In the American Civil War, or the War between the States, three dashing cavalry leaders—Stuart, Forrest, and Mosby—so captured the public imagination that their exploits took on a glamour, which we associate—as did the writers of the time—with the deeds of the Waverley characters and the heroes of chivalry.Of the three leaders, Colonel John S. Mosby (1833–1916), was, perhaps, the most romantic figure.In the South his dashing exploits made him one of the great heroes of the ...

The Mudfog Papers was written by Victorian era novelist Charles Dickens and published from 1837–38 in the monthly literary serial Bentley's Miscellany, which he then edited. They were first published as a book as 'The Mudfog Papers and Other Sketches. The Mudfog Papers relates the proceedings of the fictional 'The Mudfog Society for the Advancement of Everything', a Pickwickian parody of the British Association for the Advancement of Science founded in York in 1831, one of the numerous Vic...

London businessman Mr. Bedford is broke. He retreats to a beautifully mundane area of the British countryside to focus on writing a play, which he hopes will bring him financial success. By a stroke of luck, Mr. Bedford quickly reaches new heights…just not in the way he anticipated.Mr. Bedford’s countryside retreat is interrupted by a peculiar physicist named Mr. Cavor, who is developing an anti-gravity material called cavorite. The unlikely pair sets sight on the moon and begins p...

First published in the US in 1933. The masterpiece of one of the greatest modern Catholic writers – a novel told in the form of a confessional letter, this is the story of Monsieur Louis, an embittered, aging lawyer who has spread his misery to his entire estranged family. Louis writes to explain to them, and to himself, why his soul has been deformed, why his heart seems like a foul nest of twisted serpents. Mauriac's novel masterfully explores the corruption caused by pride, avarice, and...

In our world, the price of betrayal is death.Rafael Huntsman, crown prince of a sinful empire. Possessive. Dangerous. Achingly beautiful. And consumed by a chilling past.When I was nineteen, he laid eyes on me like it was the very first time. From that moment, I was his. Although it wasn't until much later, under a moonlit sky in a vineyard awash with fairy lights, that I surrendered—and he disappeared.Then fate intervened.Now we're forced t...

Short stories have always been a sort of instant access into an author’s brain, their soul and heart. A few pages can lift our lives into locations, people and experiences with a sweep of landscape, narration, feelings and emotions that is difficult to achieve elsewhere.In this series we try to offer up tried and trusted ‘Top Tens’ across many different themes and authors. But any anthology will immediately throw up the questions – Why that story? Why that author?The theme ...

The War of the Worlds is a science fiction classic that imagines a terrifying Martian invasion of Earth. Told through the eyes of an unnamed narrator in Victorian England, the novel depicts the sudden, devastating arrival of technologically superior alien forces that lay waste to cities and humanity's confidence in its dominance. With chilling realism and visionary imagination, H. G. Wells explores the fragility of civilization and the arrogance of empire. One of the earliest and most infl...

George Orwell’s 1984 portrays a totalitarian society where the Party, led by the figurehead Big Brother, exercises absolute control over every aspect of life. Through surveillance, propaganda, and thought control, individuality and free thought are suppressed. The protagonist, Winston Smith, struggles against this oppressive system, seeking truth and personal freedom, but ultimately succumbs to the Party's relentless power. The novel is a chilling exploration of authoritarianism, ...

From placid and glimmering to foaming and raging the sea is a perfect mirror of the human condition. Our authors often place their characters on or about this vast mass that can be either friend or foe. This liquid character has many dimensions, many ways of speaking.01 - Short Stories Set on the Sea - An Introduction02 - The Striped Chest by Arthur Conan Doyle03 - The Sea Raiders by H G Wells04 - A Fight with a Cannon by Victor Hugo05 - The Open Boa...

Santa's Library gathers more than four hundred Christmas novels, tales, poems, carols, and legends into an expansive archive of seasonal literature. Its governing concerns—charity, domestic fellowship, childhood wonder, spiritual renewal, winter hardship, and communal festivity—are explored through fairy tale, realist sketch, moral fable, devotional verse, comic anecdote, and Gothic or supernatural narrative. Canonical Christmas visions stand alongside lesser-known popular, juvenile, and t...

The book shares Žižek's central problem of how to revitalize the radical political left through theory. It initially follows the argument developed in The Ticklish Subject that contemporary leftist thought is divided by antagonism between a Marxist revolutionary politics founded on Enlightenment philosophy and a politics of identity founded on post-modern post-structuralism.How Žižek used Lacan's theory of character structures is examined here to describe this theoretical ...

Charles Wells wrote this book to provide the reader, especially young people who were not yet born, insight into the deceptive tactics and political games used by White Southern politicians and business leaders to keep minority communities economically depressed.After the 1965 Civil Rights Voting Act was passed, Black civil rights activists and business leaders began a very aggressive campaign to improve conditions in minority communities. As the tactics being used by Black leaders...