Olivia is a newly orphaned young woman looking for adventure and excitement. She rents out her house to Blaise Olifant whose friend Alexis Triona soon moves in to stay with him. Olivia moves to London and enjoys life in London society before she meets Triona again. Triona writes a book about his rather mysterious past experiences which is an instant bestseller. The book follows their relationship and the strange and totally unexpected path it takes.

Laurent de Courtomer, the son of a French aristocratic emigré and an Englishwoman, returns to France upon the Bourbon restoration following Napoleon's defeat in 1814. He meets a young Breton Royalist officer who quite turns his head with hero worship: Aymar de la Rocheterie. But when Napoleon escapes from Elba and war breaks out again, Laurent meets Aymar again, severely wounded and under suspicion of treason. As Laurent nurses him back to health, the evidence against Aymar seems to become worse and worse. Will Aymar be able to clear his name, and will Laurent's devotion to him remain unshaken? - summary by Elin

From the Preface: I HAVE written "Impressions and Tales" upon the title-page of this volume, because I have included within the same cover two styles of work which present an essential difference. The second half of the collection consists of eight stories, which explain themselves. The first half is made up of a series of pictures of the past which may be regarded as trial flights towards a larger ideal which I have long had in my mind. It has seemed to me that there is a region between actual story and actual history which has never been adequately exploited...

Herman Cyril McNeile, better known as Sapper, was one of England’s most popular fiction writers during the period between World Wars I and II. He was a soldier, and his early writings mostly concerned war and the way war influenced the lives of his main characters. Because British officers were prohibited from publishing under their own names, he used the pseudonym Sapper. His best known works are ten thrillers featuring Bulldog Drummond. Sapper also wrote a great many other novels and short stories...

Twenty years ago, John Balthazar, a notable and brilliant Cambridge mathematician, left England abruptly as he found himself falling in love with a woman who was not his wife. No one hears from him for 20 years and it's assumed he's dead. He travels to China where he steeps himself in the culture and returns incognito 20 years later with his Chinese pupil, Quong Ho. They live in a remote farmhouse where he stays in blissful ignorance of the events of the First World War until a German zeppelin crashes nearby and blows up his house...

Romantic history of the fictional Don Sebastian, which was suggested to the author by a plaque commemorating a mysterious "Portuguese stranger". There is a historical backdrop, but the story itself and the characters are figments of her imagination. - Summary by Lynne T

“The Chouans” was the first novel published under Balzac’s own name . It became the first book in the great work of his lifetime — the novel series titled “The Human Comedy.” Balzac was impressed by the writings of Sir Walter Scott. Scott made Scottish history come alive by creating fictions that used real history as backdrop. Balzac’s novel is set in 1799 — the year that Napoleon became First Consul of France. In the far west of France , anti-revolutionary sentiment still simmered...

In the Hands of the Cave-Dwellers is a classic adventure where the hero is an American sailor who saves a young Mexican from thugs. The story spreads to an Indian attack, the loss of the heroine to cave dwellers, her rescue, and the eventual happiness of hero and heroine who have overcome adversity. - Summary by Publisher

The Acadians around the Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia, Canada, were removed by the British forcibly, leading to a French presence in several Eastern States of the US. ... - Summary by Czandra

It was not long before the fame of the colored soldiers of America was wafted over the whole world and everywhere received by all lovers of freedom with most hearty applause. For a number of years it has been on my mind to write a book regarding the principal events that have occurred to the colored race since the beginning of the agitation against slavery, going on from thence to the great Rebellion, passing through that war, and also dealing with all subjects of great importance that have arrested our attention under our glorious freedom...