Geoffrey Howard
A Masterpiece of Satire on Hell's Latest Novelties and Heaven's Unanswerable Answer
C.S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters has entertained and enlightened readers the world over with its sly and ironic portrayal of human life and foibles from the unique vantage point of Screwtape, a highly placed assistant to "Our Father Below." At once wildly comic, deadly serious, and strikingly original, C.S. Lewis gives us the correspondence
...4) High stakes
Dick Francis, Edgar Award–winning master of mystery and suspense, takes you into the thrilling world of horse racing.
Steven Scott may have been a successful, wealthy inventor with no experience in horse racing,...
Although Joseph Conrad was Polish by birth and did not become a fluent speaker of English until well into adulthood, he achieved unparalleled heights of literary mastery in his adopted tongue and is now widely regarded as one the masters of twentieth-century fiction. This collection of short stories is a comprehensive collection of Conrad's early and mid-career fiction.
Black Beauty (1877) is the classic children's book by English author Anna Sewell. A cripple for most of her life, Sewell developed an early love of horses, and the story intended to teach her readers about treating horses (and allegorically all living things) with kindness, patience and sympathy. The story is narrated first-person by Black Beauty, recounting his journey from a farm to the hard life pulling cabs in London to his eventual
...The Metamorphosis begins almost comically. A man wakes up to find he has turned into an insect. But the claustrophobic, dirty room and the increasingly distressed narrator soon turn this into a tale of slow horror. Most horrifying of all is his family's reaction to his metamorphosis and their final solution to the problem.
Thomas Hardy's novel of seduction and abandonment introduced his most memorable tragic heroine, the unworldly maiden Tess. On her morning journey to earn money for her impoverished family, Tess' horse has an accident, forcing her to seek assistance from some newly rich relatives. There, she is vigorously pursued by Alec, who corners her in a field one night and takes advantage of her. After bearing a child who quickly dies, Tess meets and falls
...10) Perelandra
Perelandra is a planet of pleasure, an unearthly, misty world of strange desires, sweet smells, and delicious tastes, where beasts are friendly and naked beauty is unashamed, a new Garden of Eden, where the story of the oldest temptation is enacted in an intriguingly new way. Here, in the second part of C. S. Lewis's acclaimed Ransom Trilogy, Dr. Ransom's adventures continue against the backdrop of a religious allegory that, while it may seem quaint
...11) The Good Soldier
The Good Soldier is a story about the complex social and sexual relationships between two couples—one English, one American—and the growing awareness of American narrator John Dowell of the intrigues and passions behind their orderly Edwardian façade. It is Dowell's attitude—his puzzlement, uncertainty, and the seemingly haphazard manner of his narration—that makes the book so powerful and mysterious. In Ford's brilliantly
...Is he in heaven?-Is he in hell? That demmed, elusive Pimpernel? Sir Percy Blakeney lives a double life in the England of 1792: at home he is an idle fop and a leader of fashion, but in abroad he is the Scarlet Pimpernel, a master of disguise who saves aristocrats from the guillotine. When the revolutionary French state seeks to unmask him, Percy's estranged, independent wife, Marguerite, unwittingly sets their agent on her husband's track. Percy's
...Since Doyle created the immortal Sherlock Holmes and his assistant Dr. Watson, no other mystery writer has come close to eclipsing him as the standard bearer in crime fiction. A brilliant London-based "consulting detective," Holmes is famous for his intellectual prowess and renowned for his skillful use of astute observation, deductive reasoning, and inference to solve difficult cases. This collection includes twelve of Holmes' most famous cases:
...This is the final book in C. S. Lewis's acclaimed Ransom Trilogy, which includes Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra. A classic work of fantasy as much for the wonder of its storytelling as for its insights into the human condition, the trilogy stages an epic battle between forces of light and darkness across a canvas of other worlds.
In That Hideous Strength, the brave philologist Dr. Ransom (modeled after Lewis's friend J. R. R. Tolkien)
...These delightful stories of the famous hawkeyed detective are told by his friend and foil, Dr. Watson. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle draws us into nineteenth-century London—hansom cabs, train rides, and foggy nights—where Holmes astutely solves the most complex and perplexing cases of the day. Among the short stories included in this collection is "The Gloria Scott," an account of Holmes' very first case, and"The Greek Interpreter," in which
...The one and only Sherlock Holmes is back from the dead and devoting his life once more to examining the criminal complexities of England's capital city.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote of many dreadful murders, but the one which astonished and distressed readers the most was when the author, anxious to try something new, killed off Sherlock Holmes. Trapped in mortal combat with the dastardly Professor Moriarty, Holmes and his opponent plunged
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