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...

Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc, by the Sieur Louis de Conte is an 1896 novel by Mark Twain about Joan of Arc. It was Twain's last completed novel. The novel is presented as a translation (by "Jean Francois Alden") of memoirs by Louis de Conte. The novel describes itself as Freely Translated out of the Ancient French into Modern English from the Original Unpublished Manuscript in the...

Hamlet. Romeo and Juliet. Henry V. Macbeth. A Midsummer Night's Dream. King Lear. Lovers of literature will immediately recognize these as signature works of William Shakespeare, whose plays still rank as the greatest dramas ever produced in the English language four centuries after they were written. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare collects all thirty-seven of the...

Candida, a comedy by playwright George Bernard Shaw, was written in 1894 and first published in 1898, as part of his Plays Pleasant. The central characters are clergyman James Morell, his wife Candida and a youthful poet, Eugene Marchbanks, who tries to win Candida's affections. The play questions Victorian notions of love and marriage, asking what a woman really...

The highly influential author Louisa May cott wrote the one of the most famous books, A Modern Cinderella Or, The Little Old Shoe And Other Stories. This literary work is considered to be one of the best works of not only the period, but of all time. The book would later go on to be translated into hundreds of languages, distributed worldwide, and come to be part of popular culture for decades,...

Fanny's First Play is a 1911 play by George Bernard Shaw. It was first performed as an anonymous piece, the authorship of which was to be kept secret. However, critics soon recognised it as the work of Shaw. It opened at the Adelphi Theatre at Westminster in London on 19 April 1911 and ran for 622 performances. The mystery over the authorship helped to publicise it....

Master Humphrey's Clock was a weekly periodical edited and written entirely by Charles Dickens and published from April 4, 1840 to December 4, 1841. It began with a frame story in which Master Humphrey tells about himself and his small circle of friends (which includes Mr. Pickwick), and their penchant for telling stories. Several short stories were included, followed by the novels The Old...

Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft is a series of essays by Sir Walter Scott on the subject of the witch-craze, demonology, and other occult topics. It is an early review of the literature that others such as Murray would be analyzing in the next century. Scott has an antiquarian mind, and obviously relishes exposing the reader to the grotesque and the unusual.

Includes 33 tales from Jutland, Rhodesia, Uganda, and various other European traditions: "The Magic Mirror," "The Two Caskets," "The Clever Cat," "The White Slipper," "The Girl-Fish, and more." 58 illustrations.

A Tale of Two Cities (1859) is a novel by Charles Dickens, set in London and Paris before and during the French Revolution. With wellover 200 million copies sold, it ranks among the most famous works in the history of literary fiction. The novel depicts the plight of the French peasantry demoralised by the French aristocracy in the years leading up to the revolution, the corresponding brutality...

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...

A Woman of No Importance is a play by Irish playwright Oscar Wilde. The play premièred on 19 April 1893 at London's Haymarket Theatre. Like Wilde's other society plays, it satirizes English upper class society. It has been performed on stages in Europe and North America since his death in 1900. The play opens with a party on a...

The Adventure of the Dying Detective, in some editions simply titled The Dying Detective, is one of the 56 Sherlock Holmesshort stories written by British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Together with seven other stories, it is collected as His Last Bow. Dr. Watson is called to 221B Baker Street to tend Holmes, who is apparently dying of a rare Asian disease contracted while he was on a case at...

Traffics and Discoveries, containing 11 stories and 11 poems, was published in 1904. Table of Contents: From the Masjid-al-Aqsa of Sayyid Ahmed (Wahabi) The Captive Poseidon's Law The Bonds of Discipline The Runners A Sahibs' War The Wet Litany "Their Lawful Occasions" The King's Task The Comprehension of Private Copper The Necessitarian Steam Tactics Kaspar's Song in...

Twenty Years After (French: Vingt ans après) is a novel by Alexandre Dumas, first serialized from January to August, 1845. A book of the D'Artagnan Romances, it is a sequel to The Three Musketeers and precedes The Vicomte de Bragelonne (which includes the sub-plot, Man in the Iron Mask). The novel follows events in France during La Fronde, during the childhood reign of Louis XIV, and in...

The designing and making of Costume is a craft-sometimes artistic-with which we are all more or less concerned. It is also, in its own way, one of the living arts, that is, it is still carried forward experimentally by experts directly attached to the "business." It has not yet been subjected to rules of good taste formulated by Academies and Universities; but when Inigo Jones, the great...

"And what is it makes you think I could be of use in this particular case?" asked Dr. John Silence, looking across somewhat sceptically at the Swedish lady in the chair facing him. "Your sympathetic heart and your knowledge of occultism—" "Oh, please—that dreadful word!" he interrupted, holding up a finger with a gesture of impatience. "Well, then," she laughed, "your wonderful...

The Professor was the first novel by Charlotte Brontë. It was originally written before Jane Eyre and rejected by many publishing houses, but was eventually published posthumously in 1857 by approval of Arthur Bell Nicholls, who accepted the task of reviewing and editing of the novel. The book is the story of a young man, William Crimsworth, and is a first-person narrative from his...

The capon burns, the pig falls from the spit; The clock hath struck twelve upon the bell; My mistress made it one upon my cheek- She is so hot, because the meat is cold; Methinks your man, like mine, should be your clock, And strike you home without a messenger. My charge was but to fetch you from the mart Home to your house, the Phœnix, sir, to dinner- My mistress and her sister wait for...

The Bridge-Builders (1893) by the British writer Rudyard Kipling is an Indian story about the building of the "Kashi Bridge." The story mainly displays Kipling's mastery of the technical details and knowledge related to bridge building. His biographers agree that the author acquired this knowledge through interacting with British civil engineers who were assigned by the Crown to build numerous...