Fiction Gutenberg

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...

Mansfield Park is the third novel by Jane Austen, written at Chawton Cottage between February 1811 and 1813. It was published in May 1814 by Thomas Egerton, who published Jane Austen's two earlier novels, Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice. When the novel reached a second edition in 1816, its publication was taken over by John Murray, who also...

The Talisman is a novel by Sir Walter Scott. It was published in 1825 as the second of his Tales of the Crusaders, the first being The Betrothed. The Talisman takes place at the end of the Third Crusade, mostly in the camp of the Crusaders in Palestine. Scheming and partisan politics, as well as the illness of King Richard the Lionheart, are placing the Crusade in danger. The main characters are...

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...

Carmen is a novella by Prosper Mérimée, written and first published in 1845. It has been adapted into a number of dramatic works, including the famous opera by Georges Bizet. The novella comprises four parts. Only the first three appeared in the original publication in the October 1, 1845 issue of the Revue des Deux Mondes (Robinson 1992); the fourth first appeared in the book...

The Fair Maid of Perth Or, St. Valentine's Day is a novel by Sir Walter Scott. Inspired by the strange story of the Battle of the North Inch, it is set in Perth and other parts of Scotland around 1400. The book had been intended to include two other stories in the same volume, "My Aunt Margaret's Mirror" and "Death of the Laird's Jock", which was to have been titled St. Valentine's Eve. The...

Lulu's Library, Volume I includes:  A Christmas Dream The Candy Country Naughty Jocko The Skipping Shoes Cockyloo Rosy's Journey How They Ran Away The Fairy Box A Hole in the Wall The Piggy Girl The Three Frogs Baa! Baa!

Those who read this romance for the sake of what history it may contain will find the histories from which I have helped myself more profitable. Those antiquarians who hunt their hobbies through books had best drop the trail of this book at the preface, for they will draw but a blank covert in these pages. Better for the antiquarian that he seek the mansion of Sir William Johnson, which is still...

Poor Folk (Russian: Бедные люди, Bednye Lyudi), sometimes translated as Poor People, is the first novella by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, written over the span of nine months between 1844 and 1845. Dostoyevsky was in financial difficulty because of his extravagant living and his developing gambling addiction; although he had produced some translations of...

She and Allan is a novel by H. Rider Haggard, first published in 1921. It brought together his two most popular characters, Ayesha from She (to which it serves as a prequel), and Allan Quatermain from King Solomon's Mines. Its significance was recognized by its republication by the Newcastle Publishing Company as the sixth volume of the celebrated Newcastle Forgotten Fantasy Library series in...

Lady Susan is a short epistolary novel by Jane Austen, possibly written in 1794 but not published until 1871.  This epistolary novel, an early complete work that the author never submitted for publication, describes the schemes of the main character—the widowed Lady Susan—as she seeks a new husband for herself and one for her daughter. Although the...

The Antiquary (1816) is a novel by Sir Walter Scott about several characters including an antiquary: an amateur historian, archaeologist and collector of items of dubious antiquity. Although he is the eponymous character, he is not necessarily the hero, as many of the characters around him undergo far more significant journeys or change. Instead, he provides a central figure (and location) for...

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.”

Of Human Bondage (1915) is a novel by W. Somerset Maugham. It is generally agreed to be his masterpiece and to be strongly autobiographical in nature, although Maugham stated, "This is a novel, not an autobiography, though much in it is autobiographical, more is pure invention." Maugham, who had originally planned to call his novel Beauty from Ashes, finally settled on a title taken from a...

Saint Ronan's Well is a novel by Sir Walter Scott. It is the only novel he wrote with a 19th-century setting. Valentine Bulmer and his half-brother Francis Tyrrel had been Mrs Dods' guests at Cleikum Inn when they were students from Edinburgh, and she gladly welcomed Francis when he arrived, some years afterwards, to stay at the inn again, to fish and sketch in the neighbourhood. A mineral...

Most of these stories were written at sixteen for my younger sisters and their playmates, the little Emersons and Channings, and appeared some years later under the name of "Flower Fables." With some additions they are now republished for the amusement of those children's children by their old friend. L. M. ALCOTT.

The day Sir William died there died the greatest American of his day. Because, on that mid-summer evening, His Excellency was still only a Virginia gentleman not yet famous, and best known because of courage and sagacity displayed in that bloody business of Braddock. Indeed, all Americans then living, and who since have become famous, were little celebrated, excepting locally, on the day Sir...

Sons and Lovers is a 1913 novel by the English writer D. H. Lawrence. The Modern Library placed it ninth on their list of the 100 best novels of the 20th century. While the novel initially incited a lukewarm critical reception, along with allegations of obscenity, it is today regarded as a masterpiece by many critics and is often regarded as Lawrence's finest achievement.

The Ancient Allan is a novel by H Rider Haggard. Sitting beside entrancing Lady Ragnall while the smoke of an ancient Egyptian herb grows thick around them, Allan Quatermain finds himself departing the world he know and entering into his strangest adventure. In a mystic transformation, he comes to his senses in an earlier incarnation... as Shabaka, hunter of lions -- scion of the rulers of...

The Rainbow is a 1915 novel by British author D. H. Lawrence. It follows three generations of the Brangwen family living in Nottinghamshire, particularly focusing on the individual's struggle to growth and fulfilment within the confining strictures of English social life.  The Rainbow tells the story of three generations of the Brangwen family, a dynasty of farmers and...