Miriam Henderson is one of what novelist Dolf Wyllarde (in her great work, The Pathway of the Pioneer) termed "nous autres," i.e., young gentlewomen who must venture forth and earn their living after their fathers have been financially ruined. Also, she has read Villette; she thus applies for and is offered a job teaching conversational English at a girls' school, albeit in Germany rather than France. Pointed Roofs describes her year abroad, as she endeavors to make her way in the hotbed of seething female personalities that populate the school, overseen by her employer, the formidable Fraulein...

"Backwater" is the second volume of "Pilgrimage," a series of thirteen autobiographical novels by Dorothy Richardson considered to have pioneered the "stream of consciousness" technique of writing. In a review of the first volume in the series, "Pointed Roofs" (The Egoist April 1918), May Sinclair first applied the term "stream of consciousness" in her discussion of Richardson's stylistic innovations. Richardson, however, preferred the term "interior monologue." Miriam Henderson, the central character in Pilgrimage, is based on the author's own life between 1891 and 1915...

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

Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. (May 23, 1883 – December 12, 1939) was an American actor, screenwriter, director and producer. He was best known for his swashbuckling roles in silent films such as The Thief of Baghdad, Robin Hood, and The Mark of Zorro. His book, Laugh and Live, is a book about positive virtues and advice for leading a good, healthy, and successful life. An advisory about this book is in order. Published in 1917, it was written at a time when “men went to work, women kept house, and supported their man”...

An unlikely pair of wanderers they were; the orphan girl Lou and her travelling partner Jim Botts. Jim appeared in need of following some apparent 'rules' during the journey, while Lou seemed in need of better clothing, and perhaps some refinement. But who was most benefitting whom on the week-long journey from rural village to big city? And which of the two was willing to try anything once? (Introduction by Roger Melin)

Serialized in Shadowland from November 1921 to February 1922, Hollywood: Its Morals and Manners is Theodore Dreiser's shocking four part expose on the motion picture industry. In it, he shares his observations from his extended stay in Los Angeles, and gives us an intimate look at the seedier underside of Hollywood.

Barbara, an English girl and the eldest of her family, spends most days helping her widowed mother care for her younger siblings. Then disaster strikes – or so the children believe! Barbara is taken to France to see Paris by her father’s formidable sister, Aunt Anne. She stays on in Brittany to perfect her French. In this series of funny stories about her adventures in France, we meet a cast of recurring characters – and both Barbara and Aunt Anne find love! (Summary by Sibella Denton)

When the Inter-Planetary Corporation's (IPC) crack liner “IPV Arcturus” took off on a routine flight to Mars, it turned out to be the beginning of a unexpected and long voyage. There had been too many reports of errors in ship's flight positions from the Check Stations and brilliant physicist Dr. Percival (“Steve”) Stevens is aboard the Arcturus on a fact-finding mission to find out what's really happening, and hopefully save the honor of the brave pilots of the space-liner Arcturus from the desk-jockeys' in the Check Stations implications of imprecision - the nastiest insult you could cast at a ships pilot...

This is a sequel to The Skylark of Space. The novel concerns Richard Seaton and his allies who have encounters with aliens while fighting DuQuesne and the Fenachrone..

A team of space travelers are caught in a subspace accident which, up to now, no one has ever survived. But some of the survivors of the Procyon are not ordinary travelers. Their psi abilities allow them to see things before they happen. But will it be enough?Smith's story "Subspace Survivors" first appeared in the July 1960 issue of the magazine Astounding.

They were four of the greatest minds in the Universe: Two men, two women, lost in an experimental spaceship billions of parsecs from home. And as they mentally charted the Cosmos to find their way back to earth, their own loves and hates were as startling as the worlds they encountered.

The Secret Planet. No human had ever landed on the hidden planet of Arisia. A mysterious space barrier turned back both men and ships. Then the word came to Earth, "Go to Arisia!", Virgil Samms of the Galactic Patrol went--and came back with the Lens, the strange device that gave its wearer powers no man had ever possessed before. Samms knew the price of that power would be high. But even he had no idea of the ultimate cost, and the weird destiny waiting for the First Lensman. First Lensman is the sequel to Triplanetary, and the second book of E.E. "Doc" Smith's classic Lensman series. (from the original book cover and Mark Nelson)

Time is the strangest of all mysteries. Relatively unimportant events, almost unnoticed as they occur, may, in hundreds of years, result in Ultimate Catastrophe. On Time Track Number One, that was the immutable result. But on Time Track Number Two there was one little event that could be used to avert it—the presence of a naked woman in public. So, Skandos One removed the clothing from the Lady Rhoann and after one look, Lord Tedric did the rest!

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...

This is a wonderful combination of far future science fiction with Conan like sword and sorcery; lots of blood, gore, honor and evil. The immensely powerful hero, Tedric, is a man's man who refuses to accept the cruel human sacrifices demanded by the 'god' Sarpedion and is set on destroying him. To do this he needs some secrets of metallurgy that future social scientists are willing to give him. He manages to overcome all obstacles until of course he meets the dazzlingly lovely Lady Rhoaan who stops him cold...

Triplanetary was first serialized in Amazing Stories in 1934. After the Lensman series became popular, Smith took his Triplanetary story and turned it into the first of the Lensman series, using it as a prequel to give the back story for the protaganists in the Lensmen series. He added 6 new chapters, doubling it in size and it's really a different book from the serialized novel, being published 14 years after the first. It was put into Gutenberg just last year. The novel covers several episodes in an eons-long eugenics project of the super-intelligences of the Arisia...

The second in the "Dodo" sequence of novels.

These stories have been written in the hopes of giving some pleasant qualms to their reader, if by chance, anyone be occupying in their perusal a leisure half-hour before he goes to bed when the night and the house are still, he may perchance cast an occasional glance into the corners and dark places of the room where he sits, to make sure that nothing unusual lurks in the shadow. For this is the avowed object of ghost stories and such tales as deal with the dim unseen forces which occasionally and perturbingly make themselves manifest. The author therefore fervently wishes his readers a few uncomfortable moments. Preface - by E.F. Benson

Set in late Victorian England, “Consequences” follows the life of Alexandra Clare, a girl born into an upper class Catholic London family. Raised from birth for the privileged life of a wife and mother, Alexandra never quite fits in with her or her family’s expectations and fails at seemingly everything she tries – school, the marriage market, family life.

When the role of ‘Lady Superintendent’ becomes available at the Commercial and Technical College for South West England, the calm and capable Pauline Marchrose is the successful applicant. This is good news for Sir Julian, the college director, who greatly admires her diligence and ability. Mark Easter, Sir Julian’s agent, feels admiration for her too, which rapidly becomes romantic attraction. But Mark already has a wife, albeit in name only. And Sir Julian’s wife, Lady Edna Rossiter, discovers that Pauline Marchrose is the same woman who jilted her cousin Clarence after he was paralysed in an accident...

This classic 1922 fantasy novel brings you to a strange and lovely world where a young lord wrestles King Gorice for his land’s freedom, where unscalable mountains can only be conquered by stubbornness and hippogriffs, where the great explorer Lord Gro finds himself continually driven to betrayal, where sweet young women occasionally fall for evil wizards, and where the heroes actually win their hearts’ desire.

Ernst Theodor Wilhelm Hoffmann (1776 – 1822), better known by his pen name E.T.A. Hoffmann (Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann), was a German Romantic author of fantasy and horror, a jurist, composer, music critic, draftsman and caricaturist. Hoffmann's stories were very influential during the 19th century, and he is one of the major authors of the Romantic movement.He is the subject and hero of Jacques Offenbach's famous but fictional opera The Tales of Hoffmann, and the author of the novelette The Nutcracker and the Mouse King, on which the famous ballet The Nutcracker is based...

The original story of the Nutcracker, weird and wonderful by one of the masters of horror and weirdness.

This recording includes both volumes of E. T. A. Hoffmann's Weird Tales, a collection of gothic novellas set in Germany, Italy, and some of the wilder parts of Europe. What there is of the supernatural in these tales is introduced with great subtlety if at all; most of the stories draw their "weirdness" from extraordinary characters, circumstances, or coincidences rather than from the paranormal, working out dark passions in dark settings. There are two themes dominating almost every one of these stories: not only the passion of young tragic love, but also a passion for Art in its every manifestation...

Prepare yourself for a journey, full of adventures and plot twists which will keep you guessing until the very end. This is psychological romance at its best. In the war of 1814, an American heiress falls in love with a British officer. This ill-fated marriage brings together a large group of interesting people who would never have met in other circumstances.

“If you will listen to this book, you will meet a cast of unforgettable characters, as different from one another as the sun and moon. But they have one thing in common – all of them hide many, many secrets. The plot of this book is full of twists which may leave you guessing until the end. Bridget’s lively reading adds much to the joy of listening to this book.” (Summary by Stav Nisser)

Uncontrolled, terribly violent Atomic Vortices are slowly destroying civilization on every human planet throughout the galaxy. Nothing can contain or stop them despite the lensmen's best efforts until one destroys the home and family of "Storm" Cloud, brilliant atomic physicist. The tragedy triggers actions on his part that pit him one-on-one against the horrible vortices. Introducing "storm" Cloud as THE Vortex Blaster

Davy's Bend was a dying, lonely, uncared for river town. So when a stranger showed up one day and bought the old unoccupied house called 'The Locks' one dreary day, the inhabitants of the town were naturally very curious about the stranger, and very curious about his reasons for buying the old house. The Locks had been known for years to display at nighttime a single light showing up in one room, and there was one room in the house which was strictly off-limits to anyone. What was the history behind...

Giles Dudley is called upon by his cousin Henry Wilton to assist him in San Francisco, but the reason for the summons is not at all clear. Dudley answers the summons, only to find himself immediately wrapped in the middle of mystery and intrigue, the roots and ends of which he is utterly unaware. He has been given to care for a mysterious young boy whom he hasn't even seen. His cousin has mysteriously disappeared. Dudley's role in the mystery has him convinced that as he goes about trying to assist his cousin with whatever it was he wanted to accomplish, he does so completely blindfolded.

The flint heart is a stone of heart shape, forged in prehistoric times, that changes whoever owns it into a wicked person. The story of the flint heart's ultimate defeat involves multiple trips into fairyland by Charles and Unity, children of one of the heart's victims. Along the way the reader meets lots of fun characters such as the king of fairyland, a talking (and wounded) hot water bottle, and the mysterious Zagabog. Occasional references to British words and concepts may require some explanation for American readers, but the story is perfectly understandable without such explications. The droll narration makes the story as much fun for adults as for children.

A Deal with the Devil is a classic tale with a humorous twist. We find that on the night preceeding his 100th birthday Grandpapa, a cantankerous yet loveable sort, has made a deal with the devil, which his granddaughter, in part, will pay. - Summary by Angelique G. Campbell

This story opens with a mother and daughter found brutally murdered inside a locked room in an upstairs apartment on a street in Paris. The police are baffled by both the ferocity of the crime and the lack of clues. Neighbors give conflicting evidence. Two friends are intrigued by the entire situation as reported in the newspapers. They decide to do a little investigating on their own. What they come up with is one of the most shocking and strangest of conclusions. The Murders in the Rue Morgue by Edgar Allan Poe is perhaps the first modern detective tale, though similar stories by Voltaire and ETA Hoffman did appear a few decades earlier...