This is Shakespeare's dutiful tribute to one of the most imposing and terrifying rulers in European history. The kingdom trembles as the giant monarch storms through his midlife crisis, disposing of the faithful Katharine of Aragon and starting a new life and, the king hopes, a line of succession wi...

His Grace of Osmonde, being the portions of that nobleman's life omitted in the relation of his Lady's story presented to the world of fashion under the title of 'A Lady of Quality' Set in late 1600's England, the story follows the life of a woman living an unconventional life. The loves of her lif...

Under the desperate circumstances of the case, the active brain of the colonel, combining with his lawless pursuit (he is a pirate), suggested an attack with fireworks. This, however, from motives of humanity, was abandoned as too expensive. Lightly armed with a paper knife buttoned up under his ja...

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle thought he had finished forever with his immortal sleuth Sherlock Holmes and his chronicler, Dr Watson. Exhausted and bored with the Holmes saga, he wanted to turn to more serious writing. In the short story The Final Problem, published in 1893 as part of the collection The Me...

"It is typically an American novel, which, in its subtle, tragic performance, lays a tremendous hold upon the reader's sympathies.... The striking originality of the plot, the intensely dramatic climaxes, and the low, sweet thrills of happiness which are in such direct contrast, give the book a weir...

The book tells the story of the quest for Captain Grant of the Britannia. After finding a bottle cast into the ocean by the captain himself after the Britannia is shipwrecked, Lord and Lady Glenarvan of Scotland decide to launch a rescue expedition. The main difficulty is that the coordinates of the...

This is a short story about a shy, quiet little girl living in a big city. When her parents are offered the opportunity to take care of a house in the suburbs for the summer she meets another little girl in the house and they become playmates. (Introduction by Linda Andrus)

The literary world was shocked when in 1890, at the height of his career, Robert Louis Stevenson announced his intention to settle permanently in Samoa. His readers were equally shocked when he began to use the subject material offered by his new environment, not to promote a romance of empire, but ...

One dark and stormy night, a stranger arrives in West Sussex at a village inn. He is heavily clad in an overcoat and his face is wrapped in bandages. He takes a room at the inn, but refuses to socialize with anyone. He stays cooped up in his room all day and night, working with strange chemicals and...

This is a collection of short stories by Robert Louis Stevenson, first published in 1893. It would prove to contain some of his final completed work before his death in 1894. It contains three stories: "The Beach of Falesá" "The Bottle Imp" "The Isle of Voices"