Stranded on an Island: The boy’s adventure begins when he is shipwrecked or otherwise left alone on a deserted island. The isolation and the challenges of survival on the island form the core of the story. He must use his resourcefulness and courage to navigate the unfamiliar environment.Search for Treasure: As the title suggests, a significant part of the story involves the quest for "Golden Treasure." The boy discovers clues or a map leading to hidden treasure, which adds an element of m...

Three semi-autobiographical plays by Victor Pemberton telling the story of one family across the 20th centuryNovelist and playwright Victor Pemberton was best known for scripting Doctor Who and working on Jim Henson’s Fraggle Rock. His many plays for BBC Radio included The Slide, Kill the Pharaoh. and this three-part family saga, a love story inspired by the lives of his own parents and starring Nerys Hughes, Nigel Anthony, Sheila...

Brenda Blethyn, Lesley Manville and Phil Davis star in this special Mike Leigh collection, featuring the iconic hit Abigail’s Party and a banned play from the BBC archivesOne of Britain's most prolific and influential writers, Mike Leigh has directed some of the best British films of the last 50 years, including Life is Sweet, Secrets & Lies and Vera Drake. He has written a plethora of plays for the BBC, among them the bleakly comic drama...

A trilogy of thrillers set in Liverpool, featuring the formidable Detective Inspector CrustVeteran scriptwriter Vincent McInerney draws on his lifelong knowledge of Liverpool and his background in the Merchant Marine in these engaging thrillers, in which the gruff, indomitable John Crust and his sidekick Minty probe the circumstances surrounding a missing husband, a stolen sculpture and a hidden treasure.O’Rourke’s First Case – Mad...

The Lost World is a novel released in 1912 by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle concerning an expedition to a plateau in the Amazon basin of South America where prehistoric animals (dinosaurs and other extinct creatures) still survive. It was originally published serially in the popular Strand Magazine and illustrated by New-Zealand-born artist Harry Rountree during the months of April–November 1912. The character of Professor Challenger was introduced in this book. The novel also describes a war bet...

A beloved adventure classic, The Swiss Family Robinson is a tale of courage in the face of the unknown that has endured the test of time.Trapped on a remote island after a storm leaves them shipwrecked, a Swiss pastor, his wife, and their four sons must pull together if they want to survive. Hunting, farming, and exploring a strange land for the first time, each son not only tests his own bravery, but discovers a skill all his own as they each adapt to thi...

Mary Henrietta Kingsley was an English ethnographic and scientific writer and explorer whose travels throughout West Africa and resulting work helped shape European perceptions of African cultures and British imperialism.After a preliminary visit to the Canary Islands, Kingsley decided to travel to the west coast of Africa. The only non-African women who regularly embarked on (often dangerous) journeys to Africa were usually the wives of missionaries, government officials, or explo...

The book contains the recollections of one of the most noted big game hunters and explorers of Africa originally published in 1913. The book will appeal to every lover of wilderness adventure and every person who values the observations of an excellent field naturalist. Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, usin...

There are many interesting hotels scattered about the world, with a few of which I am acquainted and with a great many of which I am not. Of course all hotels are interesting, from one point of view or another. In fact, the surest way to fix an audience's attention is to introduce your hero, or to display your opening chorus in the lobby or along the façade of a hotel. The life, the movement and colour, the drifting individualities, the pretence, the bluff, the self-consciousness, the inde...

My Crowded Solitude is the story of Jack McLaren who went ashore at Cape York (Australia) to establish a coconut plantation in 1911. The book traces his encounters with Aborigines who were still living as they had in the stone age and his discovery that life in the wilderness can be rich and fulfilling.John (Jack) McLaren (1884-1954) was born on 13 October 1884 at Melbourne, Australia; the eldest of five children. McLaren entered Scotch College on 8 October...

Contemptuous of Europe's 'civilising mission' in Africa, Mary Kingsley's (1862-1900) extraordinary journeys through tropical west Africa are a remarkable record, both of a world which has vanished and of a writer and explorer of immense bravery, wit and humanity. Paddling through mangrove swamps, fending off crocodiles, climbing Mount Cameroon, Kingsley is both admirable and funny.Great Journeys allows readers to travel both around the planet and back through the centuries – but al...

MY Dear Young Folks,—In the first book which I wrote for you, we traveled together through the Gorilla Country, and saw not only the gigantic apes, but also the cannibal tribes which eat men.In the second book we continued our hunting, and met leopards, elephants, hippopotami, wild boars, great serpents, etc., etc. We were stung and chased by the fierce Bashikouay ants, and plagued by flies.Last spring, your friend Paul, not satisfied with writing for young folks, took it i...