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Clouds of Witness is a 1926 mystery novel by Dorothy L. Sayers, the second in her series featuring Lord Peter Wimsey. In the United States the novel was first published in 1927 under the title Clouds of Witnesses.The book's title derives from Hebrews, Chapter 12 verse 1: "Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us." In his 2017 overview of the classic crime genre, Martin Edwards suggests that Clouds of Witness is the work of a novelist learning her craft, but that it displays the storytelling qualities that soon made Sayers famous. While this early portrayal of Wimsey verges on a caricature, Sayers sought to characterise him in greater depth in later novels. Edwards notes that in this novel Wimsey is portrayed not only as a great detective but also as a man of action, and he quotes part of the defence counsel's speech to the House of Lords, explaining Wimsey's transatlantic dash to attend the trial: "My lords, at this moment this all-important witness is cleaving the air high above the wide Atlantic. In this wintry weather he is braving a peril which would appal any heart but his own and that of the world-famous aviator whose help he has enlisted, so that no moment may be lost in freeing his noble brother from this terrible charge. My lords, the barometer is falling."This fictional flight was written in 1926, a year before Charles Lindbergh achieved the same feat in reality (although Alcock and Brown, flying together, had crossed the Atlantic non-stop in 1919).A copy of Clouds of Witness was one of the volumes modified by Joe Orton and Kenneth Halliwell in their adulterations of library books from the Islington and Hampstead libraries in the early 1960s.In 1972 the novel was the subject of a BBC TV mini-series starring Ian Carmichael as Wimsey and Glyn Houston as Bunter. (wikipedia.org)About the author: Dorothy Leigh Sayers (13 June 1893 - 17 December 1957) was an English crime writer and poet. She was also a student of classical and modern languages.She is best known for her mysteries, a series of novels and short stories set between the First and Second World Wars that feature English aristocrat and amateur sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey. As a crime writer during the "Golden Age of Detective Fiction", Sayers was considered one of its four "Queens of Crime", alongside Agatha Christie, Margery Allingham and Ngaio Marsh.Sayers is also known for her plays, literary criticism, and essays. She considered her translation of Dante's Divine Comedy to be her best work. Sayers's obituarist, writing in The New York Times in 1957, noted that many critics at the time regarded her mystery The Nine Tailors as her finest literary achievement. (wikipedia.org)

Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town is a sequence of stories by Stephen Leacock, first published in 1912. It is generally considered to be one of the most enduring classics of Canadian humorous literature. The fictional setting for these stories is Mariposa, a small town on the shore of Lake Wissanotti. Although drawn from his experiences in Orillia, Ontario, Leacock notes: "Mariposa is not a real town. On the contrary, it is about seventy or eighty of them. You may find them all the way from Lake Superior to the sea, with the same square streets and the same maple trees and the same churches and hotels."This work has remained popular for its universal appeal. Many of the characters, though modelled on townspeople of Orillia, are small town archetypes. Their shortcomings and weaknesses are presented in a humorous but affectionate way. Often, the narrator exaggerates the importance of the events in Mariposa compared to the rest of the world. For example, when there is a country-wide election, "the town of Mariposa, was, of course, the storm centre and focus point of the whole turmoil."The story of the steamboat Mariposa Belle sinking in Lake Wissanotti is one of the best-loved in the set. The apparent magnitude of this accident is lessened somewhat when it is revealed that the depth of the water is less than six feet. Men from the town come to the rescue in an un-seaworthy lifeboat which sinks beneath them just as they are pulled onto the steamer, and the narrator earnestly remarks that this was "one of the smartest pieces of rescue work ever seen on the lake." The stories in the book were initially published as a sequence of short literary pieces serialized in the Montreal Daily Star from February 17 to June 22, 1912. Leacock reworked the series - by the means of additions, combinations, and divisions (but no deletions) - and assembled it as the book's manuscript. The book was first published on August 9, 1912. Leacock corrected proof pages of the first edition of Sunshine Sketches while in Paris. In 1923, George Locke commented in the New York Evening Post that library students had chosen the book as one of a dozen "[...] books of prose fiction would best represent the works of Canadian authors to readers who wish to know something of Canadian life".The book, along with the Champlain statue in Couchiching Beach Park on Lake Couchiching, were used in tourist promotions for the town as proof of Orillia's civic pride in the decades following the 1925 Dominion Day celebrations.In 1952, the book was adapted into a television series, Sunshine Sketches, by CBC Television, the network's first foray into Canadian-produced drama. The cast of the series included John Drainie as the Narrator, Paul Kligman as John Smith, Timothy Findley as Peter Pupkin, Eric House as Dean Drone, Peg Dixon as Liliane Drone and Robert Christie as Golgotha Gingham. A second television adaptation premiered on CBC in 2012, and stars Gordon Pinsent and Jill Hennessy. This made-for-TV movie features two stories from the book, "The Marine Excursions of the Knights of Pythias" and "The Hostelry of Mr. Smith", and was created to coincide with the book's 100th anniversary. The stories are a mix of fact and fiction; drawing on details of Leacock's own life and that of his literary creation. (wikipedia.org)

Don't come to Mark Twain looking for a tightly outlined, focused work. He wasn't that type of writer. His books are closer to theme and variations - starting with an idea, riffing on it, detouring from it, throwing in another theme, detouring from that with wild, tangentially connected variations, and back around again. And somehow he makes it work with his one of a kind American voice that's always just barely concealing a chuckle. Life on the Mississippi is Mark Twain's memoir of his early life learning to be a pilot on a Mississippi River Boat during the glory days of those crafts. It's also a travel book, recording his trip on the river over twenty years after he had left it. It includes excerpts from his then work in progress, Huckleberry Finn (in a form different than you will find in that novel). It's full of broad jokes, tall tales, shaggy dog stories, and legends and folklore that Twain satirically deconstructs. He includes a bit of Mississippi River history, takes a few shots at some of his favorite targets (religion and the medieval romances of Sir Walter Scott) and even engages in some touching nostalgia as he visits his childhood home, Hannibal, Missouri. (Theo Logos) About Mark TwainSamuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 - April 21, 1910), known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. He was lauded as the "greatest humorist the United States has produced," and William Faulkner called him "the father of American literature". His novels include The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and its sequel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), the latter of which has often been called the "Great American Novel". Twain was raised in Hannibal, Missouri, which later provided the setting for Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. He served an apprenticeship with a printer and then worked as a typesetter, contributing articles to the newspaper of his older brother Orion Clemens. He later became a riverboat pilot on the Mississippi River before heading west to join Orion in Nevada. He referred humorously to his lack of success at mining, turning to journalism for the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise. His humorous story "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" was published in 1865, based on a story that he heard at Angels Hotel in Angels Camp, California, where he had spent some time as a miner. The short story brought international attention and was even translated into French. His wit and satire, in prose and in speech, earned praise from critics and peers, and he was a friend to presidents, artists, industrialists, and European royalty. Twain earned a great deal of money from his writings and lectures but invested in ventures that lost most of it-such as the Paige Compositor, a mechanical typesetter that failed because of its complexity and imprecision. He filed for bankruptcy in the wake of these financial setbacks, but in time overcame his financial troubles with the help of Henry Huttleston Rogers. He eventually paid all his creditors in full, even though his bankruptcy relieved him of having to do so. Twain was born shortly after an appearance of Halley's Comet, and he predicted that he would "go out with it" as well; he died the day after the comet made its closest approach to the Earth. (wikipedia.org)

Gilbert Keith Chesterton KC*SG (29 May 1874 - 14 June 1936) was an English writer, philosopher, Christian apologist, and literary and art critic. He has been referred to as the "prince of paradox". Of his writing style, Time observed: "Whenever possible, Chesterton made his points with popular sayings, proverbs, allegories-first carefully turning them inside out."Chesterton created the fictional priest-detective Father Brown, and wrote on apologetics. Even some of those who disagree with him have recognised the wide appeal of such works as Orthodoxy and The Everlasting Man. Chesterton routinely referred to himself as an "orthodox" Christian, and came to identify this position more and more with Catholicism, eventually converting to Roman Catholicism from high church Anglicanism. Biographers have identified him as a successor to such Victorian authors as Matthew Arnold, Thomas Carlyle, John Henry Newman and John Ruskin.Chesterton wrote around 80 books, several hundred poems, some 200 short stories, 4,000 essays (mostly newspaper columns), and several plays. He was a literary and social critic, historian, playwright, novelist, Catholic theologian and apologist, debater, and mystery writer. He was a columnist for the Daily News, The Illustrated London News, and his own paper, G. K.'s Weekly; he also wrote articles for the Encyclopedia Britannica, including the entry on Charles Dickens and part of the entry on Humour in the 14th edition (1929). His best-known character is the priest-detective Father Brown, who appeared only in short stories, while The Man Who Was Thursday is arguably his best-known novel. He was a convinced Christian long before he was received into the Catholic Church, and Christian themes and symbolism appear in much of his writing. In the United States, his writings on distributism were popularised through The American Review, published by Seward Collins in New York.Of his nonfiction, Charles Dickens: A Critical Study (1906) has received some of the broadest-based praise. According to Ian Ker (The Catholic Revival in English Literature, 1845-1961, 2003), "In Chesterton's eyes Dickens belongs to Merry, not Puritan, England"; Ker treats Chesterton's thought in chapter 4 of that book as largely growing out of his true appreciation of Dickens, a somewhat shop-soiled property in the view of other literary opinions of the time. The biography was largely responsible for creating a popular revival for Dickens's work as well as a serious reconsideration of Dickens by scholars.Chesterton's writings consistently displayed wit and a sense of humour. He employed paradox, while making serious comments on the world, government, politics, economics, philosophy, theology and many other topics. ...(wikipedia.org)

A Romantic, fantasy, Sci-Fi adventure thriller by Algernon Blackwood about a man who marries a woman carrying something of the spirit of air within her, something wonderful and birdlike. ...About the authorAlgernon Henry Blackwood, CBE (14 March 1869 - 10 December 1951) was an English broadcasting narrator, journalist, novelist and short story writer, and among the most prolific ghost story writers in the history of the genre. The literary critic S. T. Joshi stated, "His work is more consistently meritorious than any weird writer's except Dunsany's" and that his short story collection Incredible Adventures (1914) "may be the premier weird collection of this or any other century". Throughout his adult life, he was an occasional essayist for periodicals. In his late thirties, he moved back to England and started to write stories of the supernatural. He was successful, writing at least ten original collections of short stories and later telling them on radio and television. He also wrote 14 novels, several children's books and a number of plays, most of which were produced, but not published. He was an avid lover of nature and the outdoors, as many of his stories reflect. To satisfy his interest in the supernatural, he joined The Ghost Club. He never married; according to his friends he was a loner, but also cheerful company.His two best-known stories are probably "The Willows" and "The Wendigo". He would also often write stories for newspapers at short notice, with the result that he was unsure exactly how many short stories he had written and there is no sure total. Though Blackwood wrote a number of horror stories, his most typical work seeks less to frighten than to induce a sense of awe. Good examples are the novels The Centaur, which reaches a climax with a traveller's sight of a herd of the mythical creatures; and Julius LeVallon and its sequel The Bright Messenger, which deal with reincarnation and the possibility of a new, mystical evolution of human consciousness. Blackwood died after several strokes. Officially his death on 10 December 1951 was from cerebral thrombosis, with arteriosclerosis as a contributing factor. He was cremated at Golders Green crematorium. A few weeks later his nephew took his ashes to Saanenmöser Pass in the Swiss Alps, and scattered them in the mountains that he had loved for more than forty years. (wikipedia.org)

CONTENTSThe Insanity of JonesThe Man Who Found OutThe Glamour of the SnowSand About the authorAlgernon Henry Blackwood, CBE (14 March 1869 - 10 December 1951) was an English broadcasting narrator, journalist, novelist and short story writer, and among the most prolific ghost story writers in the history of the genre. The literary critic S. T. Joshi stated, "His work is more consistently meritorious than any weird writer's except Dunsany's" and that his short story collection Incredible Adventures (1914) "may be the premier weird collection of this or any other century". Throughout his adult life, he was an occasional essayist for periodicals. In his late thirties, he moved back to England and started to write stories of the supernatural. He was successful, writing at least ten original collections of short stories and later telling them on radio and television. He also wrote 14 novels, several children's books and a number of plays, most of which were produced, but not published. He was an avid lover of nature and the outdoors, as many of his stories reflect. To satisfy his interest in the supernatural, he joined The Ghost Club. He never married; according to his friends he was a loner, but also cheerful company.His two best-known stories are probably "The Willows" and "The Wendigo". He would also often write stories for newspapers at short notice, with the result that he was unsure exactly how many short stories he had written and there is no sure total. Though Blackwood wrote a number of horror stories, his most typical work seeks less to frighten than to induce a sense of awe. Good examples are the novels The Centaur, which reaches a climax with a traveller's sight of a herd of the mythical creatures; and Julius LeVallon and its sequel The Bright Messenger, which deal with reincarnation and the possibility of a new, mystical evolution of human consciousness. Blackwood died after several strokes. Officially his death on 10 December 1951 was from cerebral thrombosis, with arteriosclerosis as a contributing factor. He was cremated at Golders Green crematorium. A few weeks later his nephew took his ashes to Saanenmöser Pass in the Swiss Alps, and scattered them in the mountains that he had loved for more than forty years. (wikipedia.org)

Greenmantle is the second of five novels by John Buchan featuring the character Richard Hannay. It was first published in 1916 by Hodder & Stoughton, London. It is one of two Hannay novels set during the First World War, the other being Mr. Standfast (1919); Hannay's first and best-known adventure, The Thirty-Nine Steps (1915), is set in the period immediately preceding the war. Hannay is called in to investigate rumours of an uprising in the Muslim world, and undertakes a perilous journey through enemy territory to meet his friend Sandy in Constantinople. Once there, he and his friends must thwart the Germans' plans to use religion to help them win the war, climaxing at the battle of Erzurum. The book was very popular when published, and was read by Robert Baden-Powell and by the Russian imperial family as they awaited the outcome of the revolution in 1917. "A Mission Is Proposed", the first chapter of Greenmantle, was chosen by Graham Greene for his 1957 anthology The Spy's Bedside Book. The book has been adapted for broadcast on BBC Radio 4. It was broadcast on BBC Radio4 Extra in two episodes on 27 and 28 August 2013, and again on 30 April and 1 May 2015, with David Robb as Richard Hannay and James Fleet as Sandy Arbuthnot, forced to be 'Greenmantle':. (wikipedia.org)

Incredible Adventures is a collection by Algernon Blackwood, comprising three novellas and two short stories. It was originally published by Macmillan in 1914 and reprinted in 2004 by Hippocampus Press. H. P. Lovecraft wrote that: In the volume titled Incredible Adventures occur some of the finest tales which the author has yet produced, leading the fancy to wild rites on nocturnal hills, to secret and terrible aspects lurking behind stolid scenes, and to unimaginable vaults of mystery below the sands and pyramids of Egypt; all with a serious finesse and delicacy that convince where a cruder or lighter treatment would merely amuse. Some of these accounts are hardly stories at all, but rather studies in elusive impressions and half-remembered snatches of dream. Plot is everywhere negligible, and atmosphere reigns untrammelled.S. T. Joshi has acclaimed Incredible Adventures as possibly "the premier weird collection of this or any other century".The book contains the following stories, all novella-length except for "The Sacrifice" and "Wayfarers" The Regeneration of Lord Ernie"The Sacrifice"The DamnedA Descent into Egypt"Wayfarers" (wikipedia.org) About the authorAlgernon Henry Blackwood, CBE (14 March 1869 - 10 December 1951) was an English broadcasting narrator, journalist, novelist and short story writer, and among the most prolific ghost story writers in the history of the genre. The literary critic S. T. Joshi stated, "His work is more consistently meritorious than any weird writer's except Dunsany's" and that his short story collection Incredible Adventures (1914) "may be the premier weird collection of this or any other century". Throughout his adult life, he was an occasional essayist for periodicals. In his late thirties, he moved back to England and started to write stories of the supernatural. He was successful, writing at least ten original collections of short stories and later telling them on radio and television. He also wrote 14 novels, several children's books and a number of plays, most of which were produced, but not published. He was an avid lover of nature and the outdoors, as many of his stories reflect. To satisfy his interest in the supernatural, he joined The Ghost Club. He never married; according to his friends he was a loner, but also cheerful company.His two best-known stories are probably "The Willows" and "The Wendigo". He would also often write stories for newspapers at short notice, with the result that he was unsure exactly how many short stories he had written and there is no sure total. Though Blackwood wrote a number of horror stories, his most typical work seeks less to frighten than to induce a sense of awe. Good examples are the novels The Centaur, which reaches a climax with a traveller's sight of a herd of the mythical creatures; and Julius LeVallon and its sequel The Bright Messenger, which deal with reincarnation and the possibility of a new, mystical evolution of human consciousness. Blackwood died after several strokes. Officially his death on 10 December 1951 was from cerebral thrombosis, with arteriosclerosis as a contributing factor. He was cremated at Golders Green crematorium. A few weeks later his nephew took his ashes to Saanenmöser Pass in the Swiss Alps, and scattered them in the mountains that he had loved for more than forty years. (wikipedia.org)

Christian fiction: The story of four sisters and the journey God takes them...About the authorAmelia Sophia Le Feuvre (1861 - 1929), better known as Amy Le Feuvre, was an English evangelical Christian writer of children's novels and short stories. She authored more than 65 books and wrote for several magazines including The Quiver. Le Feuvre prominently expressed her religious beliefs in the themes of her works. Although she often wrote under her own name, she also used the pseudonym Mary Thurston Dodge. Her debut novel, Eric's Good News, was first published in 1894, while her final novel, A Strange Courtship, was published 1931, two years after her death. Le Feuvre is best remembered for Teddy's Button, a 1896 novel that, like many of her novels, features a badly behaved child who has honourable intentions that are misunderstood by the adults.

A tale of one boy's life in the world of deep-sea fishing on an ocean that is both tender and cruelPublished in 1920, Blue Water is set in the early 1900s and traces the adventures of Shorty Westhaver from boyhood to young manhood in the dangerous and, often, tragic world of the Grand Banks fishery. About the authorFrederick William Wallace (December 11, 1886 - July 15, 1958) was a journalist, photographer, historian and novelist. He is best known as the author of Wooden Ships and Iron Men, a now-classic 1924 book about the last days of the Age of Sail in Maritime Canada. Born in Glasgow, Scotland, he initially worked as a clerk but turned to the sea as a journalist of the fishing industry which later led to historical work. Wallace served in World War I as commander of a Q-Ship.After the war, he edited the monthly journal Canadian Fisherman which would be his main occupation for forty years. This publication, which ran from 1917 to 1970, remains an important source of information for researchers today.He would also write short stories for such pulp magazines as Adventure between 1912 and 1922.Wallace began publishing novels in 1907, beginning with Blue Water and several other works including Captain Salvation (1925). Blue Water was made into a 1922 film starring Norma Shearer and directed by David Hartford, but it had only a limited theatrical release in saint John, where it was partly filmed. Wallace's Captain Salvation was purchased the Hearst Corporation and released as a film in 1927, directed by John S. Robertson. Both films were from the silent era.About forty years later than he preferred to, he said, in 1924 he published Wooden Ships and Iron Men as a testament to the spirit of the Age of Sail. He followed this book with In the Wake of the Windships (1927) and Record of Canadian Shipping (1929). These three historical works became standard references to the deepwater sailing era in Canada.In 1929 he wrote Bound for the Rio Grande, an operetta based on English shanties, performed at the 1929 CPR Festival in Vancouver. His epic poem about his time aboard the Effie M. Morrissey, "The Log of the Record Run," was widely read and adopted by east coast fishermen with such authentic results that it was mistaken as a very old traditional song by folklorist Helen Creighton.He died in Montreal on July 15, 1958. An accomplished photographer, in 2006 he was the subject of a book by Nova Scotia writer M. Brook Taylor entitled A Camera on the Banks, which documents seven voyages to the Newfoundland Grand Banks where he toiled alongside other fishermen, at the same time documenting their condition in photographs and words. In conjunction with the launch of Taylor's book, the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic opened an exhibit on June 6, 2006 entitled A Camera on the Banks: The Work of Frederick William Wallace, which displayed part of the museum's extensive collection of Wallace's photographs. Some of these photographs had originally appeared in the National Geographic. The Wallace exhibit has since travelled in Nova Scotia to Lunenburg, Annapolis Royal, Digby and Shelburne. A bilingual version opened at the Canada Science and Technology Museum in Ottawa, Ontario on September 17, 2008. (wikipedia.org)

Spoon River Anthology (1915), by Edgar Lee Masters, is a collection of short free verse poems that collectively narrates the epitaphs of the residents of Spoon River, a fictional small town named after the Spoon River, which ran near Masters' home town of Lewistown, Illinois. The aim of the poems is to demystify rural and small town American life. The collection includes 212 separate characters, in all providing 244 accounts of their lives, losses, and manner of death. Many of the poems contain cross-references that create an unabashedly candid tapestry of the community. The poems originally were published in 1914 in the St. Louis, Missouri, literary journal Reedy's Mirror, under the pseudonym Webster Ford. Spoon River Anthology was a critical and commercial success. Ezra Pound's review of the Spoon River poems begins: "At last! At last America has discovered a poet." Carl Sandburg's review is similarly glowing: "Once in a while a man comes along who writes a book that has his own heart-beats in it. The people whose faces look out from the pages of the book are the people of life itself, each trait of them as plain or as mysterious as in the old home valley where the writer came from. Such a writer and book are realized here." The book sold 80,000 copies over four years, making it an international bestseller by the standards of the day.Meanwhile, those who lived in the Spoon River region objected to their portrayal in the anthology, particularly as so many of the poems' characters were based on real people. The book was banned from Lewistown schools and libraries until 1974. Even Masters's mother, who sat on the Lewistown library board, voted for the ban. (Masters claimed "My mother disliked [the anthology]; my father adored it.") Despite this, the anthology remained widely read in Lewistown; local historian Kelvin Sampson notes that "Every family in Lewistown probably had a sheet of paper or a notebook hidden away with their copy of the Anthology, saying who was who in town."Masters capitalized on the success of The Spoon River Anthology with the 1924 sequel The New Spoon River, in which Spoon River became a suburb of Chicago and its inhabitants have been urbanized. The second work was less successful and received poorer reviews. In 1933, Masters wrote a retrospective essay on the composition of The Spoon River Anthology and the response it received, entitled "The Genesis of Spoon River." He recounts, among other things, the "exhaustion of body" that befell him while writing, which eventually manifested in pneumonia and a year-long bout of illness as the work was being prepared for publication. He claims that the Lewistown residents who strove to identify the poems' characters with real people did so only "with poor success."More recently, Lewistown celebrated its relationship to Masters's poetry. The Oak Hill Cemetery features a memorial statue of Masters and offers a self-guided walking tour of the graves that inspired the poems. In 2015, the town celebrated the 100th anniversary of the anthology's publication with tours, exhibitions, and theatrical performances.Today Spoon River Anthology often is assigned in high school and college literature classes and as a source of monologues for theatrical auditions. It is also often used in second-year characterization work in the Meisner technique of actor training.Spoon River Anthology is credited as an initial inspiration for the "audio log" storytelling device in video games as it first appeared in the game System Shock, a narrative technique that became a standard trope of narrative games. (wikipedia.org)

Flight without End (German: Die Flucht ohne Ende) is a 1927 novel by the Austrian writer Joseph Roth.The novel is set in the period between August 1916 and 27 August 1926. It starts in the city of Irkutsk and ends in Paris. During his journey the protagonist lives in Ukraine, Baku, Vienna and an unspecified German university town on the Rhine. The novel starts with protagonist Franz Tunda, born 1894, escaping confinement in Russia and finding a home with Baranowicz from Poland, who lives in Werchne-Udisnk. In the spring of 1919 the lieutenant hears of the end of the war and decides to go to Vienna to meet his fiancee, Miss Irene Hartmann. By September Tunda has made it to Ukraine. Caught up in the Russian Civil War, he first falls into the hands of the White Army, but later he ends up with the Red Army. Tunda falls in love with his supervisor, a Russian woman named Natascha Alexandrowna, becomes a revolutionary himself and gives passionate speeches in support of Communism.Later, in Moscow, Tunda has to manage his postwar life. He is asked to join the Communist Party, but leaves to Georgia and falls in love with a woman called Alja. They get married in Baku. Tunda takes care of a French delegation from Paris, shows them around and sleeps with Mrs. G., the only woman in the delegation. Later he is regarded as a spy by the French. When saying goodbye, Mrs G. tells Tunda her address in France. Tunda leaves his wife, gets Austrian identity papers and later lives in Vienna on unemployment benefit. He misses his home in Siberia just as much as he misses to Irene.On his way to Paris, he visits his brother, a well-off bandmaster who lives in the Rhineland, but they don't have anything to talk about.Tunda publishes a book about his experiences and sends his wife in Baku a bit of money. In Paris, he meets Mrs G. again, but everyone in France seems to know that he is broke. Tunda and Irene pass each other once, but neither recognizes the other. Baranowicz writes a letter from Siberia: Alja has just arrived at his place and they are both waiting for Tunda. Tunda can now go back to the region of Irkutsk but he doesn't know what to do. The novel was adapted into a 1985 film directed by Michael Kehlmann.A stage adaptation by Steve Waters was performed at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art in May 2006. (wikipedia.org)

With exquisite attention to detail, Wallace has crafted a wonderful story filled with intrigue, history. A delightful story that will keep you turning the pages as quickly as you can, right up until the very end. A winner from beginning to end with characters that almost jump off of the page. I love the mysterious, suspenseful tone and compelling plot that make this a page-turner. I enjoy reading historical books and especially enjoyed this book, as it was very well-researched. Loved this story! (Deha) About the authorFrederick William Wallace (December 11, 1886 - July 15, 1958) was a journalist, photographer, historian and novelist. He is best known as the author of Wooden Ships and Iron Men, a now-classic 1924 book about the last days of the Age of Sail in Maritime Canada. Born in Glasgow, Scotland, he initially worked as a clerk but turned to the sea as a journalist of the fishing industry which later led to historical work. Wallace served in World War I as commander of a Q-Ship.After the war, he edited the monthly journal Canadian Fisherman which would be his main occupation for forty years. This publication, which ran from 1917 to 1970, remains an important source of information for researchers today.He would also write short stories for such pulp magazines as Adventure between 1912 and 1922.Wallace began publishing novels in 1907, beginning with Blue Water and several other works including Captain Salvation (1925). Blue Water was made into a 1922 film starring Norma Shearer and directed by David Hartford, but it had only a limited theatrical release in saint John, where it was partly filmed. Wallace's Captain Salvation was purchased the Hearst Corporation and released as a film in 1927, directed by John S. Robertson. Both films were from the silent era.About forty years later than he preferred to, he said, in 1924 he published Wooden Ships and Iron Men as a testament to the spirit of the Age of Sail. He followed this book with In the Wake of the Windships (1927) and Record of Canadian Shipping (1929). These three historical works became standard references to the deepwater sailing era in Canada.In 1929 he wrote Bound for the Rio Grande, an operetta based on English shanties, performed at the 1929 CPR Festival in Vancouver. His epic poem about his time aboard the Effie M. Morrissey, "The Log of the Record Run," was widely read and adopted by east coast fishermen with such authentic results that it was mistaken as a very old traditional song by folklorist Helen Creighton.He died in Montreal on July 15, 1958. An accomplished photographer, in 2006 he was the subject of a book by Nova Scotia writer M. Brook Taylor entitled A Camera on the Banks, which documents seven voyages to the Newfoundland Grand Banks where he toiled alongside other fishermen, at the same time documenting their condition in photographs and words. In conjunction with the launch of Taylor's book, the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic opened an exhibit on June 6, 2006 entitled A Camera on the Banks: The Work of Frederick William Wallace, which displayed part of the museum's extensive collection of Wallace's photographs. Some of these photographs had originally appeared in the National Geographic. The Wallace exhibit has since travelled in Nova Scotia to Lunenburg, Annapolis Royal, Digby and Shelburne. A bilingual version opened at the Canada Science and Technology Museum in Ottawa, Ontario on September 17, 2008. (wikipedia.org)

ContentIntroduction The Ring of the Curse I. The Rhine-Gold . II. The War Maidens III. Siegfried the Fearless IV. The Downfall of the Gods Parsifal the Pure Lohengrin the Swan Knight Tannhauser the Knight of Song The Master Singers Rienzi the Last of the Tribunes The Flying Dutchman Tristan and Isolde About the authorJoseph Walker McSpadden attended UT beginning in November 1893. He graduated in 1899 and moved to New York. He and two other UT alumni (Marshall Lawrence Havey and John S. Coppers) organized a U.T.N.Y. luncheon group in 1899, which was expanded to become the Tennessee Society of New York in 1905.McSpadden was a prolific author. He is best known for his Robin Hood (1891) and succeeding tales of Robin Hood. Among his other publications are Opera Synopses (1920), Operas and Musical Comedies, Light Opera and Musical Comedy (1936), Shakespearian Synopses (1923), The Fables of Aesop, Based on the Texts of L'Estrange and Croxall (1903), Stories from Great Operas (1923), Alps: As Seen by the Poets (1912), California: A Romantic Story for Young People (1926), Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers (1924), Famous Ghost Stories (1918), Famous Psychic Stories (1920), Famous Sculptors of America (1924), Synopses of Dickens's Novels (1909), The Book of Holidays (1935), and Storm Center: A Novel about Andy Johnson (1947).

A very interesting curiosity: Benson, writing in 1930, reminiscing about the Victorian era, writers, artists, scandals of the day. Veers between extremely sharp insight and self-indulgence, as you might expect, and is in many ways a psychological portrait of Benson himself. Highly readable if you're interested in seeing the period through a different lens of the past. Also, tons of very good anecdotes. (K.J. Charles) About the authorE.F. Benson, in full Edward Frederic Benson, (born July 24, 1867, Wellington College, Berkshire, Eng.-died Feb. 29, 1940, London), writer of fiction, reminiscences, and biographies, of which the best remembered are his arch, satirical novels and his urbane autobiographical studies of Edwardian and Georgian society.The son of E.W. Benson, an archbishop of Canterbury (1883-96), the young Benson was educated at Marlborough School and at King's College, Cambridge. After graduation he worked from 1892 to 1895 in Athens for the British School of Archaeology and later in Egypt for the Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies. In 1893 he published Dodo, a novel that attracted wide attention. It was followed by a number of other successful novels-such as Mrs. Ames (1912), Queen Lucia (1920), Miss Mapp (1922), and Lucia in London (1927)-and books on a wide range of subjects, totaling nearly 100. Among them were biographies of Queen Victoria, William Gladstone, and William II of Germany. In 1938 he was made an honorary fellow of Magdalene College, Cambridge. Benson's reminiscences include As We Were (1930), As We Are (1932), and Final Edition (1940). (britannica.com)

Mohandas K. Gandhi is one of the most inspiring figures of our time. In his classic autobiography he recounts the story of his life and how he developed his concept of active nonviolent resistance, which propelled the Indian struggle for independence and countless other nonviolent struggles of the twentieth century.

The Nicomachean Ethics is Aristotle's best-known work on ethics, the science of the good for human life, which is the goal or end at which all our actions aim. The aim of the inquiry is political science and the master art of politics. It consists of ten books or scrolls, understood to be based on notes from his lectures at the Lyceum. The title is often assumed to refer to his son Nicomachus, to whom the work was dedicated or who may have edited it (although his young age makes this less likely). Alternatively, the work may have been dedicated to his father, who was also called Nicomachus. The work plays a pre-eminent role in explaining Aristotelian ethics.The theme of the work is a Socratic question previously explored in the works of Plato, Aristotle's friend and teacher, about how men should best live. In his Metaphysics, Aristotle describes how Socrates, the friend and teacher of Plato, had turned philosophy to human questions, whereas pre-Socratic philosophy had only been theoretical. Ethics, as now separated out for discussion by Aristotle, is practical rather than theoretical, in the original Aristotelian senses of these terms. In other words, it is not only a contemplation about good living, because it also aims to create good living. It is therefore connected to Aristotle's other practical work, Politics, which similarly aims at people becoming good. Ethics is about how individuals should best live, while the study of politics is from the perspective of a law-giver, looking at the good of a whole community.The Nicomachean Ethics is widely considered one of the most historically important philosophical works and had an important influence on the European Middle Ages, becoming one of the core works of medieval philosophy. Therefore, it indirectly became of great significance in the development of all modern philosophy as well as European law and theology. Many parts of the Nicomachean Ethics are well known in their own right, within different fields. While various philosophers influenced Christendom since its earliest times, in Western Europe, Aristotle became "the Philosopher". In the Middle Ages, a synthesis between Aristotelian ethics and Christian theology became widespread in Europe, as introduced by Albertus Magnus. The most important version of this synthesis was that of Thomas Aquinas. Other more "Averroist" Aristotelians such as Marsilius of Padua were controversial but also influential. (Marsilius is for example sometimes said to have influenced the controversial English political reformer Thomas Cromwell.)Until well into the seventeenth century, the Nicomachean Ethics was still widely regarded as the main authority for the discipline of ethics at Protestant universities, with over fifty Protestant commentaries published on the Nicomachean Ethics before 1682. During the seventeenth century, however, several authors such as Francis Bacon and Thomas Hobbes argued forcefully and largely successfully that the medieval and Renaissance Aristotelian tradition in practical thinking had become a great impediment to philosophy in their time. In more recent generations, however, Aristotle's original works (if not those of his medieval followers) have once again become an important source. More recent philosophers influenced by this work include Alasdair MacIntyre, G. E. M. Anscombe, Mortimer Adler, Hans-Georg Gadamer, and Martha Nussbaum. (wikipedia.org)

The Bridge of San Luis Rey is American author Thornton Wilder's second novel. It was first published in 1927 to worldwide acclaim. The novel won the Pulitzer Prize in 1928, and was the best-selling work of fiction that year. The Bridge of San Luis Rey tells the story of several interrelated people who die in the collapse of an Inca rope bridge in Peru, and the events that lead up to their being on the bridge. A friar who witnesses the accident then goes about inquiring into the lives of the victims, seeking some sort of cosmic answer to the question of why each had to die. The Bridge of San Luis Rey won the 1928 Pulitzer Prize for the Novel, and remains widely acclaimed as Wilder's most famous work. In 1998, the book was rated number 37 by the editorial board of the American Modern Library on the list of the 100 best 20th-century novels. Time magazine included the novel in its TIME 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005. (wikipedia.org)

Sir Percy Hits Back is one of many sequels to The Scarlet Pimpernel. It spends most of its time examining an unknown side of the series' villain, Chauvelin. Usually portrayed as a calculating, cold-hearted executioner, the character's softer side is shown as the reader discovers he is a father. It was an excellent example of how to make a character--even a villainous one--sympathetic to the reader. In the other books, Orczy habitually describes Chauvelin's hands as talon-like and sinister. However, in this volume the perspective changes to that of his daughter and she uses much softer terms to describe them. This book showed me how point of view changes how the author portrays the same object, person, etc. which I have implemented many times in my own writing. (Elyse Kelly)About the author:Baroness Emma Magdolna Rozália Mária Jozefa Borbála "Emmuska" Orczy de Orci (23 September 1865 - 12 November 1947) was a Hungarian-born British novelist and playwright. She is best known for her series of novels featuring the Scarlet Pimpernel, the alter ego of Sir Percy Blakeney, a wealthy English fop who turns into a quick-thinking escape artist in order to save ill-fated French royalty from "Madame Guillotine" during the French revolution.Introducing the notion of a "hero with a secret identity" into popular culture, the Scarlet Pimpernel exhibits characteristics that would become standard superhero conventions, including the penchant for disguise, use of a signature weapon (sword), ability to out-think and outwit his adversaries, and a calling card (he leaves behind a scarlet pimpernel at each of his interventions). By drawing attention to his alter ego Blakeney he hides behind his public face as a slow thinking foppish playboy (like Bruce Wayne), and he also establishes a network of supporters, The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel, that aid his endeavours.Orczy went on to write over a dozen sequels featuring Sir Percy Blakeney, his family, and the other members of the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel, of which the first, I Will Repay (1906), was the most popular. The last Pimpernel book, Mam'zelle Guillotine, was published in 1940. None of her three subsequent plays matched the success of The Scarlet Pimpernel. She also wrote popular mystery fiction and many adventure romances. Her Lady Molly of Scotland Yard was an early example of a female detective as the main character. Other popular detective stories featured The Old Man in the Corner, a sleuth who chiefly used logic to solve crimes.Orczy held strong political views. Orczy was a firm believer in the superiority of the aristocracy, as well as being a supporter of British imperialism and militarism. During the First World War, Orczy formed the Women of England's Active Service League, an unofficial organisation aimed at encouraging women to persuade men to volunteer for active service in the armed forces. Her aim was to enlist 100,000 women who would pledge "to persuade every man I know to offer his service to his country". Some 20,000 women joined her organisation. Orczy was also strongly opposed to the Soviet Union.She died in Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire on 12 November 1947. (wikipedia.org)

Liberalism (original German title: Liberalismus) is a book by Austrian School economist and libertarian thinker Ludwig von Mises, containing economic analysis and indicting critique of socialism. It was first published in 1927 by Gustav Fischer Verlag in Jena and defending classical liberal ideology based on individual property rights. Starting from the principle of private property, Mises shows how the other classical liberal freedoms follow from property rights and argues that liberalism free of government intervention is required to promote peace, social harmony and the general welfare. The book was translated into English by a student of Mises, Ralph Raico, but its first English edition in 1962 was titled The Free and Prosperous Commonwealth rather than Liberalism, as Mises thought that the literal translation would create confusion because the term liberalism after the New Deal and especially in the 1960s became widely used in the United States to refer to a centre-left politics that supports degrees of government intervention, in opposition to Mises' central premise. The English translation was made available online by the Ludwig von Mises Institute in 2000. (wikipedia.org)

Anabasis (an "expedition up from") is the most famous work of the Ancient Greek professional soldier and writer Xenophon. It narrates the expedition of a large army of Greek mercenaries hired by Cyrus the Younger to help him seize the throne of Persia from his brother, Artaxerxes II, in 401 BC. The seven books making up the Anabasis were composed circa 370 BC. Though as an Ancient Greek vocabulary word, ᾰ̓νᾰ́βᾰσῐς means "embarkation", "ascent" or "mounting up", the title Anabasis is rendered in translation as The March Up Country or as The March of the Ten Thousand. The narration of the army's journey across Asia Minor and Mesopotamia is Xenophon's best known work, and "one of the great adventures in human history". Xenophon, in his Hellenica, did not cover the retreat of Cyrus but instead referred the reader to the Anabasis by "Themistogenes of Syracuse"-the tenth-century Suda also describes Anabasis as being the work of Themistogenes, "preserved among the works of Xenophon", in the entry Θεμιστογένεης. (Θεμιστογένης, Συρακούσιος, ἱστορικός. Κύρου ἀνάβασιν, ἥτις ἐν τοῖς Ξενοφῶντος φέρεται καὶ ἄλλα τινὰ περὶ τῆς ἑαυτοῦ πατρίδος. J.S. Watson in his Remarks on the Authorship of Anabasis refers to the various interpretations of the word "φέρεται", which give rise to different interpretations and different problems.) Aside from these two references, there is no authority for there being a contemporary Anabasis written by "Themistogenes of Syracuse", and indeed no mention of such a person in any other context. The Greek term anabasis referred to an expedition from a coastline into the interior of a country. While the journey of Cyrus is an anabasis from Ionia on the eastern coast of the Aegean Sea, to the interior of Asia Minor and Mesopotamia, most of Xenophon's narrative is taken up with the return march of Xenophon and the Ten Thousand, from the interior of Babylon to the coast of the Black Sea. Socrates makes a cameo appearance, when Xenophon asks whether he ought to accompany the expedition. The short episode demonstrates the reverence of Socrates for the Oracle of Delphi. Xenophon's account of the exploit resounded through Greece, where, two generations later, some surmise, it may have inspired Philip of Macedon to believe that a lean and disciplined Hellene army might be relied upon to defeat a Persian army many times its size. Besides military history, the Anabasis has found use as a tool for the teaching of classical philosophy; the principles of statesmanship and politics exhibited by the army can be seen as exemplifying Socratic philosophy. (wikipedia.org)

The Aeneidis a Latin epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who fled the fall of Troy and travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Romans. It comprises 9,896 lines in dactylic hexameter. The first six of the poem's twelve books tell the story of Aeneas' wanderings from Troy to Italy, and the poem's second half tells of the Trojans' ultimately victorious war upon the Latins, under whose name Aeneas and his Trojan followers are destined to be subsumed.The hero Aeneas was already known to Greco-Roman legend and myth, having been a character in the Iliad. Virgil took the disconnected tales of Aeneas' wanderings, his vague association with the foundation of Rome and his description as a personage of no fixed characteristics other than a scrupulous pietas, and fashioned the Aeneid into a compelling founding myth or national epic that tied Rome to the legends of Troy, explained the Punic Wars, glorified traditional Roman virtues, and legitimized the Julio-Claudian dynasty as descendants of the founders, heroes, and gods of Rome and Troy.The Aeneid is widely regarded as Virgil's masterpiece and one of the greatest works of Latin literature. (wikipedia.org)

PrefaceMany books have been written for the instruction and enlightenment of the youth of our land, but there is still a need for more. In this day and age, when there are so many unwholesome stories afloat to mislead and corrupt the immature minds of our young people, we should do all that lies in our power to counteract the influence of such dangerous reading material, and to help youthful persons to understand themselves and to be able to judge between right and wrong principles.All the characters mentioned are real, but their names have been changed, as some of the persons are still living and do not care to be so publicized. The object of the story has been to help youths as they start out upon the Journey of Life for themselves. Byron's experience will help them to see the necessity of being piloted by the One who understands the dangers abounding in the great, broad ocean before them, and will direct them to the Holy Spirit, who alone is able to serve as Pilot. The remindings given by the conscience will show how necessary it is for all to have a higher and a greater power to guide them through the tests and temptations that assail mankind. But it must have the cooperation of the Holy Spirit in order to be able to perform its work properly.How often we hear someone say, "If only I had been taught concerning the fruits of disobedience, how many sorrows and heartaches I could have avoided!" Many lives that could have been bright and happy is sad and blighted by the effects of sin and disobedience. This simple story will fulfill its mission if it helps honest souls to listen to the warning of "the Pilot's voice."-Isabel C. Byrum

William Stephen Richard King-Hall, Baron King-Hall of Headley (21 January 1893 - 2 June 1966) was a British naval officer, writer, politician and playwright who served as the member of parliament for Ormskirk from 1939 to 1945. The son of Admiral Sir George Fowler King-Hall and Olga Felicia Ker; theirs was an artistic naval family, King-Hall's sisters Magdalen and Lou also being writers. He married Kathleen Amelia Spencer (died 14 August 1950), daughter of Francis Spencer, on 15 April 1919 and they had three children, Ann, Frances Susan and Jane.He was educated at Lausanne in Switzerland and at the Royal Naval College in Dartmouth. He fought in the First World War between 1914 and 1918, with the Grand Fleet, serving on HMS Southampton and 11th Submarine Flotilla. He gained the rank of commander in the service of the Royal Navy in 1928, before resigning in 1929. He wrote several plays between 1924 and 1940, including Posterity accepted by Leonard Woolf for the Hogarth Essays. He joined the Royal Institute of International Affairs in 1929, having previously been awarded their gold medal for his 1920 thesis on submarine warfare. He entered the House of Commons in 1939 as Member of Parliament (MP) for Ormskirk unopposed, standing as the National Labour candidate. He later changed his affiliation and continued to stand as an Independent, subsequently losing the seat to future Prime Minister Harold Wilson in the 1945 general election. During his term, he served in the Ministry of Aircraft Production under Max Aitken as Director of the Factory Defence Section.In 1944 he founded and chaired the Hansard Society to promote parliamentary democracy. He presented a programme for children on current affairs on both BBC radio and television. He was invested as a Knight Bachelor on 6 July 1954 and was created a Life Peer as Baron King-Hall of Headley on 15 January 1966. He lived at Hartfield House, Headley until his death in Westminster on 2 June 1966. (wikipedia.org)

Based on a TV series of the same name, this novel (actually a series of connected novelettes) looks at America's march into space as seen through the eyes of one Ed McCauley.He is chosen to make the first sub-orbital flight by rocket from a launch pad in the American Southwest. Ascending the rocket by ladder, his flight is successful, and he is able to get a quick look at space from above the atmosphere. On the way down, he ejects from his capsule, intentionally, and parachutes the last couple of miles to the ground. The Space Service is able to send people into space, but they haven't yet figured out the part about the soft landing with the capsule intact. McCauley is chosen to pilot the X-21, a state of the art rocket plane, on the first orbital flight around the earth, and returns for a soft landing.Building the Space Platform, in earth orbit, almost becomes a disaster when one of the three crewmen suddenly starts floating away into space. McCauley manages to get the crewman, and himself, back to safety. As chief of the moon base, McCauley sent two of the crew onto the moon's surface to set up a repeater to establish a communication link with Farside Base. This was before he realized that the two men have a very deep hatred for each other. McCauley does not want to be the person in charge during the first murder on the Moon.A major obstacle to extensive space exploration is solar flares coming from the sun. McCauley and a co-pilot go on a mission around Venus and back to test a new radiation screen. The third member of the crew is Dr. Bramwell, the screen's inventor. Bramwell hides his absolute fear of going into space by being a loudmouthed, unreasonable jerk. The solar system contains a natural cargo transportation system that eases the difficulty of setting up a base on Mars: the asteroid Eros. Its eccentric orbit takes it within a couple of million miles of Earth, making it relatively easy to land and lash all sorts of supplies to its surface. Two years later, Eros comes within a couple of million miles of Mars, making it relatively easy to land, and send the supplies to Mars with the help of drone rockets. It's certainly easier than sending everything from the bottom of Earth's gravity well.I really liked this book. Perhaps it's best for its historic value, showing America's march into space before it happened. Still, this is an interesting story, and Leinster is an excellent writer. It's well worth reading. (Paul)

The Castle of Otranto is a novel by Horace Walpole. First published in 1764, it is generally regarded as the first gothic novel. In the second edition, Walpole applied the word 'Gothic' to the novel in the subtitle - A Gothic Story. Set in a haunted castle, the novel merged medievalism and terror in a style that has endured ever since. The aesthetic of the book has shaped modern-day gothic books, films, art, music, and the goth subculture.Walpole was inspired to write the story after a nightmare he had at his Gothic Revival home, Strawberry Hill House, in southwest London. The novel initiated a literary genre that would become extremely popular in the later 18th and early 19th century, with authors such as Clara Reeve, Ann Radcliffe, William Thomas Beckford, Matthew Lewis, Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker, Edgar Allan Poe, Robert Louis Stevenson and George du Maurier.Otranto is generally credited with creating the entire Gothic novel genre. It was a smash hit in its day, until the author revealed that it was purely satirical fiction rather than an actual adaptation of medieval text. At that point, the critics and populace who had praised it turned on the book, claiming it was superficial, and other pejoratives generally assigned to romantic novels, which were seen as inferior in Britain at that time. But its impact was dramatic. The novelist Clara Reeve wrote The Old English Baron (1777) as a response, claiming she was taking Walpole's plot and adapting it to the demands of the time by balancing fantastic elements with 18th-century realism. She explained:This Story is the literary offspring of The Castle of Otranto, written upon the same plan, with a design to unite the most attractive and interesting circumstances of the ancient Romance and modern Novel. The question now arose whether supernatural events that were not as evidently absurd as Walpole's would not lead the simpler minds to believe them possible.After a number of other novels were added to the budding Gothic genre, the teenage author Matthew Lewis published The Monk (1796), a novel that directly imitated the formula of Otranto, but took it to such an extreme that some have interpreted the novel as parody.Jan ¿vankmajer directed the surrealist short film Castle of Otranto (1977) based on the novel. It takes the form of a pseudo-documentary frame story in live action with an abridged adaptation of the story itself presented in cut-out animation in the style of Gothic art. (wikipedia.org)