Written in 1912 as a light-hearted reaction against the solemnity of the Sherlock Holmes stories, Trent’s Last Case, with its ingeniously twisting plot and cheerfully self-mocking hero, is the first classic of the golden age of English detective fiction.When a powerful and ruthless American millionaire is found murdered in his English country garden, Philip Trent—English painter, poetry lover, and amateur detective—delves into the crime. He successively uncovers three diff...

If you’ve never read anything by Jerome K. Jerome, you’d be well advised to heed this warning by the Glasgow Herald: “It would be dangerous to [listen to] this book in any place––say a full railway compartment––where the reader was not at perfect liberty to laugh as loudly and as long as he chose.” The passage of time has not altered that verdict. Here is a perfect picture of those lazy summer days “messing about in boats.”After his final trip up the river Thames with his ...

From an early age, Jonathan Hullah developed "a high degree of cunning" in concealing what his true nature might be. He kept himself on the outside, watching and noticing, most often in the company of those who bore watching.As the Cunning Man takes us through his own long and ardent life, chronicling his varied adventures in the worlds of theatre, art, and music, in the Canadian Army during World War II, and in the doctor's consulting room, his preoccupation is not with sorrow but...

Detective fans of all races and creeds, of all tastes and fancies will delight in the exploits of this wise and whimsical padre. Father Brown’s powers of detection allow him to sit beside the immortal Holmes, but he is also “in all senses a most pleasantly fascinating human being,” according to American crime novelist Rufus King. You will be enchanted by the scandalously innocent man of the cloth, with his handy umbrella, who exhibits such uncanny insight into ingeniously tricky human prob...

Dr. Johnson may have been correct in saying that "Rousseau was a very bad man," but none can argue that his ideas are among the most influential in all of world history. It was Rousseau, the father of the romantic movement, who was responsible for introducing at least two modern day thoughts that pervade academia: (1) free expression of the creative spirit is more important than strict adhesion to formal rules and traditional procedures, and (2) man is innately good but is corrupted by soc...

Often called the greatest novel ever written, War and Peace is at once a historical war epic, a philosophical study, and a celebration of the Russian spirit.Noted for its mastery of realistic detail and psychological analysis, War and Peace follows the metamorphosis of five aristocratic families against the backdrop of the Napoleonic wars. Individual stories interweave as each of Tolstoy’s memorable characters seek fulfillment, fall in love, make ...

Originally written for Dickens’ weekly magazine, Household Words, this short novel follows the fate of Sissy Jupe, a warm-hearted circus child, and the family that adopts her. Deserted by her ailing father, Sissy is taken into the cold household of the Gradgrind family, which operates a school. The “eminently practical” Thomas Gradgrind believes only in facts and figures and has raised his children accordingly, thoroughly suppressing the imaginative sides of their nature. They gro...

It is 1793 in France—the year of the guillotine. Already, Louis XVI has been sentenced to the scaffold, and terror reigns. Ideals topple in the face of political necessity, alliances founder, and intrigue is a way of life.The architects of the Revolution—Marat, Danton, and Robespierre—have set up an embryo parliament called the Convention, designed to stem social chaos. As Republican troops engage in bloody battle with counter-revolutionaries, a peasant woman strives simply to prot...

G. K. Chesterton’s Father Brown is perhaps the most lovable amateur detective ever created. This short, shabby priest with his cherubic, round face attracts situations that baffle everyone—except Father Brown and his rather naïve wisdom.The twelve enthralling stories in this book take Father Brown from London to Cornwall, from Italy to France, as he gets involved with bandits, treason, murder, curses, and an American crime-detection machine. And every problem he comes up against he...

Viewed as too libelous to print in England until 1968, the title essay in this collection reveals the abuse Orwell experienced as a child at an expensive and snobbish boarding school and offers insights into his lifelong concern for the oppressed."Why I Write" describes Orwell's sense of political purpose, and the classic essay "Politics and the English Language" insists on clarity and precision in communication in order to avoid the Newspeak later described in 1984.

“BEST NONFICTION BOOK OF THE 20TH CENTURY.” —TimeVolume 3 of the Nobel Prize winner’s towering masterpiece: Solzhenitsyn's moving account of resistance within the Soviet labor camps and his own release after eight years. Features a new foreword by Anne Applebaum.“The greatest and most powerful single indictment of a political regime ever leveled in modern times.” —George F. Kennan“It is impossible to name a book that had a ...

“A ‘Bummel,’” I explained, “I should describe as a journey, long or short, without end.” However wonderful this may sound, it is often necessary to arrive back at the starting point. And, for the three fearless friends whose earlier adventures were told in Three Men in a Boat, this poses a troublesome problem.George, Harris, and J. decide to take a cycling trip through the Black Forest—to be accomplished on a tandem plus one. Whether it is Harris’ harrowing experience with...