The House of Mystery is based upon the complicated plot involving two women who look exactly alike, one rich and one poor, and so mistaken identities bring about comic and tragic madness.

This investigation of Bacon the scholar and man of letters begins with a look at the early days ang progresses to his relationships with Queen Elizabeth and James I. It includes accounts of his positions as solicitor general, attorney-general, and chancellor. The book concludes with Bacon's failure, his overall philosophy, and summaries of his writings.

Ring Lardner is a typical parent when his first child is born, full of wonder and the rest of the usual emotions as he watches his little son grow. He wrote a series of 29 short poems on various facets of parenthood.

A group of guests, at an exclusive luxury hotel in Hampshire, are the witnesses of an illustration of occult powers, demonstrated by “the Mystery”, as Mrs. Jefferson named the beautiful stranger who one day appeared in the Turkish Baths of the hotel. The events that follow lead Mrs. Jefferson to question the wisdom of her interest in the occult.

Short stories by a colleague of Jerome K. Jerome, and friend of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Barr probably wrote the first parody of Sherlock Holmes (included in this collection). He co-edited “The Idler” with Jerome. [written by Czechchris]

Sixty-three essays on a variety of topics as wide apart as Family Life in America, Opera Synopses, Bigamy, International Finance and many more, Love Conquers All by Robert Benchley strangely enough does not touch upon romance at all! However, these delightful notes provide hours of browsing pleasure for young and old readers alike. Robert Benchley was a well-known humorist and newspaper columnist, radio and television presenter, actor, scriptwriter and broadcaster. He is also credited with creating the first ever television entertainment show and one of his iconic short films, How to Sleep won an Academy Award in 1936...

Robert Bloch was a prolific writer in many genres. As a young man he was encouraged by his mentor H. P. Lovecraft, and was a close friend of Stanley G. Weinbaum. Besides hundreds of short stories and novels he wrote a number of television and film scripts including several for the original Star Trek. In 1959 Bloch wrote the novel Psycho which Alfred Hitchcock adapted to film a year later. He received the Hugo Award, the World Fantasy Award, the Bram Stoker Award, and he is a past president of the Mystery Writers of America. Published in Amazing Stories in 1958, This Crowded Earth is a thriller set on an overpopulated Earth of the future.

The Anatomy of Melancholy is a book by Robert Burton, first published in 1621. On its surface, the book is a medical textbook in which Burton applies his large and varied learning in the scholastic manner to the subject of melancholia (which includes what is now termed clinical depression). Though presented as a medical text, The Anatomy of Melancholy is as much a sui generis work of literature as it is a scientific or philosophical text, and Burton addresses far more than his stated subject. In...

Robert Frost preferred to describe the New England countryside using everyday language. He used both as tools to explore world views and life philosophies. A Boy's Will was his first poetry anthology.

“Not once upon a time but just now, in a white house by the side of a road, live three happy children.Their mother and father gave them very odd names, for two old uncles and one aunt, which pleased the old people very much. Their names are all written in the big family Bible,–Jehosophat Green, Marmaduke Green, and Hepzebiah Green.” So begins this collection of bedtime stories for children, one each night for twenty days, involving these three happy children and their playmates.

“Mr. Benson sees the world, four or five generations hence, free at last from all minor quarrels, and ranged against itself in two camps, Humanitarianism for those who believe in no divinity but that of man, Catholicism for those who believe in no divinity but that of God.” This apocalyptic novel from the early 1900's is sometimes deemed one of the first modern dystopias.

Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales.PREFACE.This volume presents the first publication of the famous lectures of Governor Robert L. Taylor. His great popularity as an orator and entertainer, and his wide reputation as a humorist, have caused repeated inquiries from all sections of the country for his lectures in book form; and this has given rise to an earlier publication than was expected. The lectures are given without the slightest abridgment, just as delivered from the platform throughout the country. The consecutive chain of each is left undisturbed; and the idea of paragraphing, and giving headlines to the various subjects treated, was conceived merely for the convenience of the reader...

More New Arabian Nights: The Dynamiter (1885) is a collection of linked short stories by Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny Vandegrift. Three gentlemen of little means and no occupation meet in the Bohemian Cigar Divan, a tobacco shop with couches to sit and smoke. They read of a reward offered for information as to the whereabouts of a man with big moustaches and a sealskin coat. They agree among themselves that they will separate and search for the man so as to claim the reward. The stories that follow concern their adventures...

Kidnapped is the story of a 16-year old young man who is searching for his true birthright and is determined to make a fortune after the death of his parents. This timeless tale by Robert Louis Stevenson follows the life of David Balfour who leaves his home in Scotland after the death of his parents. First he meets his uncle for the first time in his life. His uncle is a very mean person who, at first, tried to kill David by devious means but then got him kidnapped onto a slave ship. In the ship, David makes friends with a Scottish rebel and together they successfully defeat the ship’s crew...

The Black Arrow tells the story of Richard (Dick) Shelton during the Wars of the Roses: how he becomes a knight, rescues his lady Joanna Sedley, and obtains justice for the murder of his father, Sir Harry Shelton. Outlaws in Tunstall Forest organized by Ellis Duckworth, whose weapon and calling card is a black arrow, cause Dick to suspect that his guardian Sir Daniel Brackley and his retainers are responsible for his father’s murder. Dick’s suspicions are enough to turn Sir Daniel against him, so he has no recourse but to escape from Sir Daniel and join the outlaws of the Black Arrow against him...

Beloved by many generations of children, A Child’s Garden of Verses is a beautiful collection of children’s poetry. Sometimes thoughtful, sometimes whimsical, but always fun.

The Wrong Box is a comedy about the ending of a tontine (a tontine is an arrangement whereby a number of young people subscribe to a fund which is then closed and invested until all but one of the subscribers have died. That last subscriber then receives the whole of the proceeds). The story involves the last two such survivors and their relations, a train crash, missing uncles, surplus dead bodies and innocent bystanders. A farce really.

In July 1879, Robert Louis Stevenson left Scotland to meet his future wife in her native California. Leaving by ship from Glasgow, Scotland, he determined to travel in steerage class to see how the working classes fared. At the last minute he was convinced by friends to purchase a ticket one grade above the lowest price, for which he was later thankful after seeing the conditions in steerage, but he still lived among the ‘lower’ classes. His comments on the experience make interesting reading. His father however was so shocked at the thought of his son associating with people ‘beneath him’ that the work was not published for a number of years,

“Olalla” was a “shilling shocker” written for the Christmas season in 1885, just before the publication of Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The nameless protagonist of this Gothic tale, a wounded soldier, goes to the Spanish countryside to recuperate. He finds himself enthralled by the beautiful Olalla, the daughter of his hostess, whose family conceals a terrible secret.

New Arabian Nights is a collection of short stories which include Robert Louis Stevenson's earliest fiction as well as those considered his best work in the genre. The first and longest story stars Prince Florizel of Bohemia who appears in the later collection of stories "More New Arabian Nights: The Dynamiter."

A marvelous depiction of two sides of South Sea Islands' life through three separate tales. One, the experience of the incoming British keen to live free and exploit the innocent; the other the supernatural as perceived by Stevenson working in the lives of the natives. One tale carries the germ of the story of Madame Butterfly, since become a part of Western culture. Another is an extraordinary retelling of a German horror story transposed to a South Sea Island setting. The last is an effort of the pure Stevensonian imagination and there can be nothing better.

The Wrecker (1892) is a novel written by Robert Louis Stevenson in collaboration with his stepson Lloyd Osbourne. The story is a 'sprawling, episodic adventure story, a comedy of brash manners and something of a detective mystery'. It revolves around the abandoned wreck of the Flying Scud at Midway Island. Clues in a stamp collection are used to track down the missing crew and solve the mystery. It is only in the last chapter that different story elements become linked.

A classic of travel writing, this book recounts Stevenson's adventures on an extended walk through uplands and mountains in south-western France. Humorous on his own failings as a traveller, and on his travails with Modestine the self-willed donkey, it is also an exploration of peasant life in an area marked by the violence of the wars of religion. This version includes the fragment "A mountain town in France", originally intended as the opening chapter, but often omitted and published as a separate essay.

As a young man, Stevenson wished to be financially independent and began his literary career by writing travelogues. This is his first published work, written at a time when travel for pleasure was still a rarity. He and a friend traveled by canoe through France and Belgium and he relates how they were thrown in jail, mistaken for traveling salesmen and became embroiled in gypsy life.

15 recordings of Not Yet my Soul by Robert Louis Stevenson. This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for May 19, 2013.Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson (13 November 1850 – 3 December 1894) was a Scottish novelist, poet, essayist, and travel writer. His most famous works are Treasure Island, Kidnapped, and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.The following poem comes from his collection entitled Underwoods, first published in 1887.

Three men down on their luck in Tahiti agree to ship out on a vessel whose officers have died of smallpox. Their desperate venture inspires them to a further idea: they will steal the schooner and its cargo of champagne, sell them, and live a plentiful life. The thought is intoxicating... and so is the cargo, which they sample. Inattention nearly brings them to grief in a sudden storm. This sobering experience is followed by another - apparently the dead officers had a similar ambition! - and their dreams of riches vanish...

Jane Austen, WB Yeats, Chesterton, Shaw... these are personal and intelligent short essays on a selection of great (and great-ish) writers: some well known, and some a bit more obscure to the average reader today. Robert Lynd (1879 – 1949) is best known as a literary essayist and Irish nationalist. He published many essays, all written in an easy, conversational style. Lynd was an essayist after the manner of Charles Lamb, and deserves to be better known. A complete list of his works is available at Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Wilson_Lynd

Will Barrent awakes without memories just before being deposited on Omega, a planet for criminals where the average life expectancy is 3 years. He’s listed as a murderer and released into the illicit society as a “peon” the lowest class imaginable. A mysterious girl gives him a weapon that starts him on his path to status, a path that requires constant brutality. But it must be borne if our hero is to discover the reason for his imprisonment; A reason that pits him against himself, and involves the sardonically similar but devoutly different creeds of Omega and Earth...

3 Robert Sheckley short stories that demonstrate the breathof his fantastic imagination. In Watchbird, the question "can machines solve human problems?" is answered with a resounding YES! But there may be a few unforeseen glitches. Just a few. Warrior Race drops us into an alien race of warriors who fight in a way you will never be able to imagine until you listen. And Beside Still Waters is a gentle story that shows us a man who really wants to get away from it all ... sitting on a rock in the asteroid belt with only a robot for a friend. No girls allowed! A poignant and unsettling story to say the least.

Travelling at speeds close to that of light, spacemen lived at an accelerated pace. When one of the twin boys left the starship, he grew older while his twin in space barely aged. So the starship twin left the ship to find what happened to his brother who was aging away on earth.

Here are two early stories by the well known SF Author Robert Silverberg. The Happy Unfortunate was published first in Amazing Stories in 1957 and explores the angst caused when the human race reaches into space but at the cost of needing to breed a new species; specialized 'spacers' who can withstand the tremendous rigors of acceleration. The Hunted Heroes was published in Amazing stories a year earlier, in 1956. It is a futuristic story that holds great hope for the resilience of the human race after the war destroys most of the world.

Why did everybody step off the ship in this strange valley and promptly drop dead? How could a well-equipped corps of tough spacemen become a field of rotting skeletons in this quiet world of peace and contentment? It was a mystery Peter and Sherri had to solve. If they could live long enough! [from the Judas Valley]Originally published in Amazing Stories, October 1956