Written by Gothic writer Matthew Lewis, whose novel The Monk is one of the most enduring Gothic works from the eighteenth century, The Castle Spectre is one of Lewis' earliest forays into drama, and a strong indication of his talents as a controversial and frightening entertainer. Set in medieval Conway, Wales, the play is filled with every delicious Gothic trope imaginable: a menacing castle, a villainous nobleman hiding terrible secrets, a virginal damsel in distress, an heroic lover trying to save her, several comedic supporting characters, and, yes, the presence of a ghost...

Maturin Murray Ballou was the author of dozens of books, chiefly centered around his extensive sea travel. He was deputy navy-agent in the Boston Custom House and circumnavigated in 1882, collecting material for several travel accounts and various nautical romances, amongst which The Sea-Witch can be counted.

'Two Sides to Every Question’: From a South Australian Standpoint is a meditation on poverty, wealth, and social aspiration set in the free settlement of Adelaide in pre-Federation Australia. The novel follows the lives of a cast of characters from different social classes as they negotiate the twists and turns in their respective fortunes. The newly-bereaved Alton family—an invalid widow and her two grown children, Tom and Nettie—sell their rural property and move to the slovenly back streets of the inner-city; they are determined to hold onto their dignity and values as they turn to earning a living for the first time...

Are you a story teller? Almost all of us are, you know. Well, these 12 stories were written by Maud Lindsay to be told by someone who can weave the magic thread of speech into a performance that will hold the children spellbound. And we don't need to be perfect, just willing to tell a story; that is really all children ask, someone willing to tell a story. 8 of Librivox's Story tellers have volunteered to tell these enchanting tales (and sometimes sing the sweet little melodies that are included...

Published in 1903, King Arthur and His Knights by Maude L. Radford is an easy to read version of the Arthurian legends, made simple and interesting for children. Maude Lavinia Radford Warren was a Canadian born American who taught literature and composition at the University of Chicago between 1893-1907. Following the success of some of her books, she left teaching to take up writing as a full time career. She also served as a war correspondent for the New York Times magazine during WWI and contributed several remarkable features on the role of women in the conflict...

Frey and his Wife is a Nordic Saga, but written in a saga style by a 20th Century Englishman. It tells the tale of Gunnar, a Norwegian wrongly accused of murder who flees across the mountains to the pagan forests of Sweden. There he meets 'Frey' a Norse god, and a young woman who has become his wife. Animosity develops between Frey and Gunnar over the local ritual of human sacrifice which leads to an interesting outcome. The tale develops themes of religion, idolatory, and love, set in the time when Christianity was starting to displace pagan religion in Scandinavia. (Kevin Green)

Two writers, famous in their own countries for creating immortal characters: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in England and Maurice Leblanc in France. Their literary creations, Sherlock Holmes and Arsene Lupin are at two ends of the criminal spectrum. Holmes is a sleuth while Lupin is a burglar. When Maurice Leblanc introduces Sherlock Holmes in one of his Arsene Lupin stories, Conan Doyle is outraged. He sues Leblanc, who promptly changes the character's name to “Herlock Sholmes” and continues featuring...

Arsène Lupin returns in a wonderful story of disguises, love, and of course treasure. Once again, Lupin crosses paths with the famous Holmlock Shears. But this time Arsène matches wits with Isidore Beautrelet, Sixth-form Schoolboy. Every step that Lupin takes has Beautrelet right on his heels. Has Lupin finally met his match? Will Beautrelet discover the secret of the Hollow Needle? And has the gentleman burglar met another match as well, one who will lead him away from his life of crime forever?

The Eight Strokes of the Clock is a collection of eight short stories by Maurice Leblanc. The stories have his most famous creation, Arsène Lupin, gentleman-thief, as main character. The eight stories, even though independent, have a leading thread: Lupin, under the name of Serge Rénine, trying to conquer the heart of a young lady, travels with her, solving eight mysteries on the way.

In “The Blonde Lady, being a record of the duel of wits between Arsène Lupin and the English detective” – original title “Arsène Lupin contre Herlock Sholmes” – the gentleman-burglar once more meets his enemy, the English detective Herlock Sholmes. If in the last story of “Arsène Lupin, gentleman-burglar” Sherlock Holmes arrives too late (the name was at a later date changed to Herlock Sholmes in reply to complaints and threats by Conan Doyle regarding copyrights), in the two stories that compose “The Blonde Lady” these two great intellects are bound in opposite directions...

Maurice Leblanc delivers another Arsene Lupin adventure set in World War I.

As usual, gentleman thief Arsene Lupin finds himself wrongfully accused of murder, and must find the real killer to clear his coloured name.

A collection of nine stories - or confessions - of the celebrated gentleman thief Arsene Lupin

During a burglary at the home of Deputy Daubrecq a crime is committed, and two accomplices of Arsène Lupin are arrested by the police. One is guilty of the crime, the other innocent, but both will be sentenced to death. Lupin seeks to deliver the victim of a miscarriage of justice, but struggles against Deputy Daubrecq's ruthless blackmailer, who has an incriminating document hidden in a crystal stopper.

The story of an exciting test of wits between world-class thief Arsène Lupin and master detective Herlock Sholmes. Translated from the French. - Summary by Andy Harrington

One of the strongest pieces of imaginative writing for children that the past decade has produced and one of the most delicate and beautiful of all times, is "The Blue Bird," by Maurice Maeterlinck, written as a play, and very successfully produced on the stage. Georgette Leblanc (Madame Maurice Maeterlinck), has rendered this play in story form for children, under the title "The Children's Blue Bird," and in this form it has now been carefully edited and arranged for schools. On the night of Christmas a boy and a girl, Tyltil and Mytil, are visited by Fairy Berilyuna...

‘A wickedly funny 1911 satire on undergraduate life in Edwardian Oxford’ in which the entire student body of Oxford university including the young, handsome aristocrat the Duke of Dorset falls hopelessly in love with Zuleika who is visiting her grandfather, the warden of Judas college, and ultimately commit mass suicide at the end of ‘Eights Week’

This is a story of a wild horse who many said could not be caught or broken, and the man who set out to prove them wrong.

“Max Brand”, the most used pseudonym of Frederick Schiller Faust (1892-1944), is best known today for his western fiction. Faust began in the early twentieth century selling his stories to the pulp magazines, writing in many genres under numerous pseudonyms. He is probably best known as the creator of the character Destry. His novel Destry Rides Again has been filmed several times, most notably the 1939 version starring James Stewart and Marlene Dietrich. Also his character Dr. Kildare which was popularized in film and on television earned him a fortune...

Frederick Schiller Faust (1892-1944), is best known today for his western fiction. Faust was born in Seattle, Washington and at an early age moved with his parents to the San Joaquin Valley in California where he worked as a ranchhand. After a failed attempt to enlist in the Great War in 1917 and with the help of Mark Twain’s sister he met Robert Hobart Davis, editor of All-Story Weekly and became a regular contributor writting under his most used pseudonym “Max Brand”. He wrote in many genres during his career and produced more than 300 western novels and stories...

A man, a dog, and a horse. The call of the wild geese. A very smart doctor from the east who finds there is a lot to learn from these desert people. A woman loved by three men. A gunslinger who has a debt to settle. Max Brand brings them all together in another one of his over three hundred exciting western tales. Brand is not your typical western writer.

Whistlin' Dan Berry is one of the most interesting characters in Western fiction. With uncanny abilities he controls a wild stallion, appropriately named Satan, and a ferocious wolf dog, Black Bart. Easy going, Berry proves absolutely unforgiving when physically assaulted by a feared, vicious outlaw, Jim Silent. Seemingly without any emotions, Whistlin' Dan is relentless in his vengeful search for Silent and his outlaw gang. The is the first book in the "Whistlin Dan" series. (Introduction by rkilmer)

Young Andrew Lanning made one mistake in the beginning, and now the most feared lawman in the mountain desert, Hal Dozier, is on his trail and will stop at nothing to bring the outlaw Lanning to justice. But is Andrew guilty of all the things he is being accused of? There is one, a pretty young girl, who doesn't believe all she hears about him. Again, Max Brand shows us why he is the master of the pulp western. (Introduction by Richard Kilmer)

The Seventh Man by Max Brand, tells part of the story of the larger-than-life western character, Dan Barry, known as “Whistling Dan,” and his alter-ego companions, Black Bart, the wolf-dog, and Satan, the indomitable black stallion. It’s also the story of Kate Cumberland and the incredible five-year-old daughter of Kate and Dan, Joan. We first see Dan as a gentle, caring man with a deep sense of fairness. But then, after six years of a peaceful life in their mountain cabin Dan, more feral than human, sets out to revenge an injustice by killing seven men...

A typical early 20th century western. It's a tale of a tough guy who gets involved with an evil man with an angel daughter for whom the tough guy falls. His efforts to recover hers and her father's gold mine claims is the story. Not a lot of shoot em up but enough story to make one want to finish the book to see how things work out. (Introduction by Charles Montgomery)

The son of a notorious outlaw is adopted into a wealthy, law-abiding family as an infant after his father is killed in an attempted robbery. Will he follow in the footsteps of his outlaw father or will his life be guided by the respectable woman who nurtured him to manhood? Another exciting tale by the master of the pulp western, Max Brand.

A primer for those interested in the basic philosophy, beliefs & secrets of the Rosicrucians.

May Agnes Fleming is renowned as Canada's first best-selling novelist. She wrote 42 novels, many of which have only been published posthumely.The Midnight Queen is set in London, in the year of the plague 1665. Sir Norman Kingsley visits the soothsayer "La Masque" who shows him the vision of a beautiful young lady. Falling madly in love with her, he is astonished to find her only a short time later and saves her from being buried alive. He takes her home to care for her, but while he fetches a doctor, she disappears. Sir Kingsley and his friend Ormistan embark on an adventure to solve the mystery of the young lady - will they ever find her again?

In May Sinclair’s remarkable first novel, Audrey Craven is a beautiful young woman who has by her idiosyncracies acquired a thoroughly undeserved reputation for originality. In fact, Audrey is a shallow, selfish, malleable person of negligible intelligence, with a fastidious horror of anyone who might be considered a nobody. Her pursuit of the stimulation of extraordinary minds (and her persistent fantasy of being somebody’s Muse) brings her into contact with serious women and men representing the profoundest passions of art, religion, science, and love...

Here are two gemlike novellas in one volume, written in May Sinclair’s clearest and cleverest prose and exploring the many ways in which a woman can be held captive, held back from the “intoxication of freedom.” In “The Cosmopolitan,” Frida Tancred is a wealthy heiress trapped by family obligation in a dismal provincial estate, hopelessly longing to see all the glories of the world and with no way of escape but the conventional one of marriage. In “Superseded,” spinsterish Miss Juliana Quincey has been teaching arithmetic in a London girls’ school for twenty-five years when she suddenly falls in love with a much younger man and begins to question the assumptions of her life...

Ranny Ransome is an idealistic young man, devoted to exuberant gymnastic exercises and to fighting “flabbiness” in his own life, body and soul. He loves the girlish and athletic Winny Dymond, and particularly loves participating with her in the Combined Maze, a choreographed, intricate, exhilarating group gymnastic ritual in which the young men and women of the Polytechnic Gymnasium demonstrate their skills. Unfortunately, Ranny falls under the spell of the seductive Violet, a sexual free spirit who wants nothing more than to live an untrammelled life on her own terms...

In this May Sinclair wartime masterpiece, dashing newsman Walter Furnival is an absurdly good catch: handsome, successful, athletic, intelligent, an upstanding epitome of manhood and rectitude. Tasker Jevons is a puny, preposterous, impossible-looking, bombastic sports writer, without one single redeeming social grace. Imagine the jealous mortification of Furny when his enchanting young typist and love interest Viola Thesiger chooses the clownish Jevons as a lover, seeing in him a remarkable inner beauty not evident to anyone but her and (as he grudgingly but magnanimously admits) the long-suffering and devoted Furnival...