Andy was an industrious young entrepreneur who grew increasingly rich from book to book, working as he did in advertising, in his airplane, the Comet Coaster, and looking for gold and helping erect profitable buildings. Blake meets new friends, three young men struggling to save an old carriage business from going to the wall. Will advertising help? Andy is enthusiastically hopeful. The later trickery of a junior employer puts the young advertising man in a bad hole. Things...
The fourth in a series, „The Boy Fortune Hunters in China” appeared in 1909, published by Reilly & Britton under Baum’s pseudonym, Floyd Akers. Unlike most of L. Frank Baum’s work, the series is told in first person narrative by the protagonist, 16 year-old Sam Steele. Sam’s father is a sea captain who was reported killed in a shipwreck. After being cheated of his inheritance, he finds his uncle and they set sail in the Pacific. Here, Sam Steele and his two pals, Joe an...
Writing under a pseudonym, the prolific „Wizard of Oz” author created a series of far-flung adventure tales starring Sam Steele, a resourceful young sailor. In this story of mystery, deceit, and murder, Sam and his companions seek the legendary wealth of Karnak – a 2,000-year-old treasure buried in the desert sands. The adventure begins when Sam rescues an escaped cabin boy from a sinking dinghy in Boston Harbor. Runaway Joe Herring, along with pampered aristocrat Archie Ac...
If you like the books by Iain Lawrence „The Wreckers”, „The Smugglers”, and „The Buccaneers” you’ll love the adventures of Sam Steele. „The Boy Fortune Hunters” series began in 1906 with the novel „Sam Steele’s Adventures on Land and Sea” (later re-published as „The Boy Fortune Hunters in Alaska”). The series lasted six novels, ending in 1911 with the novel „The Boy Fortune Hunters in the South Seas”. Here, Sam Steele and crew are shipwrecked on a forbidding and mysterious ...
Originally published in 1866 under the pseudonym „A. M. Barnard.” Louisa May Alcott’s novel of romance and sexual intrigue is one of her lesser-known gems. „Behind a Mask, or A Woman Power” is a controversial novella; its tone and characterizations strike a markedly different chord from her best-known works, such as „Little Women” and „Little Men”. The plot of the novella is focused upon Jean Muir, who works as a governess for one of the rich families of Coventry to their s...
Do you ever feel like you are tied up in our times? Worrying too much about cell phones, fashions, and the latest whatever’s? This book can set you straight. It gives you a peace of mind and fills you with simple pleasures. Polly Milton is a fourteen-year-old country girl raised on old-fashioned values and invited to Boston for an extended stay with her friend, Fanny Shaw. Quite the unlikely friendship since Fanny, despite being only two years older, is no longer just a gir...
Louisa May Alcott created some fascinating short stories here. „A Modern Cinderella: or The Little Old Shoe And Other Stories” contains four short stories by Louisa May Alcott, the author of „Little Women”: „A Modern Cinderella”, „Debby’s Debut”, „The Brothers”, and „Nelly’s Hospital”. Like her more famous novels, Alcott tells stories of young women interacting with people and events from the late 1800s. Louisa May Alcott bestows a truly amusing and thoroughly modern retell...
A story about a nineteenth-century woman’s search for a meaningful life through work outside the family sphere, „Work: A Story of Experience” is at once Alcott’s exploration of her personal challenges and a social critique of America, examining women’s independence, the moral significance of labor, and the goals to which a woman can aspire. The story depicts the struggles of a young woman trying to support herself. The main character, Christie Devon, a New England orphan, w...
Humorous novel set in Riverbank, a fictionalized Muscatine, in a Mississippi River town. Pastor David Dean and his wife take up residence in this town, Iowa in the 1850s and learn how unaccepting a small town can be of new residents, even after a stay of decades. An interesting social history of mid nineteenth century life, emphasizing the dominance of crass commercial interests in the vicissitudes of small town life, written by an American author Ellis Parker Butler. He wa...
„Emily of New Moon” by L.M. Montgomery, published in 1923, is the start of a trilogy of novels about Emily Byrd Starr that invites comparison with the beloved Anne of Green Gables series. The Emily novels depicted life through the eyes of a young orphan girl, Emily Starr, who is raised by her relatives after her father dies of tuberculosis. Emily deals with stiff, stern Aunt Elizabeth and her malicious classmates by holding her head high and using her quick wit. Things begi...
The second book in the Emily novels, „Emily Climbs” tells the story of Emily moving to a high school in Shrewsbury and beginning her career as a writer with the local newspaper. Shrewsbury brings new friends, new adventures, and new enemies, and the town is scandalized by some of Emily’s exploits. Perhaps the hardest trial is having to board with her Aunt Ruth. Or is it her promise to Aunt Elizabeth? But Emily’s troubles are only the beginning of her climb to success... and...
Emily Starr and Teddy Kent have been friends since childhood, and as Teddy is about to leave to further his education as an artist, Emily believes that their friendship is blossoming into something more. But when Teddy leaves home to pursue his goal in Montreal, Emily’s world collapses. With Teddy gone, Emily agrees to marry a man she doesn’t love... as she tries to banish all thoughts of Teddy. In her heart, Emily must search for what being a writer really means... This th...
