Cranford is set in a small market town populated largely by a number of respectable ladies. It tells of their secrets and foibles, their gossip and their romances as they face the challenges of dealing with new inhabitants to their society and innovations to their settled existence. It was first published between 1851 and 1853 as episodes in Charles Dickens’ Journal Household Words. Appended to this recording is a short sequel, The Cage at Cranford, written ten years later and published in the journal All the Year Round...

The story could really have been simple: Miss Milner, who is admired for her beauty and charm, could have been a socialite, marry a respectable and good looking man and be happy in the standards of her time. But if it was so, why would there be a book? Miss Milner, beautiful and charming as she is, announces her wish to marry her guardian, a catholic priest. But women in the 18th century do not declare their wishes or speak about their passions, and- after all- he is a catholic priest… And if he finds a way to marry her, is this her road to happiness?

Aunt Jane is a good and loving woman, important to everyone except herself, always willing to give good advice. Her "hero", Horace, is far different: in the beginning of the story, he is a good but a little unthoughtful youth. But at the end, his unthoughtfulness is replaced by his love to god. Beside aunt Jane and her "hero", there is quite a large cast of other unforgettable characters who show us a lot of important things. (Summary by Stav Nisser.)

In " Our Little Canadian Cousin," the author's intention is to tell, in a general way and in one defined local setting, the story of Canadian home life in the late 19th century. To Canadians, home life means not merely sitting at a huge fire-place, or brewing and baking in a wide country kitchen, or dancing of an evening, or teaching, or sewing ; but it means the great outdoor life — sleighing, skating, snow-shoeing, hunting, canoeing, and, above all, " camping out " — the joys that belong to a vast, uncrowded country, where there is " room to play."

Stoddard’s novel traces the education and development of a young female in American middle-class society. The protagonist, Cassandra Morgeson, is educated by a series of journeys she makes throughout her youth and early adulthood. Each new setting represents a different stage in her intellectual development.Cassandra is born in Surrey, a small New England town. Surrey is quiet and isolated, granting a young woman little intellectual stimulation. Cassandra escapes the boredom of domestic life through stories of adventure and exploration. Surrey instills in Cassandra a restlessness that drives her quest for knowledge and experience.(Introduction by Wikipedia)

Elizabeth Stuart Phelps's 1877 novel is set in a New England college town, and focuses on Avis Dobell, a professor's daughter. Avis is a talented painter, and bucks against the constraints placed on women in the 19th century. She wants to pursue a career as an artist and rejects marriage and motherhood, until she meets the charismatic young professor Philip Ostrander. Phelps's novel is a beautifully-written examination of the conflicts between marriage and career for women that is still relevant today.

It’s a dreary February in post-World War I London when Mrs. Wilkins spots an advertisement in The Times for a small Italian castle for rent in April. She sees another member of her women’s club, Mrs. Arbuthnot, reading the same advertisement and manages to convince her that the two of them should rent it. Both are miserable and lonely in their marriages. They can’t afford the cost of the villa, San Salvatore, on their own and must advertise for two others, eventually recruiting an elderly widow named Mrs...

The Princess Priscilla of Lothen Kunitz finds court life stifling and runs away to England with the elderly court librarian. Her intention is to live a pure and simple life filled with good works. But life among ordinary people in an English village is not what she expects it to be... (Introduction by Tabithat)

Vera (1921) by Elizabeth von Arnim is a black comedy based on her disastrous second marriage to Earl Russell: a mordant analysis of the romantic delusions through which wives acquiesce in husbands' tyrannies. In outline the story of this utterly unromantic novel anticipates DuMaurier's Rebecca. Naive Lucy Entwhistle is swept into marriage by widower, Everard Wemyss. His mansion "The Willows" is pervaded by the spectre of his dead wife Vera, with whom Lucy becomes obsessed. ... Here the servants are partisan for both wives, and lose no opportunity to disrupt Everard's unctuous, oppressive household routines...

Written by an author born in Australia, grew up in England, married in Germany, and then flew to the United States. A tale about a young woman, freed up from the bonds of her family life, to wonder all around in search of all things feminist. The story seems somewhat autobiographical, surrounded in disillusionment and humor. Written on the eve of World War I and just back from married life in Germany.

Elizabeth and Her German Garden is a novel by Elizabeth von Arnim, first published in 1898; it was very popular and frequently reprinted during the early years of the 20th century. The story is a year's diary written by the protagonist Elizabeth about her experiences learning gardening and interacting with her friends. It includes commentary on the beauty of nature and on society, but is primarily humorous due to Elizabeth's frequent mistakes and her idiosyncratic outlook on life. She looked down upon the frivolous fashions of her time writing "I believe all needlework and dressmaking is of the devil, designed to keep women from study...

Anna Estcourt, twenty-five and beautiful, is the penniless ward of her distant brother and his exasperating wife. Turning down all offers of marriage, scornful at the thought of leaning on a man for help and comfort, she thinks only of the independence which seems an impossible dream. But out of the blue Uncle Joachim, her mother's brother, leaves her a handsome property in Germany. Her longed for independence is within her grasp, and though it's a rocky beginning with the locals, she loves her new home...

In this political thriller set at the turn of the 20th century, several lives, both of Washington insiders and those on the periphery, intersect over the issue of some stolen diplomatic papers. And what hidden secrets bind Mrs. Redmond, the wife of the Secretary of State, to the unscrupulous Count Valdmir, the Russian ambassador? Politics, power, and intrigue combine in this novel, first published in 1905.

"On that bright spring afternoon when three happy, interested children went off to the woods with their governess to take their first lesson in the study of wild flowers, they saw also some other things which made a fresh series of "Elmridge Talks," and these things were found among the trees of the roadside and forest."

Almost certainly the merging of two separate magazine novellas, where Scrymsour attempted to weave together the plots. In this fantasy/ science fiction novel, the two young gentlemen protagonists are transported from a company town dominated by their family coalmine into an underground cave system where an oligarchic exiled race of dwarf Israelites has lived for 3000 years and grown horns. More space and time travel follow bringing our heroes to Jupiter, where romance follows. - Summary by Lynne Thompson

This is a volume in a series of books of poetry by Ella Wheeler Wilcox. This time, the theme is "Power".

This is a collection of six short stories, each of them illustrating that even a marriage which looks perfect from the outside can be sabotaged quite easily by the two people involved.

The continued success of the "Jataka Tales," as retold and published ten years ago, has led to this second and companion volume. Who that has read or told stories to children has not been lured on by the subtle flattery of their cry for "more"? The Jataka tales, regarded as historic in the Third Century B. C., are the oldest collection of folk-lore extant. They come down to us from that dim far-off time when our forebears told tales around the same hearth fire on the roof of the world.

Isabel Carnaby returns from India. She starts looking for a place in upper class British society. At the begining, people are sceptical of her because she is an orphan. But she will surprise everybody. - Summary by Stav Nisser.

Summary: This is a collection of ghost stories in which the antagonists are various animals. Divided up into chapters of ghost sightings by each group of animals, you will hear of hauntings by dogs, cats, birds, jungle animals, etc. (Summary by Allyson Hester)

A tale of two people, and their search for answers to unknown questions. Adam and Robin find themselves inexplicably alone after an apparent natural cataclysm, and are compelled to learn how to survive, how to endure, but most importantly to themselves, how to enjoy, understand their new roles in life, and understand each other. (Introduction by Roger Melin)

Philo Gubb, not being content with his job as wallpaper-hanger, has higher aspirations: to become a detective, just like Sherlock Holmes. To that end, he enrolls in a correspondence course, where he gets lessons through the mail as well as the necessary disguises for a detective. Philo Gubb, not being really clever or intuitive, or even looking good in those disguises, gets involved in one case after the other - and sooner or later happens to stumble on and solve the crime... Each of these stories...

Why is the neighbor so obsessed with his car? Where can we find a good gardener? Should we have a Santa Claus at our Christmas party? Yes, this is suburbia... much the same today as it was in 1911.

Ellis Parker Butler was an American author. He was the author of more than 30 books and more than 2,000 stories and essays. These are eight of his humorous short stories about life.

A puppy, unanounced and unordered, arrives in a crate at Mr. Murchison's house. Humorous events follow.

Amusing tales showing the effectiveness of advertising some rather questionable products. Perkins and the narrator partner in promotions directed at a gullible and willing public. Unlike most tales of the kind, with moralistic endings where the 'sharps' come to grief, Perkins and Co. become wealthy and quite pleased with themselves.

This book, subtitled "How and Why Tales from Brazilian Folk-Lore", is a collection of short stories, most of them etiologial myths from Brazilian Indian Folklore.

The singing mouse tells tales of nature in songs. This book is for those who want to know how the mountains ate up the plains, what the waters said or where the city went.

Monsieur Lecoq is a captivating mystery, historical and love story : Around 11 o'clock, on the evening of Shrove Sunday 18.., close to the old Barrière d'Italie, frightful cries, coming from Mother Chupin's drinking-shop, are heard by a party of detectives led by Inspector Gévrol. The squad runs up to it. A triple murder has just been committed. The murderer is caught on the premises. Despite Gévrol's opinion that four scoundrels encountered each other in this vile den, that they began to quarrel, that one of them had a revolver and killed the others, Lecoq, a young police agent, suspects a great mystery...

Monsieur Lecoq is a captivating mystery, historical and love story: Around 11 o'clock, on the evening of Shrove Sunday 18.., close to the old Barrière d'Italie, frightful cries, coming from Mother Chupin's drinking-shop, are heard by a party of detectives led by Inspector Gévrol. The squad runs up to it. A triple murder has just been committed. The murderer is caught on the premises. Despite Gévrol's opinion that four scoundrels encountered each other in this vile den, that they began to quarrel, that one of them had a revolver and killed the others, Lecoq, a young police agent, suspects a great mystery...

Émile François Zola (French pronunciation: [emil zɔˈla]) (2 April 1840 – 29 September 1902) was an influential French writer, the most important exemplar of the literary school of naturalism. More than half of Zola’s novels were part of a set of twenty novels about a family under the Second Empire collectively known as Les Rougon-Macquart. L’Assommoir (1877) is the seventh novel in the series. Usually considered one of Zola’s masterpieces, the novel—a harsh and uncompromising study of alcoholism and poverty in the working-class districts of Paris—was a huge commercial success and established Zola’s fame and reputation throughout France and the world.

An unsatisfied wife kills her weak husband in order to carry on a sordid affair with another man. However, her selfish plans are spoiled when her husband continues to haunt her. This is often said to be Zola's first great novel.

A well-to-do French farm family is destroyed by a flood. The story, thrilling to the very end, is told from the point of view of the family’s 70-year-old patriarch. The story speaks of the helplessness of mankind in the face of the forces of nature.

The Markets of Paris is a remarkable work, and is the one which Zola calls his very best novel, and of which he is far more proud than of any others in his Rougon-Marquart series – prouder than of L’Assommoir. It must have been in his early manhood, when poor and friendless, he lived among the people, that much of the information which makes these pages so startlingly vivid, was acquired. How many mornings, long before dawn, must he have visited these markets – how many hours and days must he have spent there, to have mastered the habits, manners and ways of these people, who are a class by themselves, and of whom we do not lose sight, from the beginning to the end of the book...

“The Jolly Parisiennes” by Émile Zola is a very clever, brilliant and interesting romance of a “grande passion” with an undercurrent of political intrigue. The plot is ingenious both in conception and execution, while the tone of the novel is exceedingly bright and vivacious. A peculiar phase of Parisian society is most agreeably dealt with. The heroines, Louise Neigeon and Berthe Gaucheraud, are very jolly ladies indeed, but they never forget that they are ladies, even in their merriest and most eccentric moods...

Magic Words is a Victorian tale of a community and how a few women bring a special kind of Christmas magic to the community-- Magic that can heal wounded hearts. (Introduction by Sean McGaughey)

If you're a Jane Austen fan, you'll enjoy Emily Eden's comic novels of manners, The Semi-Detached House (1859) and The Semi-Attached Couple (1860). At the opening of The Semi-Detached House, the beautiful (but rather petulant) Lady Blanche Chester, newly married and pregnant, is being installed in a suburban house while her husband is away. Her encounters with her neighbors, and the intrigues of the neighborhood, soon come to absorb and annoy her.

Young and beautiful Helen Eskdale and fabulously wealthy Lord Teviot seem to be the perfect match. But when they marry, they find that misunderstandings and jealousies continually drive them apart. The machinations and intrigues of a large supporting cast surround the central question of whether their marriage will survive. Emily Eden's comedy of manners is reminiscient of Jane Austen's witty and ironic novels.