America's greatest detective is back! "Nick Carter will solve the mystery. No crime is too deep for him. He’ll ferret out the truth and run down the rascals. He will recover your lost treasures, too, Mr. Strickland, one and all of them, take my word for it. If there is one man on earth who can accomplish it, Nick Carter is that one man. So pull yourself together, sir, and face this calamity man fashion." Mr. Rudolph Strickland's apartment occupies the entire floor of the building and was crammed with priceless treasure. The robbery threatens to destroy his fragile health.[/

Nick Carter is a fictional detective who first appeared in 1886 in dime store novels. Over the years, different authors, all taking the nom de plume Nicholas Carter, have penned stories featuring "America's greatest detective". Nick is only visited by the rich and famous, and in this swashbuckling story, it is Nick's friend Maxwell Kane who asks for help, after his yacht has been boarded by pirates while at anchor. Max and his guests are dicombobulated, but Nick will get to the bottom of the case.

Bigamy, blackmail, damsels in distress, gambling and kidnapping--this story has it all, plus Nick Carter and his crew in hot pursuit of the criminals. - Summary by Paul Hampton

Nick Carter is a fictional detective who first appeared in 1886 in dime store novels. Over the years, different authors, all taking the nom de plume Nicholas Carter, have penned stories featuring "America's greatest detective". This tale opens with Nick eavesdropping on two strangers in the next booth as he finishes his lunch. One of the men works at the telegraph office and is discussing an unusual wire he received. Nick's interest is aroused.

A prominent banker calls Nick Carter in to investigate $90,000 in missing funds—and a trusted clerk who has disappeared. [Summary by Paul Hampton]

Nick Carter is a fictional detective who first appeared in 1886 in dime store novels. Over the years, different authors, all taking the nom de plume Nicholas Carter, have penned stories featuring "America's greatest detective". In this story, Nick is called to visit his banker friend, Mr. Gilsley, who is concerned about some missing money. Also present at the meeting is Belle Braddon, the banker's stenographer. Although the young woman is striking, there is something about her that Nick doesn't trust. - Summary by Lynne Thomson

Between February and October 1919, Nikola Tesla submitted many articles to the magazine Electrical Experimenter. The most famous of these works is a six part series titled "My Inventions", which is an autobiographical account of Nikola Tesla's life and his most celebrated discoveries. This work has been compiled and republished as a stand-alone book several times under different names, but has been a cause of some controversy due to some versions deviating from the original text without explanation...

Despised by Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy, What Is To Be Done? is a fascinating, sympathetic story of idealistic revolutionaries in mid-nineteenth century tsarist Russia; translator Nathan Haskell Dole affirms in his preface his conviction that it is a thriller that no one can put down once s/he begins it. Its variegated cast of characters includes Vera Pavlovna, a boldly independent woman in a time of great oppression, and the inspirational radical Rakhmetov. The author wrote the novel from the depths of the infamous Peter & Paul Fortress of St...

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...

Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol, Russian writer, was first published in 1842, and is one of the most prominent works of 19th-century Russian literature. Gogol himself saw it as an “epic poem in prose”, and within the book as a “novel in verse”. Despite supposedly completing the trilogy’s second part, Gogol destroyed it shortly before his death. Although the novel ends in mid-sentence (like Sterne’s Sentimental Journey), it is usually regarded as complete in the extant form. In Russia before the emancipation of the serfs in 1861, landowners were entitled to own serfs to farm their land...

A Terrible Thing in the Form of a Literary Torpedo which is Launched for HILARIOUS PURPOSES ONLY. Inaccurate in Every Particular Containing Copious Etymological Derivations and Other Useless Things by Noah Lott (an ex-relative of Noah Webster)

In a very real and interesting way, The King Nobody Wanted tells the story of Jesus. Where the actual words of the Bible are used, they are from the King James Version. But the greater part of the story is told in the words of every day. (Introduction by N. F. Langford)

Bunyip Bluegum the koala sets out on his travels taking only a walking stick. At about lunchtime, feeling more than slightly peckish, he meets Bill Barnacle the sailor and Sam Sawnoff the penguin who are eating a pudding. The pudding is a magic one which, no matter how much you eat it, always reforms into a whole pudding again. He is called Albert, has thin arms and legs and is a bad-tempered, ill-mannered so-and-so into the bargain. His only pleasure is being eaten. The book is divided into four "slices" instead of chapters. (Introduction by Wikipedia)

The Gift of the Magi is an O. Henry short story in which a young couple are very much in love with each other but can barely afford their one-room apartment. For Christmas, they each make a sacrifice to purchase a gift for the other, with ironic results. The moral of the story is that physical possessions, however valuable they may be, are of little value in the grand scheme of things. The true unselfish love that the characters, Jim and Della, share is greater than their possessions. O. Henry ends the story by clarifying the metaphor between the characters in the story, Della and James (or Jim), and the Biblical Magi...

This work is O. Henry's first published volume and is considered to be his only novel. The plot is composed of several short stories, which were inspired by the author's six-month stay in Honduras in the late 1890s. "The incidents embracing as they do, a variety of subjects, hang loosely together, so loosely in fact, that at times one finds no apparent connection between them at all, and yet in the end one sees how each is intimately related to the other. ...Written by a less able hand than O. Henry's the book might have been a sad jumble, perhaps comprehensible to none but the Walrus--but as it is, one finds a joy in its every obscurity...

A collection of short stories.

If Jefferson "Parleyvoo" Pickens had appeared in print just a few years later, he might have been the "Gentle Grifter" instead of the "Gentle Grafter", the name O. Henry picked for him. His situation as an ethical graft artist gives Jeff an extra impediment in pursuing his craft, but he never wanted it to be too easy. The result is fourteen delightful tales for us and a number of new partners for him. With those partners (he always has at least one) he works his way through a number of confidence games...

A collection of short stories by the legendary O. Henry.

O. Henry needs no introduction of course; the man who made the short story with the surprise ending famous. These 16 stories are all wonderful examples of his word sculpting art. They include: "The Rose of Dixie"; The Third Ingredient; The Hiding of Black Bill; Schools and Schools; Thimble, Thimble; Supply and Demand; Buried Treasure; To Him Who Waits; He Also Serves; The Moment of Victory; The Head-Hunter; No Story; The Higher Pragmatism; Best-Seller; Rus in Urbe; A Poor Rule

The crime seemed to have lost itself in the sleety cold of the December midnight upon which it was committed. The trails were not blind–there were simply no trails. The circumstances baffled explanation–a lone woman entering an empty taxicab; a run to a distant point in the city; the discovery of the woman’s disappearance, and in her stead the sight of the dead body of a prominent society man–that, and the further blind information that the suit-case which the woman had carried was the property of the man whose body was huddled horribly in the taxicab.

Full of delightful nursery rhymes, charming poems and engaging stories, folk and fairy tales, this is the first volume of the "My Bookhouse" series for little ones. Originally published in the 1920's as a six volume set, these books, edited by Olive Beaupre Miller, contained the best in children's literature, stories, poems and nursery rhymes. They progressed in difficulty through the different volumes - this first being intended for the youngest audience.

The novel details the lives of three characters, first as children and then as adults - Waldo, Em and Lyndall - who live on a farm in the Karoo region of South Africa. The story is set in the middle- to late Nineteenth century - the First Boer War is alluded to, but not mentioned by name. The book is semi-autobiographical: in particular, the two principal protagonists (Waldo and Lyndall) display strong similarities to Schreiner's life and philosophy. The book was first published in 1883 in London, under the pseudonym Ralph Iron...

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...

Published in 1766, The Vicar of Wakefield follows the turbulent shift in the fortune and status of the Primrose family, as they must endure various setbacks that threaten their ultimate wellbeing and prosperity. Focusing on themes including family, prudence, resilience, religion, deception, marriage, and social status, the classic is regarded as Goldsmith’s most notable literary achievement. The novel centers on Dr. Charles Primrose, a benevolent and naive vicar, who together with his wife and six children lives an idyllic and comfortable life in the affluent town of Wakefield, owing their position to a smart investment...

Is there a genre called FUN? Yes, and this is it! Insanely humorous geography that will have you rolling on the floor laughing with your sides hurting.

The Kitten's Garden of Verses is a book of short poetry, modeled after Robert Louis Stevenson's A Child's Garden of Verses. Of course, the poems in this book are intended for kittens rather than children!

This book takes its origin in a course of lectures on the history and progress of Astronomy arranged for Sir Oliver Lodge in the year 1887. The first part of this book is devoted to the biographies and discoveries of well known astronomers like Copernicus, Brahe, Kepler, Galileo and Newton. In the second part, the biographies take a back seat, while scientific discoveries are discussed more extensively, like the discovery of Asteroids and Neptune, a treatise on the tides and others.

A classic ghost story of a haunted house, and the haunted man who lives in it.

George Oliver Onions (1873 – 1961) was a British writer of story collections and over 40 novels…. Onions wrote detective fiction, social comedy, historical fiction and romance novels. This social comedy of late Victorian England is among his first published materials. Rollo Butterfield, the compleat bachelor, looks upon his family and friends with an affectionate, gently humorous eye.

Flora Lee’s birthday came in July. Her mother wished very much to celebrate the occasion in a proper manner. Flora was a good girl, and her parents were always glad to do any thing they could to please her, and to increase her happiness.

"Down South" is the fifth and last volume but one of the "Great Western Series." The action of the story is confined entirely to Florida; and this fact may seem to belie the title of the Series. But the young yachtsman still maintains his hold upon the scenes of his earlier life in Michigan, and his letters come regularly from that State. If he were old enough to vote, he could do so only in Michigan; and therefore he has not lost his right to claim a residence there during his temporary sojourn in the South...

Up the River is the sixth and last of “The Great Western Series.” The events of the story occur on the coast of Florida, in the Gulf of Mexico, and on the Mississippi River. The volume and the series close with the return of the hero, by a route not often taken by tourists, to his home in Michigan. His voyaging on the ocean, the Great Lakes, and the Father of Waters, is finished for the present; but the writer believes that his principal character has grown wiser and better since he was first introduced to the reader...

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.

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.

The Ontario Readers is a school book first published in 1909, by the Ontario Ministry of Education, containing short excerpts of literary works, both stories and poems, geared to grade-school age children.

Wilde’s literary reputation has survived so much that I think it proof against any exhumation of articles which he or his admirers would have preferred to forget. As a matter of fact, I believe this volume will prove of unusual interest; some of the reviews are curiously prophetic; some are, of course, biassed by prejudice hostile or friendly; others are conceived in the author’s wittiest and happiest vein; only a few are colourless. And if, according to Lord Beaconsfield, the verdict of a continental nation may be regarded as that of posterity, Wilde is a much greater force in our literature than even friendly contemporaries ever supposed he would become...

An American diplomat's family moves into an ancient stately mansion. They're warned by the owner that it is haunted by a most horrifying and gruesome spirit who had once cruelly murdered his own wife. The story progresses with creaking floor boards, mysterious passages, dark attics, clanking chains, and weird howling. Yet, the reader is totally unprepared for Oscar Wilde's brand of tongue in cheek humor as he takes all the ingredients of a traditional ghost story and turns it on its head, and creates a hilarious parody instead of a morbid saga! The Canterville Ghost was the first of Oscar Wilde's short stories to be published...

The Happy Prince and Other Tales (also sometimes called The Happy Prince and Other Stories) is an 1888 collection of stories for children by Oscar Wilde. It is most famous for The Happy Prince, the short tale of a metal statue who befriends a migratory bird. Together, they bring happiness to others, in life as well as in death. The stories included in this collection are:The Happy PrinceThe Nightingale and the RoseThe Selfish GiantThe Devoted FriendThe Remarkable RocketThe stories convey an appreciation for the exotic, the sensual and for masculine beauty.

”The Fisherman and his Soul” is a fairy tale first published in November of 1891 in Wilde’s “A House of Pomegranates”. It tells of a fisherman who nets and falls in love with a mermaid. But to be with her he must shed his soul, which goes off to have adventures of its own. Will forbidden love endure?

“(T)he past is what man should not have been. The present is what man ought not to be. The future is what artists are.”Published originally as “The Soul of Man Under Socialism,” this is not so much a work of sober political analysis; rather it can be summed up as a rhapsodic manifesto on behalf of the Individual. Socialism having deployed technology to liberate the whole of humanity from soul-destroying labour, the State obligingly withers away to allow the free development of a joyful, anarchic hedonism...

The Austrian nobility in Rome forms a very close circle, into which only those of high rank and wealth are admitted. They managed to get along with Cecil Sterzl, who, although not one of their own, is regarded as quite an amiable man. However, when he brings his younger sister Zinka into that circle, she is received very coldly at first, if at all. And when, with her fresh and unaffected manners, she wins one heart after another, especially that of the handsome Count Sempaly, she also excites jealousy and contempt in many members of that "set"...

Maggie is an orphan who depends on the charity of the farmer she lives with. She tries to be cheerful and helpful to everyone where she is. However, Maggie dreams of being a queen. But how can a poor orphan ever become anything other than what she is?

"Nello and Patrasche were left all alone in the world." So begins the poignant story of the two orphans who were to become inseparable companions. They were Nello, an orphaned youth, and Patrasche, the dog which he and his grandfather saved from near death one day. The tale takes place outside of Antwerp, and so popular has this story become that there is a commemorative statue of Nello and Patrasche standing in the village yet today. The story is powerful, and masterfully written by Marie Louise de la Ramée under the pseudonym Ouida.

Ostensibly a love story, the novel really revolves around a highly mythologized version of the Johnson County War in 1890’s Wyoming … The novel takes the side of the large ranchers, and depicts the lynchings as frontier justice, meted out by the protagonist, who is a member of a natural aristocracy among men.

A parody of its famous predecessor, this short piece was written by Owen Wister for the Harvard Lampoon

These eight stories are made from our Western Frontier as it was in a past as near as yesterday and almost as by-gone as the Revolution; so swiftly do we proceed. They belong to each other in a kinship of life and manners, and a little through the nearer tie of having here and there a character in common. Thus they resemble faintly the separate parts of a whole, and gain, perhaps, something of the invaluable weight of length; and they have been received by my closest friends with suspicion. ...When...

Owen Wister's wry humor enlivens this comedic story of three sophomores during exam week at Harvard.

Lin McLean is an unaffected, attractive young cowboy in the Wyoming territory before statehood. This book is various stories in his life.

Members of the Family is a collection of eight short stories about people in the Wyoming Territory in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Cowboy Lin McLean rides into frontier Cheyenne, Wyoming, at Christmastime and learns a powerful meaning of Christmas. Author Owen Wister is well known for his western writings, famously the novel The Virginian. Illustrations are by the western artist Frederic Remington.

This is the fifth published book of Owen Wister, author of the archetypical Western novel, The Virginian. Published in 1900, it comprises eight Western short stories.

Padre Ignacio has been the pastor of California mission Santa Ysabel del Mar for twenty years. In 1855 a stranger rides into the mission bringing news and a spiritual crisis. It's really more of a novella than a novel.

Augustus visits King's Port, South Carolina, at the request of his Aunt Carola, and at her expense. She wants him to research geneaologies and records to find proof that he is descended from royalty so that he can join her exclusive club, the Colonial Society. While there, he becomes involved in a love affair between John Mayrant and Eliza La Heu.

Pretty, charming, but impoverished Sally Nicholas' humdrum life is turned upside down when fate decides to step in. In this breezy, romantic comedy, PG Wodehouse delights readers with his portrayal of a charming young American girl who unexpectedly inherits a fortune which changes her life forever. The story follows Sally's fortunes and is told in Wodehouse's typical humorous style and keeps the reader thoroughly entertained to the very end. First published in 1921 as a serial in Collier's Magazine in the US and in 1922 in the Grand Magazine, UK it appeared in book form titled Mostly Sally in 1922...

If you're encountering the zany Bertie Wooster and his exceptionally astute Man Friday, Jeeves, for the first time, be assured that you're embarking on a lifetime of fun and laughter! On the other hand, for eternal Wodehouse fans, Right Ho Jeeves provides more glimpses of the delightful world created by one of the best loved English writers. It is the second in the series of Bertie Wooster and Jeeves novels and features some of the regular characters of Brinkley Court, the country seat ruled over by Bertie's much-loved Aunt Dahlia...

First published in 1919, My Man Jeeves is a collection of short stories featuring the well known fictional characters Jeeves and Bertie Wooster. The compilation consists of eight stories, of which four feature the popular duo while the other four stories feature Reggie Pepper, an early model of Bertie Wooster. Set in the early 20th century, the stories carry much humor, wit, and charming mischief as the characters seem to attract trouble wherever they go. Wodehouse sets the stories in the early 20th century and allows the audience to enter the world of the upper-class establishments, and experience the many awkward situations the characters find themselves in...

A young, but not too brilliant writer is conscripted by a ne'er-do-well friend to help out on a chicken farm in remote Dorset. While traveling to the country, the writer encounters a lovely young girl and her academician father on the train. He is delighted to discover that she is reading a copy of his latest book. In the countryside, he also discovers that the professor and his daughter are neighbors. However, over dinner one night, he gets into an acrimonious debate with the elderly scholar who storms out, furious with his daughter's potential suitor...

The first of two books that he wrote on golfing themes, The Clicking of Cuthbert by PG Wodehouse sparkles with typical Wodehousian wit, humor and general goofiness! An avid golfer himself, Wodehouse published the ten stories in this volume in 1922. In 1924, an American edition titled Golf Without Tears was published. Since then it has enjoyed undimmed popularity among both Wodehouse fans and golfing enthusiasts. Nine of the stories contained in this book are narrated by the Oldest Member, a character who has become a cult figure among Wodehouse fans...

When the absent-minded Earl of Emsworth wanders off with the pride of his scarab collection, American millionaire J. Preston Peters is willing to pay $5000 to the person who can get it back for him. Discretion is necessary since Peters’ daughter is engaged to Emsworth’s son. Joan Valentine and Ashe Marson both decide to go after the reward—she as Aline Peter’s ladies maid, and he as Mr. Peter’s valet—and they all end up at Blandings Castle. But is it possible for anyone to steal back the scarab with The Efficient Baxter ever vigilant? This is, IMHO, one of Wodehouse’s funniest novels. –Debra Lynn

Mike’s dream of studying and playing cricket at Cambridge are thwarted as his father runs into financial difficulties. Instead, Mike takes on the job of clerk at the “New Asiatic Bank.” Luckily, school friend Psmith, with his boundless optimism and original views, soon joins his department, and together they endeavour to make the best of their new life in London.