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“When did you last hear from Nayland Smith?” asked my visitor.

I paused, my hand on the syphon, reflecting for a moment.

“Two months ago,” I said; “he’s a poor correspondent and rather soured, I fancy.”

“What—a woman or something?”

“Some affair of that sort. He’s such a reticent beggar, I really know very little about it.”

I placed a whisky and soda before the Rev. J. D. Eltham, also sliding the tobacco jar nearer to his hand. The refined and sensitive face of the clergy-man offered no indication of the truculent character of the man. His scanty fair hair, already gray over the temples, was silken and soft-looking; in appearance he was indeed a typical English churchman; but in China he had been known as “the fighting missionary,” and had fully deserved the title. In fact, this peaceful-looking gentleman had directly brought about the Boxer Risings!

The Return of Sherlock Holmes’ is a collection of thirteen Sherlock Holmes stories, written by Arthur Conan Doyle, that were first published in the year 1903. These are engaging, fast paced, suspense, spine chilling, witty stories of adventures of two detective friends and flatmates.

“Come here, Jenny. I’m going to dry my hair.” And when I looked again I saw that her golden hair was all about her shoulders and that she wore over her frock a little silken jacket trimmed with rosebuds. She looked so like a girl on a magazine cover that one expected to find a large “15 cents” somewhere attached to her person. She had taken Nanny’s big basket-chair from its place by the high-chair, and was pushing it over to the middle window. “I always come in here when Emery has washed my hair. It’s the sunniest room in the house. I wish Chris wouldn’t have it kept as a nursery when there’s no chance—” She sat down, swept her hair over the back of the chair into the sunlight, and held out to me her tortoiseshell hair-brush. “Give it a brush now and then, like a good soul; but be careful. Tortoise snaps so!”

A greenish twilight, lighter above than below. The upper part is filled with undulating water, which streams respectively from right to left. Towards the bottom the waves resolve themselves into a mist which grows finer as it descends, so that a space, as high as a mans body from the ground, appears to be quite free from the water, which floats like a train of clouds over the gloomy stretch below. Steep rocky peaks jut up everywhere from the depths, and enclose the entire stage. The ground is a wild confusion of jagged rocks, no part of it being quite level, and on every side deeper fisures are indicated by a still denser gloom. Woglinde circles with graceful swimming movements round the central rock.

If life is not always poetical, it is at least metrical. Periodicity rules over the mental experience of man, according to the path of the orbit of his thoughts. Distances are not gauged, ellipses not measured, velocities not ascertained, times not known. Nevertheless, the recurrence is sure. What the mind suffered last week, or last year, it does not suffer now; but it will suffer again next week or next year. Happiness is not a matter of events; it depends upon the tides of the mind. Disease is metrical, closing in at shorter and shorter periods towards death, sweeping abroad at longer and longer intervals towards recovery. Sorrow for one cause was intolerable yesterday, and will be intolerable tomorrow; today it is easy to bear, but the cause has not passed. Even the burden of a spiritual distress unsolved is bound to leave the heart to a temporary peace; and remorse itself does not remain—it returns. Gaiety takes us by a dear surprise. If we had made a course of notes of its visits, we might have been on the watch, and would have had an expectation instead of a discovery.

The Riddle of the Sands’ is a 1903 novel by Erskine Childers. This book got immensely popular in the years before World War I. It is an early example of the espionage novel and was extremely influential in the genre of spy fiction. It has been made into feature-length films for both cinema and television.

Everyone knows him (DONALD E. WESTLAKE) as the mystery writer who published books like The Hook (2000), Bad News 2001, and Put a Lid on It (2002) under his own name, Donald E. Westlake, and of course that he was also Richard Stark and a number of other favorite authors. But a science fiction writer? — Really? — You bet he was, early on in his career. (He even wrote one SF novel — Anarchaos, in 1966, as “Curt Clark.”) He also wrote quite a bit of short SF, like this weird little SF mystery that first graced the pages of Amazing in 1963.

One of the best-selling titles of the 1940s, ‘The Robe’ is a historical novel written by Lloyd C. Douglas. The book is about the Crucifixion of Jesus. It was first published in the year 1942. All of Lloyd C. Douglas’ novels, essays, and short stories relied on his spiritual background for thematic and creative inspiration. At the height of his popularity, Douglas was receiving on average 100 letters a week from fans. One of these letters provided the inspiration for ‘The Robe’.

La difesa del Cadore è uno dei più eroici episodi delle nostre guerre d’indipendenza. Se io conosco nei più minuti particolari quei fatti memorabili lo devo alla vostra somma benevolenza.

The object of this book is to set before young people in a bright and interesting way, and without the use of technical language, accounts of some of the latest phases of modern invention; and also to introduce them to recent discoveries of which the full development is yet to be witnessed.

The author gratefully acknowledges the help given him as regards both literary matter and illustrations by:—Mr. Cuthbert Hall (the Marconi Wireless Telegraphy Co.); Mr. William Sugg; Mr. Hans Knudsen; Mr. F. C. B. Cole; Mr. E. J. Ryves; Mr. Anton Pollak; the Telautograph Co.; the Parsons Steam Turbine Co.; the Monotype Co.; the Biograph Co.; the Locomobile Co.; the Speedwell Motor Co.

“The interpretation of personal names has always had an attraction for the learned and others, but the first attempts to classify and explain our English surnames date, so far as my knowledge goes, from 1605. In that year Verstegan published his Restitution of Decayed Intelligence, which contains chapters on both font-names and surnames, and about the same time appeared Camden’s Remains Concerning Britain, in which the same subjects are treated much more fully. Both of these learned antiquaries make excellent reading, and much curious information may be gleaned from their pages, especially those of Camden, whose position as Clarencieux King-at-Arms gave him exceptional opportunities for genealogical research. From the philological point of view they are of course untrustworthy, though less so than most modern writers on the same subject.” -Preface

My lords, if you would hear a high tale of love and of death, here is that of Tristan and Queen Iseult; how to their full joy, but to their sorrow also, they loved each other, and how at last they died of that love together upon one day; she by him and he by her.
Long ago, when Mark was King over Cornwall, Rivalen, King of Lyonesse, heard that Mark’s enemies waged war on him; so he crossed the sea to bring him aid; and so faithfully did he serve him with counsel and sword that Mark gave him his sister Blanchefleur, whom King Rivalen loved most marvellously.’ -an excerpt
A romantic folktale from medieval France that dates back to 12th century.

The Rosary is a beautiful love story. Gareth Dalmain falls in love with the Honorable Jane Champion. She loves him back, but does not trust his love, as is known to be a great lover of beauty, and she – alas – is very plain. Just as she decides to trust him, she receives news that he has been blinded in a hunting accident. She wants to go visit him, but he will not receive her, as he wants only her love – not her pity.

First published in the year 1854, the present satirical work of fantasy fiction ‘The Rose and the Ring’ by William Thackeray criticises, to some extent, the attitudes of the monarchy and those at the top of society and challenges their ideals of beauty and marriage.

As mentioned in several of the other volumes of the first series, this line was started a number of years ago with the publication of “The Rover Boys at School,” in which my readers were introduced to Dick, Tom, and Sam Rover, three wide-awake American lads. In that volume and in those which followed I gave the particulars of their adventures while attending Putnam Hall Military Academy, Brill College, and while on numerous outings, both in our own country and abroad.

It is a large number of volumes to write about one set of characters, isn’t it? When I started the series, many years ago, I had in mind, as I have told you before, to pen three books, possibly four. But as soon as I had written “The Rover Boys at School,” “The Rover Boys on the Ocean,” and “The Rover Boys in the Jungle,” there was a cry for more, and so I wrote “The Rover Boys Out West,” “On the Great Lakes,” “In the Mountains,” “On Land and Sea,” “In Camp,” “On the River,” “On the Plains,” and then “In Southern Waters,” where we last left our heroes.

My Dear Boys: This book is a complete story in itself, but forms the third volume in a line issued under the general title, “The Second Rover Boys Series for Young Americans.”

This edition has been completely revised and much of it rewritten, and, while the essential principles remain unchanged, some slight departures from previously expressed opinions may be noted; for in the years that have elapsed since the first edition saw the light, some notable advances have been made in rational therapeutics and dietetics, and no one can afford to lag behind the car of Progress.

The glimpse of the Wartburg cheered Johann. Man was there—and what was a “robber-knight” beside a redoubtable pixie? Likewise, what likelier place for pixies than those glades just before? Johann had not forgotten the wise tales of old grandame Elsa; and there it was,—the stone cross, where forty years ago the griping burgomaster Gottfried had been found lying stiff and cold, with purse untouched, and never a scar, save a little one behind his ear. “He had gone to meet the Devil, and the Devil had stolen his soul;” so said Father Georg in church. It was heresy to doubt it.

First published in the Science Fiction magazine in March 1953, ‘The Salesman’ is a famous short novella by the renowned writer Waldo T. Boyd.

The Satyricon’ is a Latin work of fiction believed to have been written by Gaius Petronius, though the manuscript tradition identifies the author as a certain Titus Petronius. The Satyricon is an example of Menippean satire, which is very different from the formal verse satire of Juvenal or Horace. The work contains a mixture of prose and verse; serious and comic elements; and erotic and decadent passages.

The Scarlet Letter: A Romance is an 1850 work of fiction in a historical setting, written by American author Nathaniel Hawthorne. The book is considered to be his “masterwork”.

The Scarlet Plague is a post-apocalyptic fiction novel written by Jack London and originally published in London Magazine in 1912.

First published in the year 1661, the present book ‘The Sceptical Chymist’ by scientist Robert Boyle is written in the form of a dialogue. It presents Boyle’s hypothesis that matter consisted of atoms and clusters of atoms in motion and that every phenomenon was the result of collisions of particles in motion. For these reasons Robert Boyle has been called the founder of modern chemistry by J. R. Partington.

The Science of Being Well gives an extraordinary effective and successful method to achieve the physical well being, have a healthy body and enjoy durable health.
Wallace Delois Wattles was an American author. A New Thought writer, he remains personally somewhat obscure, but his writing has been widely quoted and remains in print in the New Thought and self-help movements.

First published in 1910, this book sets out the way you can become rich, using things like visualisation, belief and the law of attraction.

From the Foreword: ‘In presenting these lessons on Mental Science, I do not claim to have discovered any new Truth. The Truth has been known in every age by a few; but the great mass of people has never even dreamed that we live in a mental and spiritual world. To-day, however, there is a great inquiry into the deeper meaning of life because the race has reached a state of unfoldment where a broader scope is possible. These lessons are an attempt to put into the spoken word and into print some of those great truths known to the enlightened of all ages.’

The Seagull’ is a comic play by Russian dramatist Anton Chekhov. It was written in the year 1895. It was first produced in 1896. It is generally considered to be the first of his four major plays. It dramatises the romantic and artistic conflicts between four characters: the famous middlebrow story writer Boris Trigorin, the ingenue Nina, the fading actress Irina Arkadina, and her son the symbolist playwright Konstantin Tréplev.

Rafael Sabatini’s novel ‘The Sea Hawk’ was first published in 1915. The story is set over the years 1588–1593. It is about a retired Cornish seafaring gentleman, Sir Oliver Tressilian, who is villainously betrayed by a jealous half-brother. After being forced to serve as a slave on a galley, Sir Oliver is liberated by Barbary pirates. He joins the pirates, gaining the name “Sakr-el-Bahr” meaning “the hawk of the sea”, and swears vengeance against his brother.

The Sea-Wolf’ is a psychological adventure novel by American novelist Jack London. It first got published in 1904. The protagonist, Humphrey van Weyden, is a literary critic who is a survivor of an ocean collision and who comes under the dominance of Wolf Larsen, the powerful and amoral sea captain who rescues him.