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In some collection of old English Ballads there is an ancient ditty which I am told bears some remote and distant resemblance to the following Epic Poem. I beg to quote the emphatic language of my estimable friend (if he will allow me to call him so), the Black Bear in Piccadilly, and to assure all to whom these presents may come, that "I am the original." This affecting legend is given in the...

The American Claimant is an 1892 novel by American humorist and writer Mark Twain. Twain wrote the novel with the help ofphonographic dictation, the first author (according to Twain himself) to do so. This was also (according to Twain) an attempt to write a book without mention of the weather, the first of its kind in fictitious literature. Indeed, all the weather is contained in an appendix, at...

The Mysterious Island (French: L'Île mystérieuse) is a novel by Jules Verne, published in 1874. The original edition, published byHetzel, contains a number of illustrations by Jules Férat. The novel is a crossover sequel to Verne's famous Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and In Search of the Castaways, though thematically it is vastly different from those books. An early...

It is almost impossible to envision what childhood would be like without the enchanting world of fairyland. Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, giants and dwarfs, monsters and magicians, fairies and ogres--these are the companions who thrill young boys and girls of all lands and all times, as Andrew Lang's phenomenally successful collections of stories have proved. From the day that they were...

The Magic of Oz: A Faithful Record of the Remarkable Adventures of Dorothy and Trot and the Wizard of Oz, Together with the Cowardly Lion, the Hungry Tiger and Cap'n Bill, in Their Successful Search for a Magical and Beautiful Birthday Present for Princess Ozma of Oz is the thirteenth Land of Oz book written by L. Frank Baum. Published on June 7, 1919, one month after the author's death, The...

The Happy Prince and Other Tales (sometimes called The Happy Prince and Other Stories) is a collection of stories for children by Oscar Wilde first published in May 1888. It contains five stories, The Happy Prince, The Nightingale and the Rose, The Selfish Giant, The Devoted Friend, and The Remarkable Rocket. It is most famous for its title story, The Happy Prince.

An interesting short story depicting with satire the cultures of both the lamplighters and the scientifically minded nobleman.

King Richard the Second is a history play by William Shakespeare believed to have been written in approximately 1595. It is based on the life of King Richard II of England (ruled 1377–1399) and is the first part of a tetralogy, referred to by some scholars as the Henriad, followed by three plays concerning Richard's successors: Henry IV, Part 1; Henry IV, Part 2; and Henry V. It may not...

Jacob's Room is the third novel by Virginia Woolf, first published on 26 October 1922. The novel centres, in a very ambiguous way, around the life story of the protagonist Jacob Flanders and is presented almost entirely through the impressions other characters have of Jacob. Thus, although it could be said that the book is primarily a character study and has little in the way of plot or...

The Land of the Blue Flower was not called by that name until the tall, strong, beautiful King Amor came down from his castle on the mountain crag and began to reign. Before that time it was called King Mordreth's Land, and as the first King Mor-dreth had been a fierce and cruel king this seemed a gloomy name...

The Merchant of Venice is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1596 and 1598. Though classified as a comedy in the First Folio and sharing certain aspects with Shakespeare's other romantic comedies, the play is perhaps most remembered for its dramatic scenes, and is best known for Shylock and the famous "Hath not a Jew eyes?" speech. Also notable is Portia's speech...

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 the holidays than about the holidays themselves, harking back to the first in the series, A...

The Arrow of Gold is a novel by Joseph Conrad, published in 1919. It was originally titled "The Laugh" and published serially in Lloyd's Magazine from December 1918 to February 1920. The story is set in Marseille in the 1870s during the Third Carlist War. The characters of the novel are supporters of the Spanish Pretender Carlos, Duke of Madrid. The narrator of The Arrow of Gold has considerable...

"Admirable series of photographic reprints of the first editions… Altogether very good value." — New York Review of Books Over 30 tales from Portugal, Ireland, Wales, and points East and West, among them "The Brown Bear of Norway," "The Enchanted Deer," "The Story of a Very Bad Boy," and "The Brownie of the Lake." 51 illustrations.

The Count of Monte Cristo (French: Le Comte de Monte-Cristo) is an adventure novel by French author Alexandre Dumas (père) completed in 1844. It is one of the author's most popular works, along with The Three Musketeers. Like many of his novels, it is expanded from plot outlines suggested by his collaborating ghostwriter Auguste Maquet. The story takes place in France, Italy and islands...

Frances Hodgson Burnett's "The Little Hunchback Zia" is a classic work read by book lovers, students and scholars. This is a special edition which exposes readers to a variety of phrases and terminology from this genre. 

English translation of 22 tales include ghouls, goblins and ogres; sea serpents and sea kings; kindly animals and magic birds; demons and dragons; princes and princesses. Some are Momotaro, The Son of a Peach, The Jellyfish and the Monkey, The Mirror of Matsuyama, The Bamboo Cutter and the Moon Child, The Stones of Five Colors and the Empress Jokwa.

The Mystery of Edwin Drood is the final novel by Charles Dickens. The novel was unfinished at the time of Dickens's death (9 June 1870) and his ending for it is unknown. Though the novel is named after the character Edwin Drood, the story focuses on Drood's uncle, precentor, choirmaster and opiumaddict, John Jasper, who is in love with his pupil, Rosa Bud. Miss Bud, Drood's fiancée, has...

The Man is a romance novel by Bram Stoker (the author of Dracula), written in 1905. The Man has also been published under the name The Gates of Life. The novel begins with a "Fore-glimpse" or preface, where the two main characters Miss Stephen Norman and Harold An Wolf are sitting in the graveyard of their town's church, eavesdropping on the conversation of two little girls below them, Marjorie...

The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices was co-written by Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins and features two characters (Mr. Goodchild and Mr. Idle) that are stand-ins for these two. It is told over the course of what was originally five issues of Dickens' journal Household Words and depicts an "idle" (but actually quite frantic) vacation, with long walks/hikes and explorations of inns and other...