Fiction

Man and Wife was Wilkie Collins’ ninth published novel. It is the second of his novels (after No Name) in which social questions provide the main impetus of the plot. Collins increasingly used his novels to explore social abuses, which according to critics tends to detract from their qualities as fiction. The social issue which drives the plot is the state of Scots marriage law; at the time...

No Name (1862) by Wilkie Collins is a 19th-century novel revolving around the issue of illegitimacy. It was originally serialised in Charles Dickens' magazine All the Year Round before book publication. The story begins in 1846, at Combe-Raven in West Somerset, the country residence of the happy Vanstone family. In the first scene, the reader is introduced to Mr. Andrew Vanstone, Mrs. Vanstone,...

“There is a part of the soul that stirs at night, in the dark and soundless times of day, when our defenses are down and our daylight distractions no longer serve to protect us from ourselves,” writes beloved author, Joan Chittister. “It’s then, in the still of life, when we least expect it, that questions emerge from the damp murkiness of our inner underworld…These...

Miss Arnott's Marriage is one of the much under-rated Richard Marsh's long stories. The plot revolves around the events which occur after Violet Arnott's husband, Bob Champion (not the Grand National winner, obviously!)  is sent to prison.  Violet decides to revert to her maiden name and forget about her wayward spouse.  Initially, her task seems to be made easier as she comes...

"Sir Henry Curtis, as everybody acquainted with him knows, is one of the most hospitable men on earth. It was in the course of the enjoyment of his hospitality at his place in Yorkshire the other day that I heard the hunting story which I am now about to transcribe. Many of those who read it will no doubt have heard some of the strange rumours that are flying about to the effect that Sir Henry...

The third installment in H. Rider Haggard's Zulu trilogy, Finished is a detailed historical account of the decline of the once-mighty Zulu nation, recounted from the perspective of globe-trotting adventurer Allan Quatermain. From the thrill of the safari to battlefield play-by-plays, this novel will not disappoint fans of the classic action-adventure genre.

Child of Storm is a 1913 novel by H. Rider Haggard featuring Allan Quatermain. The plot is set in 1854-56 and concerns Quatermain hunting in Zululand and getting involved with Mameema, a beautiful African girl who causes great turmoil in the Zulu kingdom. The novel is the second in a trilogy by Haggard involving the collapse of the Zulu kingdom and featuring the dwarf Zikali. The first book is...

The title of this book in the original is Rodzina Polanieckich (The Family of the Polanyetskis); Children of the Soil has been substituted, because of the difficulty of the Polish title for American and English readers, because the Polanyetskis are called children of the soil in the text of the volume, and because all the other characters are children of the soil in the same sense. For most...

This book is a compilation of interviews, the author Max Miller tells us about his first serious assignment in New York. They present his first professional work as a journalist. Max Millard went to New York City in November 1976, when he was 26 years old. He went with the intention to become a full-time writer. For his articles and columns written for small local papers were not paid. He was...

When old Mikolai on his death-bed left Hania to my guardianship and conscience, I was sixteen years of age; she was younger by almost a year, and was also just emerging from childhood. I had to lead her from the bed of her dead grandfather almost by force, and we both went to my father's domestic chapel. The doors of the chapel were open, and before the old Byzantine image of the Mother of God...

Modern Essays is thirty-three epitomal English and American personal essays chosen by Christopher Morley - a novelist who conceived the reader of his anthology as “a friend spending the evening in happy gossip along the shelves.”

Allan and the Holy Flower is a 1915 novel by H. Rider Haggard featuring Allan Quatermain. It first appeared serialised in The Windsor Magazine. The plot involves Quatermain going on a trek into Africa to find a mysterious flower. Brother John, who has been wandering in Africa for years, confides to Allan a huge and rare orchid, the largest ever found. Allan arrives to England with the flower and...

Montezuma's Daughter, first published in 1893, is a novel written by the Victorian adventure writer H. Rider Haggard. Narrated in the first person by Thomas Wingfield, an Englishman whose adventures include having his mother murdered, a brush with the Spanish Inquisition, shipwreck, and slavery. Eventually, Thomas unwillingly joins a Spanish expedition to New Spain, and the novel tells the...

The Ivory Child is a novel by H. Rider Haggard featuring Allan Quatermain.

Allan's Wife - The story of Allan Quatermain's wife and further adventures of Allan Quatermain. Allan’s Wife, as the title suggests centers around Quatermain’s life with his wife Stella who is the mother of his son Harry. The story revolves around Allan’s early life before his famous adventures in the heart of Africa and helps flesh out the adventurer as a man before he...

The People of the Mist is a classic lost race fantasy novel written by H. Rider Haggard. It was first published serially in the weekly magazine Tit-Bits, between December 1893 and August 1894; the first edition in book form was published in London by Longmans in October, 1894. The work's importance was recognized in December, 1973, by its revival by Ballantine Books as the sixty-third paperback...

The Great Boer War is a non-fiction work on the Boer War by Arthur Conan Doyle and first published in 1900 by Smith, Elder and Co. By the end of the war in 1902 the book had been published in 16 editions, constantly revised by Doyle. The Introduction describes the book as: “A very thorough account, including tables at the end of those killed or wounded up until the 8th September when he...

She — subtitled A History of Adventure — is a novel by H. Rider Haggard (1856–1925), first serialised in The Graphic magazine from October 1886 to January 1887. She is one of the classics of imaginative literature, and one of the best-selling books of all time, with over 83 million copies sold in 44 different languages as of 1965. She was extraordinarily popular upon its release...

Allan Quatermain is the protagonist of H. Rider Haggard's 1885 novel King Solomon's Mines and its sequels. Allan Quatermain was also the title of a book in this sequence. The character Quatermain is an English-born professional big game hunter and occasional trader in southern Africa, who supports colonial efforts to spread civilization in the Dark Continent, though he also favours native...

Cleopatra: Being an Account of the Fall and Vengeance of Harmachis is a novel written by the author H. Rider Haggard, the author of King Solomon's Mines and She. The book was first printed in 1889. The story is set in the Ptolemaic era of Ancient Egyptian history and revolves around the survival of a dynasty bloodline protected by the Priesthood of Isis. The main character Harmachis (the living...