Charles Dickens: The Complete Christmas Novels & Tales (Illustrated) gathers the author's celebrated seasonal writings, from A Christmas Carol to lesser-known festive stories, presenting Christmas as a moral, social, and imaginative space. Written in Dickens's vivid, theatrical prose, these works blend ghost story, domestic realism, satire, sentiment, and social critique. The illustrations enhance their Victorian atmosphere, recalling the periodical culture and visual richness through whic...

This carefully crafted ebook collection is formatted for your eReader with a functional and detailed table of contents: Treasure Island (R. L. Stevenson) Blackbeard: Buccaneer (R. D. Paine) Pieces of Eight (Le Gallienne) Gold-Bug (Edgar A. Poe) The Dark Frigate (C. B. Hawes) Hearts of Three (Jack London) Captain Singleton (Defoe) Swords of Red Brotherhood (Howard) Queen of Black Coast (Howard) Afloat and Ashore (James F. Cooper) Pirate Gow (Defoe) The King of Pirates (Defoe) Barbarossa—Kin...

On a snowy Winter's morning, Inspector Head arrives at Westingborough Grange to investigate the murder of Mr Edward Carpenter, who was shot after answering the door to a stranger in the early hours of the morning. Head imagines the trail of footprints leading from the door of the Grange into the surrounding countryside will make things easy. But when the prints stop, suddenly and mysteriously, at the base of an ash tree in a nearby field, it appears that things may not be as straightforwar...

Montagu Kemp and Diane Heriot arrive at Westingborough station in a raging blizzard, intent on joining the house party at Castel Garde, the country home of Jim Houghton. Having battled through the snow to reach the house, they are dismayed to find the immoral financier Malcolm Carmichael is a guest of Houghton's - and Diane is appalled to learn that Carmichael intends to ruin their host. But when Carmichael is murdered during a party game, the guests at Castel Garde must face up to the fac...

Having been a train guard for many years, Robert Potter has become adept at dealing with difficult passengers. But even he is not prepared for the startling situation that confronts him on the 11.45 from London. Attending to a pulled communication cord just outside Westingborough, he discovers a stark naked young gentleman, Leo Thane, who claims to have been the victim of a very comprehensive robbery. More horrifying, however, is the mutilated corpse in the compartment next door. As Superi...

Nell Cummins, former barmaid and now manager of the Duke of York hotel, is an institution. But her impeccable reputation, and that of the hotel she oversees, is threatened when one of the guests, a stranger to the district, is found stabbed. Inspector Head, tasked with unearthing the truth surrounding the murder, is annoyed to recieve a number of insistent phone calls from Enthwaite of Enthwaite House demanding that he attend immediately to an urgent matter of his own, details of which he ...

A Christmas Carol is Dickens's compact moral fable of Ebenezer Scrooge, a miserly London businessman whose spectral visitations on Christmas Eve awaken him to memory, compassion, and social responsibility. Blending Gothic supernaturalism, domestic sentiment, satire, and Christian-inflected allegory, the novella stands within the Victorian tradition of social critique while helping to shape the modern literary mythology of Christmas. Its vivid characterization, rhythmic prose, and theatrica...

The Angle, a 'desirable residence' on the outskirts of the small town of Carden, has stood empty for years, the bane of local estate agents. The prospect of anyone purchasing the property becomes even more remote when the body of a murdered man is discovered inside. Called to investigate the crime, Inspector Head is dismaed to find that his clue towards identifying the culprit is single a copper hairpin, discovered near the corpse...Originally published in 1936, this is a vintage m...

"It’s going to be touch and go, the slenderest chance of getting proof that I’ve ever faced..."When Jim Brown offers to collect Avril Madison from the train station, he has no idea of the ordeal he is about to face. Arriving at the Madison household, Brown discovers the murdered body of the woman's stepfather at the bottom of the main staircase. Ascertaining that Brown was the last to see the dead man alive, and learning of the quarrel the two had over Brown's affections for Avril,...

Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds is a sweeping study of collective irrationality, tracing episodes such as the Mississippi Scheme, the South Sea Bubble, Tulipomania, alchemical obsessions, witch persecutions, crusading fervor, and other social manias. Written in vigorous nineteenth-century prose, Mackay blends anecdote, moral reflection, and historical narrative, situating the work within Victorian popular history while anticipating modern studies of behavioral eco...

Bringing together A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations, this unabridged volume presents two of Charles Dickens's most accomplished meditations on history, class, guilt, and moral renewal. The former, set against the turbulence of the French Revolution, fuses melodrama, political critique, and sacrificial tragedy in a famously compressed, symbolic style. The latter, a mature bildungsroman, follows Pip's painful education in ambition, shame, and self-knowledge. Together they reveal Di...

It's the worst storm Westingborough has known for years. The wind howls, the rain lashes - and in the bar of the Duke of York, Inspector Head is informed that a tree has come down, blocking the road to Westingborough Parva. But the evening's drama is only just beginning. For it seems that someone has used the opportunity of the blocked road to shoot Dickson of Hartlands through the window of his taxi.Who could have committed such a risky murder? And why?Originally published...