Following a failed love affair in England, Lady Bridget O'Hara accepts an invitation to travel to colonial Australia as companion to Lady Rosamund Tallant, the wife of the newly-appointed governor of Leichardt's Land. In Leichardt's Town, Lady Bridget, also known as Biddy, is reunited with her old friend and collaborator, Joan Gildea, special correspondent for The Imperialist newspaper. While visiting Joan, Biddy meets Colin McKeith, a roughly-hewn, Scottish-born pioneer, drover, miner, sometime-politician, and magistrate in the north-eastern colony...

"Policy and Passion, a Novel of Australian Life" tells the story about a father and daughter, torn between the policy of the country in which they live and the passions both have. The father, Thomas, is a rising politician until his love for a married woman changes the game while the daughter, Honora, falls in love with an English nobleman. But this is not only a love story. This novel tells about the early days of Australia, and tells the story of a whole community. It receives scholarly attention as a work about colonialism. - Summary by Stav Nisser

The Rebel Rose is the story of Mary Stuart Beaton, a descendant of Mary Queen of Scots who has come to London in the hope of having her family claims legitimized. The Pretendress -- as she is called, finds herself caught up in the devices of her own personal guardians as well as a scheming London society woman scorned by a powerful member of Parliament who has become an admirer of the Princess. Apart from the claims of royalty, Mary Beaton knows where her worth is found and she proves to be a formidable opponent for all those scheming for and against her.

In this small book Rosalind Goforth tells many stories of 'diamonds' in China that have been tested and come out pure in the King of Kings' hand for His service. Sketch 9 speaks of the awful facts of the "heathen" that Rosalind Goforth had witnessed. Although she speaks of these as being confined to merely non-Christian persons, many of these evils are characteristics of people in countries generally classified as "Christian". Please be advised that this fact may cause this chapter to be offensive to some.

LibriVox volunteers bring you 14 recordings of An Afternoon in July by Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon. This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for July 7, 2013.Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon, born Rosanna Eleanor Mullins, was a Canadian writer and poet. She was "one of the first English-Canadian writers to depict French Canada in a way that earned the praise of, and resulted in her novels being read by, both anglophone and francophone Canadians."Leprohon's novels were popular in both English and French Canada in the late 19th-century, and were still being reprinted in French in the mid-1920s...

A light-hearted account of a successful middle aged widower who chances to visit the small town in which he grew up to renew old acquaintances and perhaps reflect on his successes since his departure.This visit, however, becomes far more to him than he would have imagined, as he finds that one of his dearest childhood girlfriends had died not long after his departure, and the widower envisions a relationship with none other than her daughter, who he senses to be her mother incarnate.

A mystery and adventure story for girls set in Alaska.

The stories about Münchhausen were first collected and published by an anonymous author in 1781. An English version was published in London in 1785, by Rudolf Erich Raspe, as Baron Munchhausen's Narrative of his Marvellous Travels and Campaigns in Russia, also called The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchhausen. It is not clear how much of the story material derives from the Baron himself; however, it is known that the majority of the stories are based on folktales that have been in circulation for many centuries before Münchhausen's birth.

Present day readers live in a world that's emerged from the Cold War and the endless rivalry of the Super Powers but this book goes back and traces the origins of the conflict and mutual antagonism between nations. Kim by Rudyard Kipling is set against the background of the Great Game as it was called the tug-of-war between Britain and Russia for the control of Central Asia. The novel's action takes place during the Anglo-Afghan Wars of 1839-42. The novel's sweeping narrative, the depth of character and the sheer historical scale make it a first rate story...

Originally written for his young daughter Josephine, who died tragically aged six, The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling is a collection of short stories which were published separately in magazines before being compiled into a book. The stories are in the form of fables, where animals communicate and speak to each other as humans do and the purpose of each story was to convey a moral or message to the reader. Modern readers would be more familiar with the Disney animated version in which Mowgli the little “man-cub” is raised by wolves...

The Man Who Would Be King tells the story of two British adventurers in British India who become kings of Kafiristan, a remote part of Afghanistan. It was inspired by the exploits of James Brooke, an Englishman who became the “white Raja” of Sarawak in Borneo, and by the travels of American adventurer Josiah Harlan, who claimed the title Prince of Ghor. The story was first published in The Phantom Rickshaw and other Tales (Volume Five of the Indian Railway Library, published by A H Wheeler & Co of Allahabad in 1888)...

Real men don’t take guff from snotty kids. Neither does Disko Troop, skipper of the “We’re Here”, a fishing schooner out of Gloucester, Massachusetts, when his crew fishes Harvey Cheyne out of the Atlantic. There’s no place on the Grand Banks for bystanders, so Harvey is press-ganged into service as a replacement for a man lost overboard and drowned. Harvey is heir to a vast fortune, but his rescuers believe none of what he tells them of his background. Disko won’t take the boat to port until it is full of fish, so Harvey must settle in for a season at sea...

Kipling shows his love of the sub continent and its people and understanding of their beliefs in these tales. An older Mowgli roams the jungle with his old friends and investigates the ways of his people, a Prime Minister becomes wandering holy man, scavengers tell their tale and we leave India for the far,far north of Canada.

In American Notes, Rudyard Kipling, the Nobel Prize-winning author of the Jungle Book, visits the USA. As the travel-diary of an Anglo-Indian Imperialist visiting the USA, these American Notes offer an interesting view of America in the 1880s. Kipling affects a wide-eyed innocence, and expresses astonishment at features of American life that differ from his own, not least the freedom (and attraction) of American women. However, he scorns the political machines that made a mockery of American democracy, and while exhibiting the racist attitudes that made him controversial in the 20th century concludes “It is not good to be a negro in the land of the free and the home of the brave...

Rudyard Kipling published Stalky & Co. in 1899. Set at an English boarding school in a seaside town on the North Devon coast. (The town, Westward Ho!, is not only unusual in having an exclamation mark, but also in being itself named after a novel, by Charles Kingsley.) The book is a collection of linked short stories, with some information about the eponymous Stalky’s later life. Beetle, one of the main trio, is said to be based on Kipling himself, while Stalky may be based on Lionel Dunsterville...

Puck of Pook’s Hill is a children’s book by Rudyard Kipling, published in 1906, containing a series of short stories set in different periods of history. The stories are all told to two children living near Pevensey by people magically plucked out of history by Puck.

Named a "prophet of British imperialism" by the young George Orwell, and born in Bombay, India, Rudyard Kipling had perhaps the clearest contemporary eye of any who described the British Raj. According to critic Douglas Kerr: "He is still an author who can inspire passionate disagreement and his place in literary and cultural history is far from settled. But as the age of the European empires recedes, he is recognised as an incomparable, if controversial, interpreter of how empire was experienced. That, and an increasing recognition of his extraordinary narrative gifts, make him a force to be reckoned with." This force shines in THE PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. (Introduction by Mike Harris)

This novel, first published in 1890, follows the life of Dick Heldar, a painter. Most of the novel is set in London, but many important events throughout the story occur in Sudan or India. It was made into a 1916 film with Jose Collins and a 1939 film by Paramount starring Ronald Colman.

The experiences in public school, Sandhurst and military life in India of Major George Cottar together with his adventures in the dream world he discovers and frequents.

This small collection puts together stories by Kipling that feature the characters from Stalky & Co. but which for some reason were not included in the book Stalky & Co. Of these the more interesting is the first, “Stalky”, which introduces the characters and is full of the humour and understanding of adolescent males and their timeless jostling with adult powers that characterise the stories in Stalky & Co.“Stalky” was the first of the tales to be written, and was published in 1898, so it is difficult to understand how it came to be omitted from the book in 1899...

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...

What happens when a mix of lovers get stuck together on a coast-to-coast train? Mainly hilarity. There is every kind of couple imaginable. One serviceman and his bride-to-be are trying desperately to get married but can't find a clergyman to perform the rites. They don't know that right in their midst is a preacher disguised as a man of the world so he and his wife can enjoy a carefree vacation. Then there is a drunk mourning his separation from the wife who just happens to be on the same train. There is even a confirmed bachelor who discovers that a confirmed spinster is his long-lost love from years ago...

The Royal Book of Oz (1921) is the fifteenth in the series of Oz books, and the first to be written by Ruth Plumly Thompson after L. Frank Baum’s death. Although Baum was credited as the author, it was written entirely by Thompson. The Scarecrow is upset when Professor Wogglebug tells him that he has no family, so he goes to where Dorothy Gale found him to trace his “roots.” Then he vanishes from the face of Oz. Dorothy and the Cowardly Lion mount a search for their friend, but when that is successful, they will need to become a rescue party!

A story about a boy who befriends a cat and then sets off on an adventure to rescue a dragon. Illustrations from the original book can be seen at the e-text link.

Reverend Sabine Baring-Gould (1834-1924) was an English hagiographer, antiquarian, novelist and eclectic scholar. During his life, he published more than 100 books, among them this collection of ghost stories.

The setting, geography and history of this story by Rev'd Sabine Baring-Gould, author of Onward Christian Soldiers and other well-known hymns, are all accurate, or at least as accurate as local lore will allow. Kinver has long been a midlands beauty spot, and the UK National Trust own and open one of the rock-dwellings mentioned. The 'Stewponey' too was an inn until a year or two into the twenty-first century - the present reader having stopped there for a drink and a meal many times.The story, whether...

Baring-Gould's humorous observations on the various Christian sects to be found in "the most learned church in the most religious country in the world" (i.e., London in 1870) contains a challenge to Christians of today to focus on the substance of faith rather than the forms of public worship.

The Pennycomequicks is the charming and witty story of a dysfunctional English family in the late 19th century, scattered to the winds, scarred and battered by human and Divine tragedy, struggling for sustenance of the material and / or immaterial kind.

The Benson Murder Case – A Philo Vance Story is the first of a series of twelve popular mysteries set in New York during the Jazz Age. S. S. Van Dine is the nom de plume of prominent art critic, and member of New York’s avant-garde, W. H. Wright. He rapidly became one of the country’s best-selling authors and the series remained immensely popular for decades, as Philo Vance was featured in dozens of movies, plays and radio shows. Van Dine’s novels marked a sharp departure from earlier detective fiction...

St. Patrick’s Breastplate – This prayer is attributed to St. Patrick and his diciples. It is written with some celtic pagan elements, but is definitely a Christian prayer asking God for protection through daily life. A Letter to the Soldiers of Coroticus – Patrick writes this letter to excommunicate the soldiers of Coroticus’ army who pillaged villages in Ireland and forced many Christian converts into slavery. Confession – A short autobiography by St. Patrick who tells of being abducted...

Saki was the pen name of the British author Hector Hugh Munro (1870 – 1916). His witty, biting and occasionally odd short stories satirised Edwardian culture. Saki is considered a master of the short story and has been compared to O. Henry and Dorothy Parker as well as Noel Coward and Oscar Wilde (who clearly influenced Saki). His first collection of short stories, Reginald, was published by Methuen Press in 1904 though these stories first appeared in the ‘Westminster Gazette’. The stories...

This is the third collection of short stories by Saki, following on from “Reginald” and “Reginald in Russia”. Although some of the stories have characters that do not appear elsewhere in the collection, many of them are loosely centred round the young Clovis Sangrail (effectively a reincarnation of Reginald).