Peter Pan is a fictional character created by Scottish novelist and playwright J. M. Barrie. The author behind one of the most beloved childhood fairytale characters of all time was known for his joyful embrace of youth and creativity, but there were dark elements surrounding his life that remain mysteries. A free-spirited and mischievous young boy who can fly and never grows up, Peter Pan spends his never-ending childhood having adventures on the mythical island of Neverla...
Robert Barr has been almost completely overlooked by critics and anthologists of Canadian literature, in part because, although he was educated in Canada, he spent most of his life in the United States and England. However, since most of his serious novels are either set in Canada or have some Canadian connection, Barr deserves attention. „The Measure of the Rule” is a 1907 coming-of-age novel about a country teacher who migrates to the city to study engineering, but is for...
L. Frank Baum, the author of the famous „Oz” books, wrote a number of series for children (and occasionally, books for older readers) under a variety of pseudonyms. Among those you can find many examples of adventure fiction, including this, the inaugural title of the „Sam Steele” series. Sam Steele is the son of a sea captain; his father is reported killed in a shipwreck, and Sam is quickly cheated of his inheritance. Now an orphan, he meets his maternal uncle, Naboth Perk...
If you have interest in finance, mining and sailing which is largely centered around those 3 topics in this novel, you are welcome! „Young Lord Stranleigh” is a thrilling tale of romance and suspense by Robert Barr. Some very sharp City of London operators think that rich Lord Stranleigh, a Bertie Woosterish West End fashion plate, is an easy mark to make some money. There is a potential gold mine in Africa, for example; a dilapidated but workable cargo steamer The Rajah, t...
This greatest political novel of Robert Barr’s most beloved books has been written in years. Barr was a Scottish-Canadian author who relocated to London in 1881 where he founded the magazine „The Idler” in 1892 in collaboration with Jerome K Jerome. In 1895 he retired from its co-editorship and became a prolific novelist. „The Victors: A Romance Of Yesterday Morning & This Afternoon...” is a stirring story of a „boss” and others. Patrick Maguire, big, brawny, and smooth...
Another enchanting tale of juvenile literature from the creator of „The Wizard of Oz”. L. Frank Baum dedicated the book „Queen Zixi of Ix, or The Story of the Magic Cloak” to his oldest son, Frank Joslyn Baum. In it, the queen of fairies creates a magic cloak which grants its wearer a single wish. Meanwhile, an orphan boy becomes the new king of Noland and his sister gains the cloak which is stolen by the Queen of Zixi, who wishes her mirror to show her as the beautiful you...
Originally published in 1906, „John Dough and the Cherub” remains a whimsical fantasy tale for all ages, by the author of the classic „Oz” books. John Dough is a gingerbread man who has come alive because the baker who made him poured – quite unwittingly – a great quantity of the precious Essence of Vitality into the dough from which he was formed. John escapes from several people who want to eat him, and arrives on the Isle of Phreex. His new friend and constant companion ...
Danger, intrigue, and adventure await you in one of L. Frank Baum’s rarest works! Baum published the novel under the pen name „Schuyler Staunton,” one of his several pseudonyms (Baum arrived at the name by adding one letter to the name of his late maternal uncle, Schuyler Stanton). „Daughters of Destiny” unfolds in the Middle Eastern country of Baluchistan and is an exciting page-turner from start to finish. Conflict occurs when the American Construction Syndicate wants to ...
Need an adventure story with plots and counterplots? Intrigue? A love interest? Politics? Murder? Follow our young American hero, Robert Harcliffe, as he goes on the adventure of his lifetime. A young man just out of college goes to Brazil as secretary of the prime mover in the revolution, and by so doing begins a series of adventures that run from tragic to comic, ending with the success of the conspiracy, a straightening out of many tangles, and the marriage of the hero t...
Two works of 1829 brought Balzac to the brink of success. „Les Chouans”, the first novel he felt enough confidence about to have published under his own name, is a historical novel about the Breton peasants called „Chouans” who took part in a royalist insurrection against Revolutionary France in 1799 that occurred in the region between Brittany and Nantes and Balzac places his story in this accurate historic contest. Balzac is one of France’s greatest storytellers and this ...
„Modeste Mignon”, by Honoré de Balzac (1846). The heroine of this romance, a young woman of romantic temperament Modeste Mignon, lives in a small city in northwestern France. She has the religious faith of a child, while her mind is exceptionally well informed in many ways. The young girl, daring in her simplicity, enjoys the writings of the famous Parisian poet Melchior de Canalis and imagines herself to be in love with him. However, he is not moved by her attentions. He i...
As this last „Oz” story from L. Frank Baum opens, Dorothy Gale and Ozma have been dispatched by Glinda on a peacekeeping mission. Dorothy and Ozma discover that a war is brewing in a distant and unexplored part of Oz, between two mysterious races, the Flatheads and the Skeezers, both of whom have come under the power of cruel dictators. They have never heard of either of these people but they worry that people might be harmed in a war. The girls set out to try to prevent th...
Just a plain old story told by a superb story teller. „A Marriage Contract” (French: „Le Contrat de marriage”) is an 1835 novel by French author Honoré de Balzac and included in the „Scenes de la vie privée” section of his novel sequence „La Comédie humaine”. Set in Bordeaux, the marriage between an elegant but weak young Parisian gentleman, Paul de Manerville, and the beautiful but spoiled daughter of a Spanish heiress, Natalie Evangélista, is undermined from the beginning...
Autobiographical and exceptionally romantic, „The Lily of the Valley” is an 1835 novel about love and society by French novelist and playwright Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850) and is one of his personal favorites among his innumerable novels. The creator of the „Human Comedy” brings his creative insight to a portrait of a lady and a love affair set in the Loire valley. It concerns the affection – emotionally vibrant but never consummated – between Felix de Vandenesse and Henri...
Dorothy Gale returns in this third entry in L. Frank Baum’s „Oz” series, after her notable absence in the second volume, „The Marvelous Land of Oz”. Here you will meet such beloved old friends as the Scarecrow, Tin Woodman, and Cowardly Lion. Dorothy is shipwrecked and lands on the shores of a fairy country that adjoins Oz, the land of Ev. There she meets that oozy marvel: Tiktok, a wind-up mechanical man; a talking chicken, Billina; the Hungry Tiger, whose appetite is neve...
None of us, whether children or adults, needs an introduction to „Mother Goose”. Those things which are earliest impressed upon our minds cling to them most tenaciously. Published three years before L. Frank Baum achieved fame with „The Wonderful Wizard of Oz”, this engaging volume added an exciting new dimension to old, much-loved verses. The book contains 22 prose fables based on famous nursery rhymes: „Old King Cole”, „Little Miss Muffet”, „The Cat and the Fiddle” and ma...
Originally published in 1908, while Baum was resident in Coronado, California, „Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz” is considered one of the „darker” of the Oz tales. However, it also is enlivened by Baum’s considerable wit, penchant for puns, and dry social commentary. This fourth „Oz” novel sees Kansas farm-girl Dorothy Gale once again transported to magical lands, this time thanks to a California earthquake, during which our heroine falls into the depths of the earth, together...
This novel opens in the old town of Guerande which still enclosed by mighty walls and possesses moats still full of water. The houses have not changed and the streets are as they were one hundred years in the past. It is the family seat of the de Guenics. The old society of the town gather here to play cards and gossip, often about the younger generations. The son of the house, Calyste, is going to visit one of the main objects of this gossip and we learn of this person’s p...
„Ursula” novel is one of the pillars of the „Scenes of Provincial Life” section of Honoré de Balzac’s story cycle „The Human Comedy”. Through a series of tragedies and coincidences, a kind and pious teenager named Ursula has been taken in by an octogenarian wealthy doctor, Denis Minoret. Inspired by Ursula’s goodness, Minoret decides to make her his chief heir. This incites the ire of his other relatives, and a ruthless war for Minoret’s estate breaks out. In this book Balz...
„Over The Border: A Romance” written by Robert Barr who was a Scottish-Canadian short story writer and novelist. This book was published in 1903. Robert Barr (16 September 1849 – 21 October 1912) wrote more than 20 novels. Among the more estimable are „The victors” (New York, 1901), about metropolitan politics, and „The mutable many” (New York and London, 1896), which focused on an industrial strike. Both had a distinctively realistic basis, and both were written more objec...
Robert Barr (1849–1912) was a Scottish-Canadian short story writer and novelist, born in Glasgow, Scotland who relocated to London in 1881 where he founded the magazine „The Idler” in 1892 in collaboration with Jerome K Jerome. In 1895 he retired from its co-editorship and became a prolific novelist. His famous detective character Eugéne Valmont, fashioned after Sherlock Holmes, is said to be the inspiration behind Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot. Some of his works include...
Fans of Romeo and Juliet will delight in the novella „Vendetta”, Honoré de Balzac’s unique take on the timeless theme of star-crossed lovers. This short novel is a story of love and revenge, dealing with the vendetta between two families of Corsican origin, set in early 19th century Paris just after the fall of Napoleon. It relates the tragic fate of Ginevra Piombo, the daughter of proud Corsican immigrants, who has the misfortune of falling in love with another Corsican Lu...
„Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan” is a comic tale about a society woman, a Princess and a Duchess, who attempts to recycle her slightly seedy past by pursuing a minor literary figure of great probity and innocence. The Princess de Cadignan, aka the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, has consorted with such notable Balzac rakes as Henri de Marsay, Maxime de Trailles, and Eugene de Rastignac, but is disconcerted to find herself being stalked by an unknown but comely young man. Th...
„Lady Eleanor: Lawbreaker” is a love story pure and simple from a British-Canadian short story writer and novelist Robert Barr, born at Glasgow, Scotland but emigrated with his parents to Upper Canada at age four and was educated in Toronto at Toronto Normal School. Here, the heiress conceals the will so that her cousin, the disinherited son of the house, may come to his own. His first thought is to sell the estate to set Richard Sheridan the dramatist up in management. The...
