In The Secret Agent, a Soho shopkeeper is a member of a terrorist cell, supported by a foreign power, plotting to undermine the English state by means of a bomb plot. Published in 1907, it is considered to be among Conrad's finest novels, written at a time when he was moving away from the seafaring themes which he was known for. Prescient in its depictions of terrorism and political instability, it has become mandatory reading for anyone wishing to...

A human foundling child, adopted by a wood-nymph and raised by the creatures who inhabit a magical forest, grows up to be the immortal Santa Claus.

This is a classic science fiction novel by Marion Zimmer Bradley. This work tells the story of the Terran Empire and their quest to maintain a peaceful rule. However, on the planet Wolf something is afoot. They enlist the services of Race Cargill of the Terran Secret Service, and he goes undercover on Wolf to find the source of the problem. His mission doesn't go as planned and he becomes involved in a blood feud, but this leads him to the secret...

Fully entitled "The Innocents Abroad, or the New Pilgrims' Progress," Twain's colorful travelogue is a compilation of the newspaper articles he wrote while on a cruise to Europe, Egypt, and the Holy Land with other American tourists in 1867. His account frequently uses humor to describe the people and places he visits, although this becomes highly satiric at times as Twain becomes frustrated with European profiteering, a pointless historical anecdote...

When her father has a crisis of conscious, Margaret Hale's life is turned upside down. Because her parents decide to move away from southern London, Margaret must leave behind the tranquil, rural life she's always known to settle in an industrial town called Milton. Though she does her best to assimilate, Margaret cannot help but feel trapped and hopeless in Milton, as she witnesses the brutal effects industrialization has on the environment and the...

The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain Charles Dickens - The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain, A Fancy for Christmas-Time (better known as The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain or simply as The Haunted Man) is a novella by Charles Dickens first published in 1848. It is the fifth and last of Dickens's Christmas novellas. The story is more about the spirit of Christmas than about the holiday itself, harking back to the first in the series, A Christmas...

When a kind stranger asks Dorothy for directions, she gladly helps him. But then something unexpected changes everything. Before she know it, Dorothy is in a strange new land, full of amazing beings -- and grave dangers. Can she find her way back to Kansas? First she may have to find oer old friends in the wonderful land of Oz...

It has been three years since Sherlock Holmes fell to his death after a showdown with his brilliant enemy Moriarty at Reichenbach Falls. Believing his friend to be dead, Doctor John Watson has moved on with his life. That is, until he discovers Sherlock Holmes alive and in disguise one afternoon in a London shop. A whole new series of adventures awaits Holmes and Watson, and the consulting detective must use the science of deduction to solve new mysteries,...

Inspired by three scenes in a dream Stevenson had, this story follows Dr. Jekyll, who by day works as a respectable doctor and by night roams the back alleys of old-town London as a monstrous criminal.

A masterpiece of stories by H. G. Wells, masterfully tied together by time and place. First, a shop owner named Mr. Cave, enraptured by a crystal egg, struggles to find a way to keep his magical possession... Then we are, taken to a time when cave people struggled to find their place on the planet and keep their lives. The forward to the far future where, in the place the cave people once camped, a young couple's back are, bowed beneath the tyranny...