„Wesele hrabiego Orgaza. Powieść z pogranicza dwóch rzeczywistości” to historiozoficzno-fantastyczny utwór Romana Jaworskiego z 1925 roku. Opowiada o rozgrywce dwóch amerykańskich miliarderów, Havemeyera i Yetmeyera, pragnących odgrywać rolę zbawicieli ludzkości i zbawić kulturę europejską po kryzysie cywilizacji, który nastąpił w wyniku wielkiej wojny. Powieść przesycona jest klimatem katastroficznym związanym z doświadczeniami I wojny światowej. Nawiązuje do nurtu młodopols...
Wacław Filochowski to polski dziennikarz oraz pisarz literatury fantastycznej. Zadebiutował w 1921 roku zbiorem nowel „Chińskie cienie”, a w swoich powieściach często odwoływał się do baśni i tematów okultystycznych. Jest autorem takich utworów jak: „Amulet Ozirisa”, „Czarci młyn”, „Legenda nowej Warszawy”, „Znak”, „Człowiek w ciemnych okularach”, „Przez kraj wód, wichrów i zwierząt” czy „Cierpkie pobratymstwo”.
Ernest Brammah Smith is best-known for two series, the Max Carrados books about a blind detective, all of whose Perceptions are enormously enhanced, and a series of tales in which the Chinese Kai Lung tells stories – often to stave off some unpleasant fate, like Scheherazade. This collection of eight Kai Lung stories came out in 1940, two years before the author’s death. They show the same wit as the earlier ones. The China which Kai Lung inhabits has numerous features of t...
„The Collected Short Stories” is a collection of short adventure stories from pioneering American fantasy and science fiction writer David Wright O’Brien (1918–1944). A nephew of Farnsworth Wright, editor of Weird Tales, O’Brien was 22 years old when his first story „Truth Is a Plague! „ appeared in the February 1940 issue of Amazing Stories. There were about forty stories and novels under his own name plus others under various pseudonyms, including John York Cabot, Bruce D...
A chance meeting in the Warwick Castle leads to an unusual acquaintance. An American who was born and raised in Connecticut shares his diary, which describes in detail his journey to England in the VI century. Darkness and horror, hunger and poverty – the main companions of the time. Wild laws, the incredible power of the church and the nobility, unlimited faith in words. Absolutely implausible, but quite quickly the American becomes an important person at the court of King...
For many generations of readers, Herbert Wells, author of The Invisible Man, The Island of Dr. Moreau, Food of the Gods, and a number of other science fiction novels, has been and remains a great science fiction writer, whose work has had an important influence on the development of the scientific genre fiction in the 20th century as a whole. The possibilities of science and the power of the human mind – that is what Wells was primarily interested in in the works he created...
„Mysterious Stranger” – a mixture of medieval mystical tales and philosophical parables. In an Austrian village, in the ruins of an old castle, there is a medieval printing house. The master, apprentices, henchmen, their families live right there. A small limited world with well-established connections, a familiar way of life, suddenly and terribly changes. And the reason for this is a poor youth who once appeared on the threshold of an old castle. It was he who called hims...
Incredible adventures await the young English Earl of Rosmore in the vastness of the distant United States. In search of the „American dream”, he finds his distant relative, the „ingenious” inventor, entrepreneur and ventriloquist – Colonel Melberry Sellers, whose main project was the purchase of Siberia to establish a republic in it. An ambitious young count will face insurmountable difficulties on his way to the goal.
„The Splendor of Asia” (1926) is the Story and Teaching of the Buddha. Elizabeth Louisa Moresby was already sixty years old by the time she started writing her novels, which commonly had an oriental setting, and then became a prolific author. She wrote under various pseudonyms, depending on the genre. As Louis Moresby, she wrote nonfiction, including a history of Egypt. As E. Barrington, she wrote historical romances, including a tale of Napoleon and Josephine (1927). As Li...
E. Barrington is a pseudonym of Elizabeth Louisa Moresby, a British-born novelist who became the first prolific, female fantasy writer in Canada. She wrote very quickly, attributing her productivity to her sparse vegetarian diet and Buddhist habits of mental discipline; her best-selling fictional biography of Byron, „Glorious Apollo”, took only one month to complete. A bestseller in the 1920s, „Glorious Apollo” is a fictional biography of the 18th century Romantic poet, Geo...
The spiritual romance of a soul in the Himalayas. An Englishman in India is so influenced by a group of converts to Buddhism that he travels to a monastic retreat in Tibet in the search for spiritual enlightment. The author, also known as E. Barrington, purports that the supernormal happenings in this romance novel are true and are founded upon the ancient Indian philosophy of Upanishads. Moresby was already sixty years old by the time she started writing her novels, which ...
The world of Kipling’s stories is complex and rich, representing essentially an encyclopedia of the plot experience of the best English and American storytellers of the XIX century. They are characterized by psychology, innovation, which consists in introducing new layers of life into the fabric of narration, and a kind of naturalism. The lazy tourists demanding communication with people have already somewhat dulled this feeling of complacency and wide hospitality.
It is possible only on the fingers to list the authors who can write really ingenious novels. One of these authors is Charles Williams. Descent into Hell – one of his greatest novels. The story of the people who struggle with the inner „I”, they are closed in themselves. The story of how a person can choose their happiness in exchange for the misfortune of another.
”Great trump cards” – a novel, brilliantly built on the basis of an ancient deck of tarot cards. This novel is filled with secrets, there are various signs, symbols, riddles. Everyone has different opinions about these secrets, no one can come to a common opinion. Witchcraft can still kill, and the supernatural must be defeated by the supernatural.
The main task of Charles Williams was to show that man must obey God. The main thing in „Many Dimensions” is the all-powerful stone that can fulfill any desire. Above of all, „Many Dimensions” is a complex image of good and evil. Williams fascinatingly shows how evil is not in a particular thing, but in what we do with these things.
”War in Heaven” is a horrific romance, with many mythical creatures present. Instead of creating a unique secondary fantasy world or switching between two universes, Williams allows the supernatural to invade his modern world. This allows him to explore the influence of another reality on different characters. The object that guides the supernatural to the natural in this novel is the Holy Grail
Charles Williams is able to create wonderful ghostly episodes – powerful moments of disclosure. In the novel The Place of the Lion, the world of feelings is depicted as an illusion – simply a reflection of the „real world” from which it originates. This makes some absolutely fascinating scenes, as people suddenly face a reality that they cannot understand. The book raises some interesting questions about good and evil.
Cosmo Topper is an average American bank executive on holiday in the French Riveria. Feckless, fun-loving and totally uncontrollable ghosts, George and Marion Kerby and friends – the tortuously crooked Colonel Scott and his companion, the disreputable Mrs. Hart – return to bring chaos and merriment into the life of mild-mannered, stuffy, and somewhat plump, Topper. One of Thorne Smith’s best-loved comedies, it proves once again that he is the undisputed master of urbane wit...
A comic diary about entering life in the Navy. Published in 1918 and written for the Naval Reservist journal „The Broadside” while the author Thorne Smith was in the Navy, it is a series of short vignettes poking fun at the culture of the time in general and the military in particular. It’s the diary of Biltmore Oswald, a hapless naval recruit with no appreciable talents besides befriending animals and getting into trouble, and his day to day adventures during World War I. ...
James Thorne Smith, Jr. was an American writer of humorous supernatural fantasy fiction under the byline Thorne Smith. He is best known today for the two Topper novels, comic fantasy fiction involving sex, much drinking and supernatural transformations. Smith’s literary debut was „Biltmore Oswald” (1918), the comic fictional diary of a hapless naval recruit, drawing heavily on wartime experience with the Navy. Episodes had featured in Broadside. The book sold well enough to...
If you’re in the mood for a wildly hilarious comic romp, give Thorne Smith’s „The Bishop’s Jaegars” a read. Mad, hilarious, degenerate, or simply fun fantasy? Only the reader can decide. Adrift and listless, a wealthy coffee heir Peter Van Dyke is searching for meaning in life. His young secretary Jo decides to shake things up and help him get back on track. Although he is engaged to another, she has far from given up. Laughter ensues as they go from one mishap to another a...
Thorne Smith best-remembered for humorous novels, many turning on some fantastic plot device which thrusts the protagonist into grotesque predicaments, often via unwitting transformation. The 1926 publication of „Topper” brought the author immediate acclaim. Elegant, fun-loving George and Marion Kerby are the toast of the town, until they wreck their flashy car and discover they’ve become, well, ghosts. Making the best of a bad situation, they decide that being dead is the ...
The beauty of Ayesha was the only reason for the conflict in many countries. Her father was very jealous of his daughter for the pretenders for her heart. Ayesha helps the goddess Isis, and as a reward Isis leads her to the hidden kingdom of Kôr in Africa to usher in the new Golden Age. The kingdom of Kôr hides many secrets, including the Flame of Eternal Life, where in the end Ayesha’s obsession, obsession and desire lead to her fall.
