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Description During the unloading of an Insular and Continental Steam Navigation Company ship arrived from Rouen, the Bullfinch, a cask falls, splits, and reveals its unexpected contents. As the dockworkers try to work out what to do, Mr. Léon Felix arrives and claims the cask as his own. His actions set into motion a complicated trail for the detectives of London’s Scotland Yard and Paris’s Sûreté to follow to the end. Freeman Wills Crofts was one of many authors writing crime fiction in
Description Progress and Poverty, first published in 1879, was American political economist Henry George’s most popular book. It explores why the economy of the mid-to-late 1800s had seen a simultaneous economic growth and growth in poverty. The book’s appeal was in its balance of moral and economic arguments, challenging the popular notion that the poor, through uncontrolled population growth, were responsible for their own woes. Inspired by his years living in San Francisco and his own
Description This collection of short “mystery” stories by Oscar Wilde was originally published in 1891 and was his second published collection of stories. This edition follows the 1907 edition, which was published after his death and added “The Portrait of Mr. W. H.,” a story first published in 1899. Written around the same time as The Picture of Dorian Gray and before he turned his hand to playwriting, these stories showcase the quintessential Wilde: dark irony combined with an incisive
Description In her third novel, Virginia Woolf departs from conventional narrative and explores storytelling through discordant scenes and impressions. Jacob Flander’s life story is told through the perspectives of the people in his life. In Jacob’s Room, we see Jacob grow from a young boy to an ardent student of Classical culture while the world around him moves closer to an impending war. Jacob is described in flashes by the women around him—his mother and his lovers.
Description A baby is deposited in the bed of Squire Allworthy, a wealthy widower in Georgian England. The baby is given the name of Tom Jones and given to Allworthy’s live-in sister to raise. She soon marries and has her own son, and the two boys are raised together, with the usual household rivalries and jealousies. As Tom reaches his late teenage years, he discovers the several young ladies that surround, but especially the one that lives next door. Circumstances eventually lead to Tom being
Description Edgar Allan Poe is one of the primary figures of American nineteenth-century literature. His writing was heavily influenced by Romanticism ideals of emotion and feeling, and although mostly known for his Gothic-tinged horror, his tales jump between many different genres, including science-fiction, satire, humor, mystery, and even early detective fiction. Poe mostly wrote short stories and poems, published in magazines and periodicals like the Southern Literary Messenger and Graham’s
Description After defeating enemies in battle, Roman citizens celebrate in the streets as Julius Caesar and his entourage make their way through the city. As Caesar passes a soothsayer, he receives an ominous warning: “Beware the ides of March,” which he immediately disregards. Meanwhile, some of his closest followers are convinced their leader has become too powerful and plot his removal. Plutarch’s Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans was Shakespeare’s primary source for Julius Caesar. This
Description King Lear is a tragedy by Shakespeare, written about 1605 or 1606. Shakespeare based it on the legendary King Leir of the Britons, whose story is outlined in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s pseudohistorical History of the Kings of Britain (written in about 1136). The play tells the tale of the aged King Lear who is passing on the control of his kingdom to his three daughters. He asks each of them to express their love for him, and the first two, Goneril and Regan do so effusively, saying
Description Some Do Not … opens at the cusp of World War I. Christopher Tietjens, a government statistician, and his friend Vincent Macmaster, an aspiring literary critic, are visiting the English countryside. Tietjens, preoccupied with his disastrous marriage, meets Valentine Wannop, a suffragette, during a round of golf. As their love story develops, the novel explores the horrors of the war without the narrative ever entering the battlefield. The characters are complex and nuanced. Tietjens
Description Sun Tzu’s ancient treatise on the art of war has exerted enormous influence over both Asian and Western soldiers, covering subjects ranging from morale and discipline to the correct use of spies. Despite questions about the historicity of the author, the text has stood the test of time and remains widely read by strategists, politicians, and even business leaders today. Though Dr. Lionel Giles was not the first to translate Sun Tzu into English, he was the first to do so in a