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Preface: When the venture has been made of dealing with historical events and characters, it always seems fair towards the reader to avow what liberties have been taken, and how much of the sketch is founded on history. In the present case, it is scarcely necessary to do more than refer to the almost unique relations that subsisted between Henry V. and his prisoner, James I. of Scotland; who lived with him throughout his reign on the terms of friend rather than of captive, and was absolutely sheltered by this imprisonment throughout his nonage and early youth from the frightful violence and presumption of the nobles of his kingdom....

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Daniel Defoe’s The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe of York, Mariner (1719) is considered by many the first English novel. Based on the real-life experiences of the castaway Alexander Selkirk, the book has had a perrenial appeal among readers of all ages-–especially the young adult reading public–-who continue to find inspiration in the inventive resourcefulness of its hero, sole survivor of a shipwreck who is marooned on an uninhabited island. Especially poignant, after more than two decades of unbroken solitude, is the affection that Robinson develops for Friday, another survivor fleeing certain death at the hands of enemy tribesmen from the South American continent. (Summary by Denny Sayers)...

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Adventure

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Excerpt: Chapter 1. How Beaumains came to King Arthur?s Court and demanded three petitions of King Arthur. When Arthur held his Round Table most plenour, it fortuned that he commanded that the high feast of Pentecost should be holden at a city and a castle, the which in those days was called Kynke Kenadonne, upon the sands that marched nigh Wales. So ever the king had a custom that at the feast of Pentecost in especial, afore other feasts in the year, he would not go that day to meat until he had heard or seen of a great marvel....

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Excerpt: An Outcast of the Islands by Joseph Conrad.

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Like Wuthering Heights, the center of this story is a dramatic love triangle, the setting is a huge English manor. Olivia Marchmont has always done her duty. However, when she falls in love and her beloved is in love with another woman, the malice of her heart is released in full view. In this dramatic tale, the vivid description of the country is also important- as if nature has a part in it. Unlike many novels, nobody gets what they deserve at the end. Or do they? Read and decide for yourself. (Summary by Stav Nisser)...

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Fiction, Romance

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Excerpt: CHAPTER 1. Fellow Travelers. In the autumn of the year, Darkness and Night were creeping up to the highest ridges of the Alps. It was vintage time in the valleys on the Swiss side of the Pass of the Great Saint Bernard, and along the banks of the Lake of Geneva....

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CONTENTS BOOK THE SECOND: RICHES 1. Fellow Travellers 2. Mrs General 3. On the Road 4. A Letter from Little Dorrit 5. Something Wrong Somewhere 6. Something Right Somewhere 7. Mostly, Prunes and Prism 8. The Dowager Mrs Gowan is reminded that ?It Never Does? 9. Appearance and Disappearance 10. The Dreams of Mrs Flintwinch thicken 11. A Letter from Little Dorrit 12. In which a Great Patriotic Conference is holden 13. The Progress of an Epidemic 14. Taking Advice 15. No just Cause or Impediment why these Two Persons should not be joined together 16. Getting on 17. Missing 18. A Castle in the Air 19. The Storming of the Castle in the Air 20. Introduces the next 21. The History of a Self-Tormentor 22. Who Passes by this Road so late? 23. Mistress Affery makes a Conditional Promise, respecting her Dreams 24. The Evening of a Long Day 25. The Chief Butler Resigns the Seals of Office 26. Reaping the Whirlwind 27. The Pupil of the Marshalsea 28. An Appearance in the Marshalsea 29. A Plea in the Marshalsea 30. Closing in...

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Excerpt: The Life of Henry the Fifth; Enter Prologue. O For a Muse of Fire, that would ascend The brightest Heaven of Inuention: A Kingdome for a Stage, Princes to Act, And Monarchs to behold the swelling Scene. Then should the Warlike Harry, like himselfe, Assume the Port of Mars, and at his heeles (Leasht in, like Hounds) should Famine, Sword, and Fire Crouch for employment. But pardon, Gentles all: The flat unraysed Spirits, that hath dar?d, On this unworthy Scaffold, to bring forth So great an Object. Can this Cock- Pit hold The vastie fields of France? Or may we cramme Within this Woodden O, the very Caskes That did affright the Ayre at Agincourt? O pardon: since a crooked Figure may Attest in little place a Million, And let us, Cyphers to this great Accompt, On your imaginarie Forces worke. Suppose within the Girdle of these Walls Are now confin?d two mightie Monarchies, Whose high, up- reared, and abutting Fronts, The perillous narrow Ocean parts asunder. Peece out our imperfections with your thoughts: Into a thousand parts divide one Man, And make imaginarie Puissance. Thinke when we talke of Horses, that you see them Printi...

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Table of Contents: The Life of Henry the Fift, 1 -- Actus Primus. Scoena Prima., 1 -- Actus Secundus., 23 -- Actus Tertius., 39 -- Actus Quartus., 55 -- Actus Quintus., 63...

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Excerpt: Chapter 1. Part The First. Once upon a time, it matters little when, and in stalwart England, it matters little where, a fierce battle was fought. It was fought upon a long summer day when the waving grass was green. Many a wild flower formed by the Almighty Hand to be a perfumed goblet for the dew, felt its enameled cup filled high with blood that day, and shrinking dropped. Many an insect deriving its delicate color from harmless leaves and herbs, was stained anew that day by dying men, and marked its frightened way with an unnatural track. The painted butterfly took blood into the air upon the edges of its wings. The stream ran red....

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Introduction: A certain degree of success, real or supposed, in the delineation of Queen Mary, naturally induced the author to attempt something similar respecting ?her sister and her foe,? the celebrated Elizabeth. He will not, however, pretend to have approached the task with the same feelings; for the candid Robertson himself confesses having felt the prejudices with which a Scottishman is tempted to regard the subject; and what so liberal a historian avows, a poor romance-writer dares not disown. But he hopes the influence of a prejudice, almost as natural to him as his native air, will not be found to have greatly affected the sketch he has attempted of England?s Elizabeth....

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Excerpt: Plashwater Weir Mill Lock looked tranquil and pretty on an evening in the summer time. A soft air stirred the leaves of the fresh green trees, and passed like a smooth shadow over the river, and like a smoother shadow over the yielding grass. The voice of the falling water, like the voices of the sea and the wind, were as an outer memory to a contemplative listener; but not particularly so to Mr. Riderhood, who sat on one of the blunt wooden levers of his lock-gates, dozing. Wine must be got into a butt by some agency before it can be drawn out; and the wine of sentiment never having been got into Mr. Riderhood by any agency, nothing in nature tapped him....

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Gaston Leroux, perhaps best known as the author of The Phantom of the Opera in its novel form, was also the author of a popular series of mystery novels featuring a young journalist cum detective named Joseph Rouletabille. It is most likely that Leroux styled his hero after himself. Rouletabille was in the tradition of other great detectives who solved their cases by pure deductive reasoning. Much as Sherlock Holmes, who eliminated the impossible and concluded that whatever remained, however improbable must be the truth, Rouletabille included the known facts about the case and eliminated everything that was not a known fact, no matter how much it appeared to relate to the case. In The Secret of the Night, the names of the characters are often challengingly Russian and the plot involves, appropriately, both the Czar and the Nihilists. Introduction by Don W. Jenkins)...

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Mystery

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Excerpt: Emma Woodhouse. Handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her....

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Excerpt: She walks in beauty She walks in beauty, like the night Of cloudless climes and starry skies; And all that?s best of dark and bright Meet in her aspect and her eyes: Thus mellowed to that tender light Which heaven to gaudy day denies....

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Contents SHE WALKS IN BEAUTY.........................................3 ON THIS DAY I COMPLETE MY THIRTY-SIXTH YEAR ....................................................................3 TO CAROLINE ........................................................5 FAREWELL TO THE MUSE ...................................6 ?And wilt thou weep when I am low?? .......................7 OSSIAN?S ADDRESS TO THE SUN IN ?CARTHON? .........................................................8 ?DEAR DOCTOR, I HAVE READ YOUR PLAY? ...9 ?So we?ll go no more a roving? .................................11 ?And thou art dead, as young and fair? ...................12 THE DESTRUCTION OF SENNACHERIB ..........14 DARKNESS ..............................................................15 WHEN WE TWO PARTED ....................................17 TRANSLATION FROM ANACREON ...................18 TO CAROLINE .......................................................19 EPISTLE TO AUGUSTA ........................................20 ODE TO NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE ................23 AND THOU ART DEAD, AS YOUNG AND FAIR ......................................................................

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Introduction: Piping down the valleys wild, Piping songs of pleasant glee, On a cloud I saw a child, And he laughing said to me: ?Pipe a song about a Lamb!? So I piped with merry cheer. ?Piper, pipe that song again;? So I piped: he wept to hear....

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readers have cast their nets wide to create this small collection of letters and poems, from fiction and from life, from heart to heart and from soul to soul. With love for St Valentine. (Summary by Peter Yearsley)...

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Epistolary fiction

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Excerpt: The Turn of the Screw by Henry James.

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Excerpt: An ancient English cathedral tower? How can the ancient English Cathedral tower be here! The well-known massive gray square tower of its old Cathedral? How can that be here! There is no spike of rusty iron in the air, between the eye and it, from any point of the real prospect. What is the spike that intervenes, and who has set it up? Maybe it is set up by the Sultan?s orders for the impaling of a horde of Turkish robbers, one by one....

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Excerpt: The Tempest; Actus Primus -- Scena Prima -- A tempestuous noise of Thunder and Lightning heard: Enter a Ship- master, and a Boteswaine. Master. Boteswaine. Botes. Heere Master: What cheere? Mast. Good: Speake to th? Mariners: fall too?t, yarely, or we run our selves a ground, bestirre, bestirre. Exit. Enter Mariners. Botes. Heigh my hearts, cheerely, cheerely my harts: yare, yare: Take in the toppe- sale: Tend to th? Masters whistle: Blow till thou burst thy winde, if roome enough. Enter Alonso, Sebastian, Anthonio, Ferdinando, Gonzalo, and others. Alon. Good Boteswaine have care: where?s the Ma-ster? Play the men. Botes. I pray now keepe below. Anth. Where is the Master, Boson? Botes. Do you not heare him? you marre our labour, Keepe your Cabines: you do assist the storme. Gonz. Nay, good be patient. Botes. When the Sea is: hence, what cares these roarers for the name of King? to Cabine; silence: trouble us not. Gon. Good, yet remember whom thou hast aboord. Botes. None that I more love then my selfe. You are a Counsellor, if you can command these Elements to silence, and worke the peace of the present, wee will not hand a...

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Table of Contents: The Tempest, 1 -- Actus primus, Scena prima., 1 -- Scena Secunda., 3 -- Actus Secundus. Scoena Prima., 16 -- Scoena Secunda., 24 -- Actus Tertius. Scoena Prima., 28 -- Scoena Secunda., 31 -- Scena Tertia., 34 -- Actus Quartus. Scena Prima., 37 -- Actus quintus: Scoena Prima., 44...

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Shades of The Prisoner of Zenda! All our old friends are here—the young king, the usurping uncle and his evil henchman, the beautiful princess, the loyal retainer and the unwilling imposter. What more could you Hope for? This fast-paced story stays far away from Tarzan’s jungle or the inner world of Pellucidar. (Summary by Delmar H Dolbier)...

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Adventure

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Excerpt: Your name, dear George, while casting a reflected radiance on my book, can gain no new glory from this page. And yet it is neither self-interest nor diffidence which has led me to place it there, but only the wish that it should bear witness to the solid friendship between us, which has survived our wanderings and separations, and triumphed over the busy malice of the world....