William – an Englishman is a 1919 novel by Cicely Hamilton. The novel explores the effect of the First World War on a married couple during the rise of Socialism and the Suffragette movement. It was originally published by Skeffington & Son before being reprinted by Persephone Books in 1999. Described as 'a passionate assertion of the futility of war' by The Spectator, William - an Englishman won the first Prix Femina-Vie Heureuse Anglais prize in 1920.

Twenty-year-old Mary Alice is bored with her home life and envious of the beautiful, poised, popular girls she sees at parties. At her mother's advice, she reluctantly visits her Godmother in New York, who teaches Mary Alice a little homemade "magic" and the one great Secret that will put her at ease with other people. How can Mary Alice learn to use these gifts to bring happiness into her own life and other lives? Although this charming novelette is subtitled "A True Fairy Story," it reveals that most of the "magic" in life can be found within ourselves. (Introduction by Jan MacGillivray)

The story follows the adventures of Sir Philip Harclay, who returns to medieval England to find that the castle seat and estate of his friend Lord Lovel have been usurped. A series of revelations, horrors and betrayals climax in a scene of single combat in which good battles evil for the return of the prize.

This is a collection of 8 works by Clarence Darrow written between 1893 and 1917. Clarence Darrow was most noted in his time as an enormously successful defense attorney. Consider that he was the defense attorney at the Scopes Monkey Trial and at the "trial of the century", the Bobby Franks murder trial. He, like Robert G. Ingersoll, William Cowper Brann , William Jennings Bryan , Daniel Webster, etc. was also known as a world-class orator. These collected 8 works include speeches, essays, and public debates. The man had a silver tongue... sharpened to a rapier's edge!

Clarence Day, Jr., best known for his work Life with Father, presents a satirical speculation on how the world might be different if we apes had not risen to prominence, but rather one of the other species had become dominant in our place.

In a future time, the solar system is powered by one energy source, controlled by one huge organisation, which has plans to use this control to dominate the planets. Unknown to them, a couple of maverick scientists accidentally develop a completely new form of energy supply and threaten the corporation's monopoly. Naturally, the corporation can't allow this to happen... A stunning story about the manipulation of pure energy, climaxing in interstellar conflict.

From Astounding Stories of 1932. Earth is being attacked by horrible black monsters that appear from nowhere and destroy and kill everything and everyone in their paths. Nothing affects them, nothing stops them; they are impervious to all weapons. Earth is doomed. But there is one hope and it rests on the shoulders of 98 brave men. Can they do it? can they find a way of retaliating? Listen and find out.

Clifford Simak deals with the implications of time travel in his own unique way in this story. What if a group of guys did it on their own, without any help from government or industry? On a shoestring,so to speak? Would anyone believe them? What would you do if you could go back 150,000 years to a time when mastodons and saber toothed tigers roamed North America? And what happens when they run out of money? All these questions are explored in the usual humorous, wry Simak way in this story.

The House of Dust is a poem written in the four-movement format of a classical symphony. Hauntingly beautiful despite its bleak post-World War I depictions of human mortality and loss, the poem develops its movements around central images such as Japanese ukiyo-e ("floating world") woodblock prints, touching the reader's senses with endlessly evocative allusions to wind, sea, and weather. In this underlying Japanese sensibility and dependence on central perceptual images, Aiken's poem is similar to poetry of Imagists of the time such as Amy Lowell. Also deeply influenced by the concepts of modern psychology, Aiken delved deeply into individual human identity and emotion.

When two children come to stay with their cousin, they immediately realize something is wrong, but no one will tell them what. Their cousin is strangely altered: nervous, preoccupied, hardly aware of their existence. They soon discover that a conflict is brewing among the hills and farms of the Medford Valley, one whose origins reach back over a century. They must piece it together from scattered clues, and from the stories told to them by a mysterious bee keeper and his daughter. This 1922 Newbery Honor Book tells of the traits that run in a family—honor, stubborn pride, and a dark lust for wealth—and how they shape the destinies of three generations. (Introduction by Peter Eastman)

A crack American flying troop has been sent to France, where they await further instructions. They are concerned that their extensive talents will not be put to good use in the war. Major Cowan introduces Lt. McGee as the British instructor for the crew. It turns out the Brit is actually an American, born in the U.S., even though his parents were British. McGee and Larkin are flying partners. Out on a mission, McGee spots a small enemy plane in a searchlight, probably intent on dropping flares to mark targets for bombers...

Set against the backdrop of a rapidly industrializing England, the bewildering shift in social structure, the fading away of traditions and the advent of new ways of life, The Rainbow by DH Lawrence depicts how one family's story becomes the story of a society. Originally planned as a novel titled The Sisters, Lawrence finally split the theme into two separate novels after many revisions and rewrites. The Rainbow is the first novel in the Brangwen family saga. Tom Brangwen is a small time farmer in rural Nottinghamshire...

The collection of short stories – of which The Prussian Officer is one – was Lawrence’s first such book. A German officer and his orderly are the focus of the piece and, while socially the superior of his orderly, the officer demonstrates his is the distinctly baser character. (Introduction by Cathy Barratt)

Flutist Aaron Sisson is caught up in the aftermath of WWI. A lost soul, he attempts to find himself in the comfort of bar-room talk and alcohol and a woman. Moving on, he spends time with a mining executive's relatives. But he finds the family a stuffy middle-class lot, bored with each other and themselves. He leaves his wife and children and strikes out for the open road. During a playing engagement at an opera performance, he reunites with the mining executive's family. Talk is of love and war, none of it very satisfying to anyone...

"There is no mistake about it, Alvina was a lost girl. She was cut off from everything she belonged to." In this most under-valued of his novels, Lawrence once again presents us with a young woman hemmed in by her middle-class upbringing and (like Ursula Brangwen in The Rainbow) longing for escape. Alvina Houghton's plight, however, is given a rather comic and even picaresque treatment. Losing first her mother, a perpetual invalid, and later her cross-dressing father, a woefully ineffectual small-scale entrepreneur, Alvina feels doomed to merge with the tribe of eternal spinsters who surround her in the dreary mining community of Woodhouse...

LibriVox volunteers bring you 16 recordings of the haunting Ballad of Another Ophelia by D. H. Lawrence. This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for March 24, 2013.

Lawrence summarised the plot of Sons and Lovers in a letter to Edward Garnett in 1912: “It follows this idea: a woman of character and refinement goes into the lower class, and has no satisfaction in her own life. She has had a passion for her husband, so her children are born of passion, and have heaps of vitality. But as her sons grow up she selects them as lovers — first the eldest, then the second. These sons are urged into life by their reciprocal love of their mother — urged on and on...

Prince D.S. Mirsky was a prominent Russian literary historian who spent several years in emigration, teaching at the University of London. This book, published in 1925, presents a brief and incisive overview of Russian literature of the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was written in English and meant to be accessible to the general reading public in the West. - Summary by Kazbek

The Young Visiters is a comic romance novella that parodies upper class society of late Victorian England. Social climber Alfred Salteena introduces his young lady friend Ethel to a genuine gentleman named Bernard and, to his irritation, they hit it off. But Bernard helps Alfred in his plan to become a gentleman, which, Alfred hopes, will help him win back Ethel.

Larry Woolford is a government agent, tasked with investigating subversive activity. He does everything an ambitious young man should do if he wants to succeed: wear the right clothes, listen to the right music, even drink vodka martinis. Then he stumbles across a conspiracy of Weirds plotting to overthow the entire existing social order. It's a race against time. Can he stop their fiendish plan, and keep America safe for shallow judgements based on status symbols? Status Quo was nominated for the 1962 Hugo Award for short fiction.

Henry Beechtree, a newspaper correspondent for the British Bolshevist, is covering the latest otherwise sleepy session of the League of Nations in Geneva, when the newly elected President – a member of the Norwegian delegation – disappears mysteriously, adding some badly needed ‘spice’ to Henry's assignment. (Introduction by Cathy Barratt)