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By: Lester del Rey | |
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Victory
Lester del Rey (1915 – 1993) was a Golden Age science fiction author and editor closely connected to John W. Campbell Jr. and Astounding Science Fiction magazine. He also founded Del Rey Books, a popular publishing label he edited with his wife Judy-Lynn. Victory is the story of an undefended Earth in a warring galaxy. It appeared in the August 1955 issue of Astounding Science Fiction. | |
The Sky Is Falling
After dying in a terrible accident at a building site, Dave Hanson finds himself being brought back to life in a world where magic is real, and where the sky is breaking apart and falling. And he is expected to put it back together again. Will he be able to save this strange world, and his own new life? | |
Police Your Planet
Bruce Gordon looked at his ticket, grimaced at the ONE WAY stamped on it, then tore it into bits and let the pieces scatter over the floor. He counted them as they fell; thirty pieces in all, one for each year of his life. Little ones for the two years he'd wasted as a cop. Shreds for the four years as a kid in the ring before that--he'd never made the top. Bigger bits for two years also wasted in trying his hand at professional gambling; and the six final pieces that spelled his rise from special reporter helping out with a police shake-up coverage, through a regular leg-man turning up rackets, and on up like a meteor until... | |
By: Lewis Carroll (1832-1898) | |
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Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
An acclaimed children’s classic depicting the odd, but riveting journeys of the curious Alice as she explores the surreal world of Wonderland. Written by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson or better known under his pseudonym Lewis Caroll, this episodic novel is assembled in twelve chapters each containing a prominent adventure. The departure from logic and its embracement of pure imagination is what makes Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland a model for fantasy novels and a timeless classic. The novel begins when the self-aware young Alice, who grows bored of sitting by the river with her sister, and spots a peculiar looking rabbit, dressed in a waistcoat... | |
A Tangled Tale
Lewis Carroll (1832-1896) is famous for Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. It is less widely known that he worked as a lecturer for mathematics at Christ Church college, Oxford for 27 years. A tangled tale merges his two talents as storyteller and mathematician. It consists of ten short humorous stories which present one or more mathematical problems. The ten knots as they are called, were first published in The Monthly Packet magazine between April 1880 and March 1885, where readers were invited to solve the problems, and the solution was discussed in a later issue. | |
Sylvie and Bruno
The novel has two main plots; one set in the real world at the time the book was published (the Victorian era), the other in the fantasy world of Fairyland. While the latter plot is a fairytale with many nonsense elements and poems, similar to Carroll’s Alice books, the story set in Victorian Britain is a social novel, with its characters discussing various concepts and aspects of religion, society, philosophy and morality. This book is the first of two volumes and the two intertwining stories are brought to a close in the second volume, Sylvie and Bruno Concluded. | |
Alice's Adventures Underground
This is the handwritten book that Carroll wrote for private use before being urged to develop it later into Alice in Wonderland. It was generously illustrated by Carroll and meant to entertain his family and friends. When a sick child in a hospital enjoyed it so much, the mother wrote him saying it had distracted her for a bit from her pain and led eventually to Carroll expanding the story. The Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson and the Reverend Robinson Duckworth rowed in a boat, on 4 July 1862,[12]... |
By: Lieh-Tzu | |
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The Book of Lieh-Tzü
The Liezi (Chinese: 列子; pinyin: Lièzĭ; Wade-Giles: Lieh Tzu; literally “[Book of] Master Lie”) is a Daoist text attributed to Lie Yukou, a circa 5th century BCE Hundred Schools of Thought philosopher, but Chinese and Western scholars believe it was compiled around the 4th century CE. During the reign of Emperor Xuanzong of Tang, the Liezi was designated a Daoist classic, completing the trilogy with the more famous Daodejing and Zhuangzi. The Liezi is generally considered to be the most practical of the major Daoist works, compared to the philosophical writings of Laozi and the poetic narrative of Zhuangzi... |
By: Lily Dougall (1858-1923) | |
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Mermaid
"'What a fool I was not to go where she beckoned!' mused Caius. 'Where? Anywhere into the heart of the ocean, out of this dull, sordid life into the land of dreams.' For it must all have been a dream—a sweet, fantastic dream, imposed upon his senses by some influence, outward or inward; but it seemed to him that at the hour when he seemed to see the maid it might have been given him to enter the world of dreams, and go on in some existence which was a truer reality than the one in which he now was... | |
Dozen Ways of Love
This is a collection of (each in their own way) romantic short stories by Lily Dougall. | |
Zeit-Geist
"When travelling in Canada, in the region north of Lake Ontario, I came upon traces of the somewhat remarkable life which is the subject of the following sketch. Having applied to the school-master in the town where Bartholomew Toyner lived, I received an account the graphic detail and imaginative insight of which attest the writer's personal affection. This account, with only such condensation as is necessary, I now give to the world. I do not believe that it belongs to the novel to teach theology;... |
By: Lloyd Eshbach (1910-2003) | |
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The Gray Plague
End of the world sci-fi tale borrows heavily from H.G. Wells' WOTW and In The Days of the Comet -- looks like fun ! |
By: Lord Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892) | |
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Beauties of Tennyson
A collection of Tennyson's poetry : 1 The Brook - 00:16 2 Song from "Maud" - 1:20 3 A Farewell - 2:34 4 Song from “Maud” - 3:26 5 Break, Break, Break - 4:53 6 From “Locksley Hall”- 5:43 7 Song from “Maud” - 6:43 8 Song from “The Princess” - 7:43 9 Lillian - 8:37 10 Ring out, Wild Bells - 9:52 11 From “The Princess” - 11:27 12 Song From “The Princess” - 12:43 13 From “Enoch Arden” - 13:58 14 From “Enoch Arden” - 15:36 15 The Charge of the Light Brigade- 16:56 16 From “The May Queen” - 18:51 17 Song from “The Princess” - 19:36 18 From “Harold” - 20:14 19 From “The Revenge” - 21:28 (From Sam Stinsson) |
By: Lord Dunsany (1878-1957) | |
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The Book of Wonder
“Come with me, ladies and gentlemen who are in any wise weary of London: come with me: and those that tire at all of the world we know: for we have new worlds here.” – Lord Dunsany, the preface to “The Book of Wonder” | |
Fifty-One Tales
Very brief, well-crafted stories, many having surprise endings, all steeped in the dye of myth and calling to every reader's neglected imagination. |
By: Lord Dunsany (1878-1957) | |
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Dreamer's Tales
"A Dreamer's Tales" is the fifth book by Irish fantasy writer Lord Dunsany, considered a major influence on the work of H. P. Lovecraft, J. R. R. Tolkien, Ursula K. Le Guin, Michael Moorcock and others. "A Dreamer's Tales" is a collection of sixteen fantasy short stories, and varies from the wistfulness of "Blagdaross" to the horrors of "Poor Old Bill" and "Where the Tides Ebb and Flow" to the social satire of "The Day of the Poll." (text from Wikipedia articles on Lord Dunsany and "A Dreamer's Tales") | |
Don Rodriguez: Chronicles of Shadow Valley | |
King of Elfland's Daughter
This is a 1924 fantasy novel by Anglo-Irish writer Lord Dunsany, which became public domain in January 2020. It is widely recognized as one of the most acclaimed works in all of fantasy literature. Highly influential upon the fantasy genre as a whole, the novel was particularly formative in the subgenres of "fairytale fantasy" and "high fantasy". And yet, it deals always with the truth: the power of love, the allure of nature, the yearning for contentment, the desire for fame, the quest for immortality, and the lure and the fear of magic... |
By: Lord George Gordon Byron | |
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Don Juan, Canto V
Juan, captured by Turkish pirates and sold into slavery is bought by a beautiful Princess as her toy-boy. Dressed as an odalisque, he is smuggled into the Sultan’s harem for a steamy assignation. Unbelievably, Byron’s publisher almost baulked at this feast of allusive irony, blasphemy (mild), calumny, scorn, lesse-majeste, cross-dressing, bestiality, assassination, circumcision and dwarf-tossing. This was the last Canto published by the stuffy John Murray (who had, however, made a tidy fortune on the earlier parts of the Epic)... | |
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage: Canto IV
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage is a lengthy narrative poem in four parts written by Lord Byron. It was published between 1812 and 1818 and is dedicated to "Ianthe". The poem describes the travels and reflections of a world-weary young man who, disillusioned with a life of pleasure and revelry, looks for distraction in foreign lands. In a wider sense, it is an expression of the melancholy and disillusionment felt by a generation weary of the wars of the post-Revolutionary and Napoleonic eras. The title comes from the term childe, a medieval title for a young man who was a candidate for knighthood. Canto IV describes Harold's travels in Italy. | |
Manfred
Manfred is a dramatic poem in three acts by Lord Byron, and possibly a self confessional work. A noble, Manfred, is haunted by the memory of some unspeakable crime. In seeking for forgetfulness and oblivion, he wanders between his castle and the mountains. He has several encounters with the people who try to assist him, as well as spirits that rule nature and human destiny. The poem explores themes of morality, religion, guilt and the human condition. | |
The Giaour
"The Giaour" is a poem by Lord Byron first published in 1813 and the first in the series of his Oriental romances. "The Giaour" proved to be a great success when published, consolidating Byron's reputation critically and commercially. | |
The Island
Written late in his career, Byron's narrative poem The Island tells the famous story of the mutiny on board the Bounty, and follows the mutineers as they flee to a South Sea island, "their guilt-won Paradise." | |
The Siege of Corinth
In this moving poem, Byron recounts the final, desperate resistance of the Venetians on the day the Ottoman army stormed Acrocorinth: revealing the closing scenes of the conflict through the eyes of Lanciotto - a Venetian renegade fighting for the Ottomans - and Francesca - the beautiful maiden daughter of the governor of the Venetian garrison: Minotti. |
By: Louis Couperus (1863-1923) | |
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Later Life
Set in the stifling world of turn of the century Dutch aristocracy, the second volume of the 'Books of the Small Souls' quartet, begins where the first volume ended. Constance Van der Welcke has returned to The Hague after her twenty-year exile for a scandalous affair in Rome. Hoping for acceptance by her family and the society of her former 'set', Constance and her husband Henri are now estranged from the family and have given up all ambitions of acceptance in society. Determined to live quietly, they form new friendships - Henri with Constance's niece, Marianne, and Constance with Henri's eccentric old friend, Max Brauws - that lead each of them on a journey of self-discovery... | |
Twilight of the Souls
The third book in Louis Couperus' Books of the Small Souls quartet. The Twilight of the Souls begins some months after the conclusion of The Later Life. Constance Van der Welcke and her husband Henri have settled down to a quieter life in the Hague, sister Bertha and her daughter Marianne have moved to the country, and Mama Van Lowe's Sunday evenings are no longer the gatherings of the whole family they once were. But the family's troubles are far from over. The story shifts to the trials and tribulations of Constance's brothers, Gerrit and Ernst, and Bertha's son and daughter, Henri and Emilie, who have fled together to Paris. - Summary by Phil Benson | |
Small Souls
Constance van der Welcke returns to the Hague and the bosom of her family after a twenty year exile caused by a marital indiscretion and divorce from the Dutch ambassador to Rome. Wanting only to be accepted into the family circle again, Constance and her husband Henri find they are the target of gossip that pulls the family apart. As the facade of the family circle begins to crack, the psychological foibles of the brothers and sisters begin to reveal themselves. Small Souls is the first of four novels that make up the quartet known as 'The Books of the Small Souls', the master work of the foremost author of modern Dutch literature, Louis Couperus... |
By: Louis Hémon (1880-1913) | |
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Maria Chapdelaine
Maria Chapdelaine is one of the most famous French Canadian novels. It is the love story of Maria Chapdelaine, daughter of a peasant family in the Saguenay-Lac-St-Jean region of Quebec, in the 1900s. It is often seen as an allegory of the French Canadian people, describing simple joys and great tragedies, the bonds of family, the importance of faith, and the strength of body and spirit needed to endure the harshness of life in Canada’s northern wilderness. |
By: Louis Tracy (1863-1928) | |
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The Albert Gate Mystery
A new case for barrister and hobby detective Reginald Brett: The imperial diamonds were sent by the Sultan to London, to be cut in Albert Gate mansion by experts, all the while under the especial protection of the British government. One morning, however, the Turkish officials are found dead in the house, and the diamonds have vanished - despite the strict measures taken to protect them. The first suspicion falls on Jack Talbot, a young secretary at the Foreign Office, in whose charge this mission was, because he also disappeared without a trace on the same evening. Convinced that Talbot is innocent, his friend Lord Fairholme turns to Reginald Brett for help... |
By: Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888) | |
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Jack and Jill
Louisa May Alcott, more famously known for her Little Women series, takes a familiar nursery rhyme and creates a whole novel out of it in one of her last books Jack and Jill: A Village Story. Though she continued to publish under the penname AM Barnard, this book probably marked the end of a particular writing phase in 1880. Jack and Jill is set in the fictional Harmony Village. On a December afternoon, the youngsters of the village are out enjoying the bracing cold and snow. The bright winter shines down as they have fun skating and sledding... | |
The Abbots Ghost or Maurice Treherne Temptation
Louisa May Alcott enthusiasts would be delighted to read this short novel published in 1867, just a year before the grand debut of her most famous Little Women trilogy. This is one of three books she wrote under the pseudonym AM Barnard. She used this name to pen tales that were meant more for adult readers, though younger people will find them quite interesting too. The Abbot's Ghost or Maurice Treherne's Temptation is a romance, mystery, ghost-story and novel of manners all rolled into one... | |
An Old-Fashioned Girl
Polly Milton, a 14-year-old country girl, visits her friend Fanny Shaw and her wealthy family in the city for the first time. Poor Polly is overwhelmed by the splendor at the Shaws’ and their urbanized, fashionable lifestyles, fancy clothes and some other habits she considers weird and, mostly, unlikable. However, Polly’s warmth, support and kindness eventually win her the hearts of all the family members. Six years later, Polly comes back to the city to become a music teacher. |