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Description

William Morris is famous in no small part for his contributions to defining the genre of modern fantasy literature, and The Wood Beyond the World is a classic example of that influence. Written in a purposefully-antiquated prose style reminiscent of Sir Thomas Malory or other aged fairy tales, The Wood Beyond the World can be difficult for some readers; but those who follow through will enjoy a charming and influential series of picaresque adventures.

The book follows Golden Walter, a man leaving home who finds himself swept away to an enchanted land. He encounters a fair maiden who is trapped by an enchantress and her consort. Walter must, like all good heroes, save the maiden and see if they can make it to happily ever after.

Description

The King in Yellow is a fascinating, almost two-faced work. The first half consists of five legendary weird tales, loosely tied together by a fictional play—the eponymous King in Yellow—that drives those who read it mad. Celebrated by authors like H. P. Lovecraft and Lin Carter, these stories are classic tales of madness, despair, and strange happenings.

With the fifth tale the reader finds a sort of palate-cleansing collection of short prose-poems leading into the last four stories, which take a sharp turn away from the weird and into the romantic. The concluding tales are set in the Parisian art world.

In modern times The King in Yellow enjoys a reputation largely due to the strength of its first half of macabre tales, but by no means does that make the second half less enjoyable. Both halves are written in a quick, light prose style that demonstrates why Chambers was a best-seller in his day.

Description

The place is London, and the time is the late 1800s. Mr. Verloc appears to be an unassuming owner of a bric-a-brac store, but he’s actually a spy for an unnamed country. When he’s summoned by his superiors and ordered to plant a bomb to foment unrest in English politics and society, he finds himself stuck in a more-than-uncomfortable situation.

Conrad’s novel is set against the background of the Greenwich Observatory bombing, in which an anarchist unsuccessfully tried to detonate a bomb near the building. Terrorist activity was on the rise, and Conrad uses the fear and uncertainty of the time to explore the meanings of duty and of evil, along with the influence politics and political movements have on terrorist violence.

The Secret Agent is widely considered one of Conrad’s finest novels, with modern critics praising its prescient forecast of 20th century politics and society.

Description

The Lost Continent, initially published as a serial in 1899, remains one of the enduring classics of the “lost race” genre. In it we follow Deucalion, a warrior-priest on the lost continent of Atlantis, as he tries to battle the influence of an egotistical upstart empress. Featuring magic, intrigue, mythical monsters, and fearsome combat on both land and sea, the story is nothing if not a swashbuckling adventure.

The Lost Continent was very influential on pulp fiction of the subsequent decades, and echoes of its style can be found in the work of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Robert E. Howard, and others.

Description

The Napoleon of Notting Hill, like so many Chesterton novels, deftly straddles the fence between humor and philosophy. The place is London, in the far-future year of 1984. Inexplicably, not too much has changed since the turn of the century—except that the king is chosen at random. Things quickly take a turn for the worse when the people randomly select an imbecile who only cares about a good joke.

With the new prankster king in place, the novel continues on with surprisingly action-packed breeziness, exploring themes of identity, patriotism, politics, and government.

Description

The Princess and the Goblin is a children’s fantasy novel in the vein of the best classic fairy tales. The simple narrative follows Princess Irene as she discovers a ghostly relative living in a castle tower only she can access. During a walk outside one day, she encounters the threat of the lair of goblins living near the castle—and meets a new friend, a young miner named Curdie. She and Curdie must stop the goblin threat before they can carry out their evil plot.

Description

Khaled is a hard-working and faithful genie who, in his zeal, goes a little too far and kills a faithless man. This puts him under scrutiny from the powers above, who curse him to live as a human. Since genies have no souls, he will vanish from existence when he dies; but, if he can find true love, he’ll be granted a soul and thus be allowed into heaven.

Written in the style of the “oriental romances” popular in those days, Khaled was F. Marion Crawford’s favorite novel out of all of the ones he wrote in his successful career.

Description

William Hazlitt was a well-regarded critic and essayist in his day, and Table-Talk, a collection of some of his more popular short essays, is perhaps his best-remembered work.

The essays themselves range in subject from philosophy, to art, to literature, culture, society, and politics, with titles like “On the Pleasures of Painting” and “On Corporate Bodies.” Hazlitt’s intimate style and deep familiarity with many different aspects of art culture (not only was he a literary success, but he studied under Joshua Reynolds to be a portrait painter) make his essays fascinating multi-disciplinary reads.

Table-Talk was originally published in two separate volumes, and, largely due to Hazlitt’s political activism, was received poorly by his contemporaries. Today it’s considered one of his masterpieces.

Description

The Castle of Otranto is considered to be the first “Gothic” novel—that is, containing a combination of tropes, like hidden passages, haunted paintings, mysterious sounds, skeletal ghosts, ancestral curses, and unexplained deaths, that essentially invented the genre later made famous by authors like Edgar Allan Poe, Bram Stoker, or Henry James. Walpole made a point of creating a novel that blends supernatural elements with more realistic depictions of characters and events.

The plot centers around Manfred, the lord of Otranto Castle, who has just witnessed the death of his son under mysterious circumstances, just as his son was about to be married. Manfred is thrust into a galloping and melodramatic series of events that lean heavily on the supernatural.

Walpole initially published The Castle of Otranto under a pseudonym, claiming that his work was a translation of an ancient Italian manuscript. This framing, along with the purposely archaic writing style, gives the supernatural airs of the novel a decidedly authentic flavor. In later editions Walpole acknowledges his authorship.

Otranto remains a fast-paced and familiar read, thanks to the variety of recognizable tropes it introduced and made popular.

Description

The Secret Adversary, Agatha Christie’s second novel, introduces Tommy and Tuppence, the two much-loved mystery-solving adventurers.

The novel centers around a mysterious young girl, suffering from amnesia, who was present on the sinking of the Lusitania. As Tommy and Tuppence try to unravel the mystery, they find themselves embroiled with mysterious millionaires and the dangerous politics of nation-states.

Contemporary reviews of The Secret Adversary were positive, and the success of the novel paved the way not just for future Tommy and Tuppence adventures, but for a long, storied career of literary success for Christie.