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Description

Hidden in the forest, the poet Trirodov attempts to secede from the troubled society of early twentieth century Russia to build his own utopia: a school for the quiet children he cares for. Nothing is ever that easy though, and his personal connections to the outside world tie him into the political whirlwind of agitators, factions and power struggles that threaten his solitude.

The Created Legend portrays a stark contrast to the protagonists of Sologub’s earlier work The Little Demon, even though the setting is the same town of Skorodozh. There, they varied from at best well-meaning to actively malignant; here the lead characters are idealistic, and isolate themselves from the trials of Russian society in an attempt to maintain their idealism. Trirodov sees beauty and mystery everywhere he looks, and (following the title) works to create his own legend.

This volume, originally titled “Drops of Blood,” is the first of the “Created Legend” trilogy and the only one translated contemporaneously into English. It was received with some bewilderment by critics: the combination of current affairs and magical events proved too strange for many. However, treated as an early example of magic realism and with the benefit of hindsight, the setting and symbolism is less shocking and more readily accessible to the modern reader.

Description

The gentleman-thief Arsène Lupin returns in this set of ten short stories to confess—or perhaps boast about—his crimes to the unnamed narrator. Mostly set around Lupin’s attempts to frustrate Chief-Inspector Ganimard and pocket some cash in the process, they also show off his knack for escaping from seemingly impossible situations, and even playing the role of the master detective.

In the chronology of Arsène Lupin, these tales were published after, but set before, the darker stories of The Hollow Needle and 813. They were serialised in Je Sais Tout from 1911, and collected into a single publication in 1913.

Description

Tess of the d’Urbervilles is said to be Thomas Hardy’s fictional masterpiece and is considered to be an important nineteenth century novel. It explores themes of love, sex, class and morality in an aching love story.

It initially appeared in a censored, serialised version in The Graphic in 1891 and was published in a single volume the following year. Early reviews were mixed, partly because of its challenge to Victorian sexual morals—it is now looked upon much more favorably.

Tess Durbeyfield is the oldest child of uneducated peasants who are given the impression that they may have noble blood, as their surname is a corruption of that of an extinct Norman family. When Tess participates in the village May Dance, she meets Angel, who stops to join the dance but notices Tess too late to dance with her. That night, Tess’s father gets too drunk to drive to the market, so she undertakes the journey herself. However, she falls asleep at the reins, and the family’s only horse encounters a speeding wagon and is fatally wounded. Tess feels so guilty over the consequences for the family that she agrees to try to claim kin with a rich widow who lives in a neighbouring town. The story traces Tess’s life through the following years.

The novel has been adapted for the stage, theatre, opera, cinema and television numerous times since its publication.

Description

A collection of stories that highlight the trials and tribulations of life in the Yukon and Alaska during the gold rush. Greed, determination, compassion, competition, and survival dominate as native tribes intermingle with western settlers. Despite the laws that each culture abides by, the law of the wilderness will overcome you when unprepared.

Description

Henry Fleming has joined the Union army because of his romantic ideas of military life, but soon finds himself in the middle of a battle against a regiment of Confederate soldiers. Terrified, Henry deserts his comrades. Upon returning to his regiment, he struggles with his shame as he tries to redeem himself and prove his courage.

The Red Badge of Courage is Stephen Crane’s second book, notable for its realism and the fact that Crane had never personally experienced battle. Crane drew heavy inspiration from Century Magazine, a periodical known for its articles about the American Civil War. However, he criticized the articles for their lack of emotional depth and decided to write a war novel of his own. The manuscript was first serialized in December 1894 by The Philadelphia Press and quickly won Crane international acclaim before he died in June 1900 at the age of 28.

Description

The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin must rank as one of the most influential and consequential books ever published, initiating scientific, social and religious ferment ever since its first publication in 1859. Its full title is The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, in some editions prefaced by the word “On.”

Darwin describes the book as simply an “abstract” of his ideas, which are more fully fleshed out and supported with detailed examples in his other, more scholarly works (for example, he wrote several long treatises entirely about barnacles). The Origin of Species itself was intended to reach a wider audience and is written in such a way that any reasonably educated and thoughtful reader can follow Darwin’s argument that species of animals and plants are not independent creations, fixed for all time, but mutable. Species have been shaped in response to the effects of natural selection, which Darwin compares to the directed or manual selection by human breeders of domesticated animals.

The Origin of Species was eagerly taken up by the reading public, and rapidly went through several editions. This Standard Ebooks edition is based on the sixth edition published by John Murray in 1872, generally considered to be the definitive edition with many amendments and updates by Darwin himself.

The Origin of Species has never been out of print and continues to be an extremely popular work. Later scientific discoveries such as the breakthrough of DNA sequencing have refined our concept of some of Darwin’s ideas and given us a better understanding of issues he found puzzling, but the basic thrust of his theory remains unchallenged.

Description

South! tells one of the most thrilling tales of exploration and survival against the odds which has ever been written. It details the experiences of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition which set off in 1914 to make an attempt to cross the Antarctic continent.

Under the direction of Sir Ernest Shackleton, the expedition comprised two components: one party sailing on the Endurance into the Weddell Sea, which was to attempt the actual crossing; and another party on board the Aurora, under the direction of Aeneas Mackintosh, sailing into the Ross Sea on the other side of the continent and tasked with establishing depots of stores as far south as possible for the use of the party attempting the crossing.

Shackleton gives a highly readable account of the fate of both parties of the Expedition. Both fell victim to the severe environmental conditions of the region, and it was never possible to attempt the crossing. The Endurance was trapped in pack-ice in the Weddell Sea and the ship was eventually crushed by the pressure of the ice, leaving Shackleton’s men stranded on ice floes, far from solid land.

Shackleton’s account of their extraordinary struggles to survive is as gripping as any novel.

Description

Mike Jackson is a rising cricket star who finds his dreams of studying and playing at Cambridge upset by news of his father’s financial troubles. He takes a job with the New Asiatic Bank in London. He arrives to find that his dapper and verbose young friend Psmith is also a new employee, and together they navigate early twentieth century office life, make the best of their position and squeeze in a little cricket from time to time.

Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse was an English author and one of the most widely read humorists of the twentieth century. After leaving school, he was employed by a bank but disliked the work and turned to writing in his spare time. His early novels were mostly school stories, but he later switched to comic fiction, creating several regular characters who became familiar to the public over the years.

Psmith in the City was originally serialized in The Captain magazine in 1908 and 1909 as The New Fold and is the sequel to Mike, an earlier novel by Wodehouse.

Description

Inspired by Robert A. Heinlein’s 1948 novel Space Cadet, the Tom Corbett series started as a TV show in 1950. It stayed on the air for five years and, among other things, spawned a series of novels published by Grosset & Dunlap. Written by unknown authors, they were published under the pseudonym Carey Rockwell, with Willy Ley (the TV show’s technical director) listed as technical advisor.

Stand by for Mars! is the first of eight novels written between 1952 and 1956. It features a young Tom Corbett who is trying to fulfill his dream of becoming a Space Cadet on his way to joining the Solar Guard. But interpersonal conflicts stand in his way. Tom, along with his unit-mates Astro and Roger Manning, must find a way past their difficulties or else risk being washed out. Their adventure takes them from the rigours of the Academy on Earth to the rugged and deadly deserts of Mars where they need to learn that only by working together can they hope to survive.

An entire generation grew up on the adventures of Tom Corbett—it spawned radio shows, music recordings and a whole series of toys and tie-ins. Fans still maintain a Tom Corbett Space Cadet website and have held reunions as recently as 2006. Stand by for Mars! is a classic example of the space-crazy juvenile fiction of its era.

Description

The Book of Tea, one of the great English tea classics, is a long essay about the connection between teaism, Taoism, and the aesthetics of Japanese culture. It was written by Okakura Kakuzō in English and was published in the United States in 1906.

The essay targets a Western audience and seeks to explain the importance of tea in Japanese culture, not just as a beverage, but as a form of art expressed in different aspects. After a brief introduction of the Western attitude towards tea, Okakura demystifies the admiration of the Japanese people for this green plant by presenting the different schools of tea, its connection to Zen philosophy, and how it has affected the arts. The famous tea ceremony and its rigid formalities are explained, together with the contributions of the great tea-masters.

The Book of Tea is considered by many to be one of the first books to introduce Eastern culture and philosophy to the Western world. This was possible due to Okakura’s early contact with the English language and Western thought, but also due to his later involvement in the Asian art division of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, which he came to head in 1910.