History made interesting for young readers—This Country of Ours by Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall provides a simple and easy to comprehend way of looking at the history of the United States. Arranged chronologically in seven long chapters, it presents events in a story form, making them memorable and very different from other formats. One of the challenges that writers of history face is about fleshing out the characters and making the bland repetition of dates and dynasties seem relevant to modern day readers...

It is Paris sometime after the Franco-Prussian War (1870--Germany won--the French Second Republic collapsed--France embittered). A French poet and a German composer come to admire one another's work and decide to collaborate on an opera. There are costs to pay. ( david wales)

The Real Thing is, on one level, a somewhat ironic tale of an artist and two rather particular models. Yet it also raises questions about the relationship between the notion of reality in our humdrum world, and the means that an artist must use in trying to achieve, or reflect, that reality. Though the protagonist is an artist and illustrator of books, not a writer, it's not hard to imagine that James has himself, and other writers, in mind.

A collection of short Christmas works by the author of The Story of the Fourth Wise Man

"Sometimes short stories are brought together like parcels in a basket. Sometimes they grow together like blossoms on a bush. Then, of course, they really belong to one another, because they have the same life in them. ...There is such a thought in this book. It is the idea of the search for inward happiness, which all men who are really alive are following, along what various paths, and with what different fortunes! Glimpses of this idea, traces of this search, I thought that I could see in certain tales that were in my mind,—tales of times old and new, of lands near and far away...

Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street is a novella by the American novelist Herman Melville (1819–1891). It first appeared anonymously in two parts in the November and December 1853 editions of Putnam's Magazine, and was reprinted with minor textual alterations in his The Piazza Tales in 1856.

This Book is a collection of humorous short stories which describe the comedy in everyday things and situations.

One must have a little pinch of seasoning in this dull, heavy life of ours; one should never look to have all the troubles, the labors, and the cares, with never a whit of innocent jollity and mirth. Yes, one must smile now and then, if for nothing else than to lift the corners of the lips in laughter that are only too often dragged down in sorrow. … Yet listen! One must not look to have nothing but pepper and salt in this life of ours—no, indeed! At that rate we would be worse off than we are now. I only mean that it is a good and pleasant thing to have something to lend the more solid part a little savor now and then! … Are you ready? Very well; then I will tell you a story.

A maritime classic acclaimed for its exciting adventure, The Sea Wolf offers a thrilling tale of life at sea, while exploring the many difficulties that may erupt on board a ship captained by a brutally hedonistic and controlling individual. Additionally, the psychological adventure novel covers several themes including mutiny, existentialism, individualism, brutality, and the intrinsic will to survive. The novel sets into motion when its protagonist, the soft and cultivated scholar Humphrey van Weyden, is witness to a precarious collision between his ferry and another ship...

A collection of short stories by author Jack London