John Buchan was a Scottish author and Unionist politician who served as Governor General of Canada. He wrote a series of books that follow the adventures of Richard Hannay, an expatriate Scot who was first introduced in the classic novel The Thirty-Nine Steps. Set in Scotland in 1745, during the Jacobite Rebellion, this dark story of loyalty and betrayal on the road to Culloden Moor recounts the adventures of Francis Birkenshaw. The Jacobite cause means nothing to him until...
In The Pilot (1824), James Fenimore Cooper invented a new literary genre: the sea novel. Bold, vigorous, original, it is a tale of high adventure that vividly captures the majesty and power of the seafaring life. Cooper drew on his direct knowledge of ships and sailors to present a truer picture of life on the sea than had ever before achieved in literature. As a boy of seventeen he had experienced the life of a common seaman, learned the craft of sailing, encountered terri...
Monumentalna powieść Jana Potockiego o szkatułkowej kompozycji. Składa się na nią wiele wątków i historii – jedne wynikają z drugich i wzajemnie się zazębiają, podzielone są przy tym na dni, które wyznaczają rytm opowiadania. Główny bohater, Alfons von Worden, przeżywa niezwykłe przygody, które układają się w fascynującą, spójną i zaskakującą opowieść.
„Krumir” to cykl opowiadań przygodowych, które rozgrywają się w Afryce Północnej na pograniczu algiersko-tunezyjskim. Czytelnicy mogą obserwować współistnienie kultury chrześcijańskiej oraz islamu, a także podziwiać pięknie wykreowane, bajeczne afrykańskie krajobrazy: pustyni, puszczy, rozrzuconych wśród pustkowi ludzkich osad...
The main conflict of the story is dog-nature vs. wolf-nature, or nature vs. man. What happens to White fang, and how he goes through the many troubles that he has to. Growing up in the Yukon territory of Canada during the Klondike Gold Rush, he learned the law of the Wild at an early age: kill, or be killed, eat, or be eaten. Separated from his mother and traded from master to master, White Fang never grasped the concept of love, and violence was all that he knew. Having no...
”The Call of the Wild” is a touching novel about a great friendship between a dog and a human. The novel follows up the life of the dog Buck since he lived in sunny California all the way until the day he was kidnapped and tossed into the chaos of the Klondike Gold Rush and the brutal realities of frontier life. Buck changes hands a number of times before landing in the kindly hands of John Thornton who took care of him with great tenderness while not expecting anything in ...
„The White Company” is the story of Alleyne Edricson’s quest to win the hand of his lady love, the Lady Maud Loring. The place is England and the Continent, the year is 1366 during the reign of the King of the English, Edward III, and his realm is twenty-nine years into The Hundred Years’ War with France. Setting off on his adventures, he finds himself part of the White Company – a group of mercenary archers en route to France. A roistering tale of knight-errantry follows, ...
This was one of several fictional historical works that Doyle wrote during the last five years of the 19th century, as he tried to find something to replace Sherlock Holmes. First published in 1897, this murder mystery relates the story of a young Frenchman, Louis, who, having grown up in England, returns to France at the false invitation of his Uncle Bernac. Louis quickly finds himself in personal danger as well as involved in a conspiracy against Napoleon. We’re soon the ...
Ten tourists from England, Ireland, America and France, six men and four women are on a vacation trip down the Nile in 1895. Without warning they are captured by Islamic terrorists, and the possibility of rescue becomes more remote with each passing day. Their choice is a stark one: either convert to Islam and become slaves for the rest of their lives or die. In this story, the reader is swept out of the placid stream of existence and dashed against the horrible jagged fact...
Set in an English-Scottish border village during the waning days of the Napoleonic era, this adventure story introduces us to Jock Calder, whose quiet way of life is shattered when a mysterious stranger steps ashore near his home. The stranger changes forever the lives of Jock, his cousin Edie, and his best friend Jim, sending the young men into the jaws of the final battle to defeat The Great Shadow that threatens to devour the whole of Europe. We see the boy grow into a s...
A brilliant adventure tale of life in the Court of Louis XIV and of Canada under French rule... and Huguenot persecution The Refugees is set in both 17th Century France and in the wilds of North America. Although Doyle wasn’t a Christian, he writes with a great deal of sympathy as he describes the plight of French Protestants in the late 17th century. The year is 1690 and the De Catinat family is facing disaster. Because they are Huguenots, French Protestants, Louis XIV has...
Love humor writing? Can’t get enough of classic adventure tales? First published in 1902, „The Adventures of Gerard” are the autobiographical reminiscences of an old fictional brigadier soldier who served under Napoleon. He never hesitates to embellish his own bravado, importance, and attractiveness to the ladies, to such an extent that it can’t help but be humorous. Etienne Gerard, a hussar of the French Army, is dashing, flamboyant, and unbelievably full of himself. The b...
„The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard” is a volume collecting 8 short stories about a courier and cavalryman in the personal service of Napoleon Bonaparte. The stories in „The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard” are all told in the first person by an aged Gerard looking back on his military endeavours in the early 1800s when there was no man prouder to serve the Emperor Napoleon. Etienne Gerard is a dashing, chivalrous, and stalwart French officer who becomes involved various suspens...
John and Ezra Girdlestone, father and son, run a British merchant company trading to the African coast with several sailing ships, all dangerously ill-maintained. Their small office is in London, their business is quite personally run, and the firm and its owners are well respected in the City by the 1870s. John Girdlestone is deeply and ostentatiously religious, to the cynical amazement of his son. The senior Girdlestone also is the tightly-controlling guardian of an heire...
Narrated by the character for whom the title is named and set in the late 1600’s, Micah Clarke describes the battle of peasants against the existing king of England in the hopes that they can replace the monarch with his brother who feels he has been unjustly denied the throne. Micah Clarke, a young, innocent peasant joins forces with other peasants, among the Puritans, to fight for this pathetic duke’s cause. It was attempt by Conan Doyle to present the story of the Purita...
As well as penning some of the most popular detective fiction, Conan Doyle also wrote thrilling adventure stories. „Rodney Stone” is a combination of both. Nelson, Beau Brummell, Fox and King George III himself appear in a tale at the heart of which is, as one character says, „a pretty conspiracy – a criminal, an actress and a prize-fighter, all playing their parts”. The book is narrated by Rodney, in 1851 thinking back over the events 1803, when Rodney was 17 and his best ...
A historical romance and tale of adventure, set in England during the fourteenth century. Descendent of a noble family, Nigel Loring is the last of his race, and living alone with his aged grand-mother, upon a small remnant of their great estate. In service to King Edward III, Sir Nigel Loring must prove himself worthy of the hand of his the Lady Mary by performing three deeds in her honor. On his way to the altar, Nigel rescues a woman from dishonor, fights a pirate leader...
Set in the fictional South American country of Costaguana, this story of revolution, deception, and self-betrayal centers on Nostromo, a handsome Italian sailor, who, like Costaguana, is being consumed by secret guilt and corruption. The story begins halfway through the revolution, employing flashbacks and glimpses of the future to depict the lure of silver and its effects on men – corrupting and destroying some, revealing the strengths of others.Nostromo is considered by m...
This book is about a young captain who is hastily given his first command of a „ghost” ship. It‘s about a first mate who will lose his mind to madness as the malaria sickness spreads without medicine. This book is about a calm sea with not a sigh of a wind to move the ship. The Shadow Line by Joseph Conrad describes that demarcation line in the journey of life that divides the happy, bright, fantastic and irresponsible youth with the darker ages of manhood. Conrad goes on t...
First published in 1902, ’Typhoon’ can be easily passed as pre-twentieth century literature. It’s a short story depicting a ship experiencing a terribly destructive typhoon and coming out of it, but not without coming inch-close to death. Typhoon is a classic sea yarn, possibly based upon Conrad’s actual experience of seaman’s life, and probably on a real incident aboard of the real steamer John P. Best. One of the major themes of the novella is the contrast between Conrad’...
Podróże kształcą, ale bywają też niebezpieczne, a wyjście z opresji wymaga często sprytu i nie lada pomysłowości. Tego typu przygoda spotkała dwóch angielskich podróżników, Karola Lindena i jego młodszego brata Gustawa, podczas wyprawy botanicznej do Indii. Po zejściu do himalajskiej doliny drogę powrotną odcięła im kamienista lawina. Na szczęście podróżnicy nie stracili zimnej krwi i nie poddali się. W jaki sposób udało im się wydostać z pułapki?
Młody, ubogi farmer Carlos przenosi się wraz z matką i siostrą z północy Stanów Zjednoczonych na tereny pogranicza meksykańskiego, aby osiedlić się i uprawiać ziemię. Szybko los styka go z Indianami zamieszkującymi te tereny. Co wyniknie z tego sąsiedztwa? Jak Carlos odnajdzie się w nowej sytuacji? Seria dramatycznych wydarzeń zmusi go do dokonania wyboru i opowiedzenia się po jednej ze stron konfliktu.
Dwaj przyjaciele Winnetou i Old Shatterhand ponownie zabiorą nas w ekscytujący i niebezpieczny wir wydarzeń, rozgrywających się wśród prerii Dzikiego Zachodu. Na drodze do rozwikłania tajemnicy staną im złoczyńcy, których i tym razem uda się brawurowo pokonać. Jednocześnie zyskają nowych przyjaciół i dzięki wspólnej pracy i wzajemnej pomocy odniosą kolejny spektakularny sukces!
Dżungle Bengalu – historycznej, azjatyckiej krainy ulokowanej na terytorium Indii i Bangladeszu – ociekają krwią ofiar składanych groźnej bogini Kali. Podróżujący przez dzikie zakątki dżungli biali poszukiwacze przygód próbują zapobiec rytualnym mordom, jednak sami przy tym narażają się na potworne niebezpieczeństwo. A mimo to podejmą nierówną walkę z okrucieństwem.
