Description Writer Jack Derrick and his sister Edith move into a suspiciously inexpensive countryside manor. They quickly discover the reason for their luck—two years earlier an unsolved murder had taken place in the parlor. Jack is extremely sensitive and feels that both the house and the deceased former owner are communicating with him. But to what end? Alan Sullivan was the winner of Canada’s Governor General Award for English-language fiction in 1941 for his novel Three Came to Ville Marie.
Description In 1855 Pedro Carolino set out to write an English phrasebook for Portuguese travelers visiting England. The only problem was that he couldn’t speak English. Undeterred by this minor setback, Carolino decided to base his guide on a respected Portuguese–French phrasebook written by José da Fonseca. He took the French translations of Portuguese, and used a French–English dictionary to translate those to English. The result was an unintentional comedy of literal translation, as English
Description This sequel to From the Earth to the Moon narrates the eventful journey to the Moon of three passengers—Impey Barbicane, president of the Gun Club, Captain Nicholl, Barbicane’s rival and then collaborator, and Michel Ardan, a French scientist—aboard a hollow cannonball. They orbit the Moon and perform geographical observations, but the projectile fails to land, propelling them instead toward the Earth. They’re rescued at sea and widely celebrated as the first humans to leave Earth.
Description Robert Sheckley was one of science fiction’s most prolific short story writers. Though less known today than he was in his heyday, he was a giant of his time and was nominated for the Hugo and Nebula awards. Even though many of his stories deal with serious topics, they are most widely remembered for their comedic wit. His writing was compared to that of Douglas Adams, who held Sheckley in high regard: “He’s a very, very funny writer. He’s also a stylist. Very few science fiction
Description The Wealth of Nations is economist Adam Smith’s magnum opus and the foundational text of what today we call classical economics. Its publication ushered in a new era of thinking and discussion about how economies function, a sea change away from the older, increasingly-irrelevant mercantilist and physiocratic views of economics towards a new practical application of economics for the birth of the industrial era. Its scope is vast, touching on concepts like free markets, supply and
Description Desiring a more romantic crossing of the Atlantic, Englishman J. R. Kazallon decides to forgo a steamship and instead sets sail on the Chancellor, a large three-mast sailing ship. What follows is a classic nautical adventure, told in the form of a series of diary entries and filled with tragedy, suffering, and even horror. Despite the grim subject matter, Jules Verne still finds space to include ample descriptions of geology, biology, and meteorology.
Description The people of the obscure village Erl demand to be ruled by a magic lord, so their ruler sends his son Alveric to Elfland to wed the elfin princess Lirazel. He brings her back to Erl and the couple have a son, but Lirazel has trouble integrating with human society. When a scheme by her father spirits her away and Elfland vanishes, Alveric begins a mad quest to find where Elfland went. The King of Elfland’s Daughter is written in the pseudo-archaic prose style for which Dunsany is
Description Doctor Thorne is the third book in Trollope’s “Chronicles of Barsetshire” series, which is set in the fictional county of Barsetshire, somewhere in England’s West Country. Unlike the two earlier novels in the series, Doctor Thorne isn’t set in the cathedral city of Barchester, but in the small village of Greshamsbury and the estate of the local squire, Greshamsbury Park. Doctor Thorne is a middle-aged medical practitioner in Greshamsbury, a friend of the local squire Mr. Gresham,
Description When it was first published in 1903, W. E. B Du Bois’s The Souls of Black Folk represented a seismic shift in the discussion of race in the United States. Earlier African-American authors had broken ground with memoirs and autobiographical novels—narrative works that portrayed the African-American experience through the stories of particular individuals. What Du Bois envisioned was a work that portrayed the experience of African Americans as a people. As a professor of sociology, Du
Description Henry VIII is one of the few of Shakespeare’s plays thought to have been written with a collaborator. It was initially published in the First Folio under Shakespeare’s name only, but in 1850 James Spedding, an English author and expert on the works of Francis Bacon, suggested that the play was a collaboration with John Fletcher, a playwright who later replaced Shakespeare in the King’s Men acting company. Modern scholars mostly tend to agree, though the theory is still controversial
Description Writer Jack Derrick and his sister Edith move into a suspiciously inexpensive countryside manor. They quickly discover the reason for their luck—two years earlier an unsolved murder had taken place in the parlor. Jack is extremely sensitive and feels that both the house and the deceased former owner are communicating with him. But to what end? Alan Sullivan was the winner of Canada’s Governor General Award for English-language fiction in 1941 for his novel Three Came to Ville Marie.
Description In 1855 Pedro Carolino set out to write an English phrasebook for Portuguese travelers visiting England. The only problem was that he couldn’t speak English. Undeterred by this minor setback, Carolino decided to base his guide on a respected Portuguese–French phrasebook written by José da Fonseca. He took the French translations of Portuguese, and used a French–English dictionary to translate those to English. The result was an unintentional comedy of literal translation, as English
Description This sequel to From the Earth to the Moon narrates the eventful journey to the Moon of three passengers—Impey Barbicane, president of the Gun Club, Captain Nicholl, Barbicane’s rival and then collaborator, and Michel Ardan, a French scientist—aboard a hollow cannonball. They orbit the Moon and perform geographical observations, but the projectile fails to land, propelling them instead toward the Earth. They’re rescued at sea and widely celebrated as the first humans to leave Earth.
Description Robert Sheckley was one of science fiction’s most prolific short story writers. Though less known today than he was in his heyday, he was a giant of his time and was nominated for the Hugo and Nebula awards. Even though many of his stories deal with serious topics, they are most widely remembered for their comedic wit. His writing was compared to that of Douglas Adams, who held Sheckley in high regard: “He’s a very, very funny writer. He’s also a stylist. Very few science fiction
Description The Wealth of Nations is economist Adam Smith’s magnum opus and the foundational text of what today we call classical economics. Its publication ushered in a new era of thinking and discussion about how economies function, a sea change away from the older, increasingly-irrelevant mercantilist and physiocratic views of economics towards a new practical application of economics for the birth of the industrial era. Its scope is vast, touching on concepts like free markets, supply and
Description Desiring a more romantic crossing of the Atlantic, Englishman J. R. Kazallon decides to forgo a steamship and instead sets sail on the Chancellor, a large three-mast sailing ship. What follows is a classic nautical adventure, told in the form of a series of diary entries and filled with tragedy, suffering, and even horror. Despite the grim subject matter, Jules Verne still finds space to include ample descriptions of geology, biology, and meteorology.
Description The people of the obscure village Erl demand to be ruled by a magic lord, so their ruler sends his son Alveric to Elfland to wed the elfin princess Lirazel. He brings her back to Erl and the couple have a son, but Lirazel has trouble integrating with human society. When a scheme by her father spirits her away and Elfland vanishes, Alveric begins a mad quest to find where Elfland went. The King of Elfland’s Daughter is written in the pseudo-archaic prose style for which Dunsany is
Description Doctor Thorne is the third book in Trollope’s “Chronicles of Barsetshire” series, which is set in the fictional county of Barsetshire, somewhere in England’s West Country. Unlike the two earlier novels in the series, Doctor Thorne isn’t set in the cathedral city of Barchester, but in the small village of Greshamsbury and the estate of the local squire, Greshamsbury Park. Doctor Thorne is a middle-aged medical practitioner in Greshamsbury, a friend of the local squire Mr. Gresham,
Description When it was first published in 1903, W. E. B Du Bois’s The Souls of Black Folk represented a seismic shift in the discussion of race in the United States. Earlier African-American authors had broken ground with memoirs and autobiographical novels—narrative works that portrayed the African-American experience through the stories of particular individuals. What Du Bois envisioned was a work that portrayed the experience of African Americans as a people. As a professor of sociology, Du
Description Henry VIII is one of the few of Shakespeare’s plays thought to have been written with a collaborator. It was initially published in the First Folio under Shakespeare’s name only, but in 1850 James Spedding, an English author and expert on the works of Francis Bacon, suggested that the play was a collaboration with John Fletcher, a playwright who later replaced Shakespeare in the King’s Men acting company. Modern scholars mostly tend to agree, though the theory is still controversial