Etext

collection contains: -The £1,000,000 Bank-Note -Mental Telegraphy -A Cure for the Blues -The Enemy Conquered; or, Love Triumphant -About all Kinds of Ships -Playing Courier -The German Chicago -A Petition to the Queen of England -A Majestic Literary Fossil This Mark Twain short story collection was published in 1893, in a disastrous decade for the United States, a time marked by doubt and waning optimism, rapid immigration, labor problems, and the rise of political violence and social protest. It was also a difficult time for Twain personally, as he was forced into bankruptcy and devastated by the death of his favorite daughter, Suzy...

LibriVox’s Short Story Collection 055: a collection of 20 short works of fiction in the public domain read by a group of LibriVox members, including stories by J. M. Barrie, O. Henry, Jerome, Joyce, London, Saki, R. L. Stevenson, Trollope, Wilde and Wodehouse.

Canadian novelist Guy Morton's Rangy Pete is one of a trio of westerns he wrote in the 1920s (the other two being Black Gold and Wards of the Azure Hills). In this one, the Gary Cooper-esque title character, Rangy Pete, goes up against the Dervishers, and outlaw clan that's been stirring up trouble for the peaceable folks of Triple Butte. In so doing, he encounters a beautiful blue-eyed girl-bandit who promptly throws a lasso around his heart. As the action heats up, the grandeur of magnificent western landscape does battle with the picturesqueness of Rangy's colorful cowboy argot, and the reader comes out the winner...

Cranford is set in a small market town populated largely by a number of respectable ladies. It tells of their secrets and foibles, their gossip and their romances as they face the challenges of dealing with new inhabitants to their society and innovations to their settled existence. It was first published between 1851 and 1853 as episodes in Charles Dickens’ Journal Household Words. Appended to this recording is a short sequel, The Cage at Cranford, written ten years later and published in the journal All the Year Round...

”Let no one make you think that you are too young to serve God. That is not true. As soon as you know right from wrong, you are old enough to begin taking the right way. As soon as you are old enough to be punished for doing wrong, you are old enough to give your heart to God, and to follow Christ.” So Rev. Ryle speaks to children of all ages. He does not speak down to children, for even the littlest ones can understand great spiritual truths. Instead, he teaches them in simple language what it means to be a true follower of Jesus and challenges them to live a better life whatever their age by following Jesus’ example – messages we adults could profit from as well...

The author used a yearly calendar to focus on pieces written by Southern authors. Many of these writers are little known, having created for their own enjoyment or peace of mind, not necessarily for publication.

Red Sensua's knife came up dripping—and the two adventurers knew that chaos and bloody revolution had been unleashed in that shadowy kingdom of the fourth dimension.

You who have read "The Mad Planet" by Murray Leinster, will welcome the sequel to that story. The world, in a far distant future, is peopled with huge insects and titanic fungus growths. Life has been greatly altered, and tiny Man is now in the process of becoming acclimated to the change. We again meet our hero Burl, but this time a far greater danger menaces the human race. The huge insects are still in evidence, but the terror they inspire is as nothing compared to the deadly Red Dust. You will follow this remarkable story with breathless interest...

Dot and Tot of Merryland is a 1901 novel by L. Frank Baum. After Baum wrote The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, he wrote this story about the adventures of a little girl named Dot and a little boy named Tot in a land reached by floating on a river that flowed through a tunnel. The land was called Merryland and was split into seven valleys.

LibriVox volunteers bring you 15 recordings of The Smoke Upon Your Altar Dies by Rudyard Kipling. This was the Weekly Poetry project for January 6, 2013.Joseph Rudyard Kipling was an English short-story writer, poet, and novelist chiefly remembered for his tales and poems of British soldiers in India, and his tales for children. Kilping was one of the most popular writers in England, in both prose and verse, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In 1907 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, making him the first English-language writer to receive the prize, and to date he remains its youngest recipient...

A comic dialogue written in John Collier's idiosyncratic version of the 18th century South Lancashire dialect together with a collection of 19th century texts on Collier and his work. Egged on by Meary (Mary), Tummus (Thomas) recounts the series of misadventures that ensue when he makes a trip to Rochdale on an errand for his master. First published in 1746, the text grew over subsequent editions as Collier expanded the story, added a preface in which he berates publishers who had pirated his work, and inflated and amended his glossary...

One of the greatest works of poetry in history, this lyric poem presents the deep feelings and emotions of the poet on subjects such as life, death, love, God and destiny.

A classic mystery/detective story in the Sherlock Holmes tradition, the hidden room suggested by the title of this book does not remain a mystery for very long as the book progresses. Written in the first person, the husband of his (Carlton Davies) former lover is found dead one night at the stroke of midnight, and Davies finds his ex-lover standing over the dead body immediately after the shot was fired, with a gun in her hand. It was no secret that she never truly loved her husband, who had blackmailed her into marrying him...

Chip Delany's 2nd novel -- the first is The Jewels of Aptor (1962) -- published by Ace Books in 1963. Set in the 35th Century, the survivors of a nuclear war live on the coastline and an island in a kingdom ruled by a royal family in disrepair. A young victim -- the son of a wealthy merchant -- of their wrath becomes a working-class hero as he fights to get back his good name, aided by a disaffected member of the royal family. This was later rewritten as Out of The Dead City by Delany as part of the Towers Trilogy, an early masterpiece, imo. (Introduction by BellonaTimes)

"Satan's Diary", Andreyev's last work, was completed by the great Russian a few days before he died in Finland, in September, 1919. But a few years ago the most popular and successful of Russian writers, Andreyev died almost penniless, a sad, tragic figure, disillusioned, broken-hearted over the tragedy of Russia. In "Satan's Diary", Andreyev summoned up his boundless disillusionment in an absorbing satire on human life. Fearlessly and mercilessly he hurled the falsehoods and hypocrisies in the face of life...

The story of a little girl in the village of Wildbach, who loved the roses, and how spreading both her roses and her love touched the hearts of the villagers.

Peggy Raymond and her friends, Amy, Priscilla and Ruth, encounter a new neighbour, Elaine, and her family. While Peggy, in her usual cheerful and practical manner, welcomes them into the neighbourhood of Friendly Terrace, a variety of mysteries slowly unfold about them and why they ended up moving there. (Harriet Lummis Smith later went on to write four sequels to Eleanor H. Porter's "Pollyanna" books.)

Fantastic and Sinister Are the Lowlands into Which Philip Grant Descends on His Dangerous Assignment.

Delany's first novel, from 1962, serves as a sort of prologue to the subsequent Captives of the Flame, 1963. Set several centuries after the Great Fire -- a nuclear holocaust -- a young woman seeks her destiny with the help of a four-armed youth.

George W. Peck was at times a writer, newspaper publisher and politician. Many of the Sunbeam essays had been published in Peck's paper, "The Sun", as amusing and often critical comments on social and political subjects, typically current in the beginning of the 1900's. Topics are often 'small town' United States, and Peck's gentle sarcasm or portrayals much resembles that of Twain. Listeners must be aware that the Spanish American War was a recent event, leading to the "Yankee" involvement in the Philippines...

A look at the year 1891 through literature and non-fiction essays first published that year, including works by Mary E Wilkins, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sara Orne Jewett, and Oscar Wilde.

The Friendly Terrace Quartette (or Peggy Raymond At The Poplars) published in 1920, finds Peggy and her friends preparing for The Great War. Young men they had known as boys are signing up to train and fight as soldiers, while the girls find themselves looking for what they can do to help. Priscilla, and Amy join Peggy in The Land Army to assist in agricultural labour usually left to men of the period. Ruth, of weaker health, must remain on Friendly Terrace but manages to find her own way to be useful...