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1084 books found.

• The Lilac Sunbonnet: A Love Story

  By S. R. Crockett

  S. R. Crockett's 1894 love story from Galloway in the Scottish south-west. A young woman in a lilac sunbonnet is courted amid dialect, farm life and a Covenanting past. A gentle Kailyard tale that made its author famous.

  41 chapters · About 395 minutes of published text

• The Lost World

  By Arthur Conan Doyle

  The Lost World is an adventure and science fiction novel by British writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle recounting an expedition to a remote plateau in the Amazon basin of South America where dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals still survive, along with a tribe of vicious ape-like creatures that are in conflict with a group of indigenous Indians. The work introduces the character of Professor Challenger, who leads the expedition (and who would appear in later Conan Doyle stories), and is narrated in the first person by the journalist member (Edward Malone) of the exploration party.

  16 chapters · About 328 minutes of published text

• The Man Who Was Thursday

  By G. K. Chesterton

  A poet-detective infiltrates a council of anarchists whose members are named for the days of the week, and nothing is what it seems.

  16 chapters · About 252 minutes of published text

• The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

  By William Blake

  In Blake's prophetic book the poet dines with devils, collects their Proverbs of Hell, and argues that energy is eternal delight and that reason alone starves the soul. It is part verse and part prose and ends with A Song of Liberty.

  10 chapters · About 20 minutes of published text

• The marvellous land of Snergs

  By E. A. Wyke-Smith

  The Marvellous Land of Snergs is a children's fantasy, written by Edward Wyke-Smith and illustrated by the Punch cartoonist George Morrow. It was originally published in Britain by Ernest Benn in September 1927, and later published in the U.S. in 1928 by Harper & Brothers. It is notable as an inspiration source for J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit.

  82 chapters · About 236 minutes of published text

• The Master Builder

  By Henrik Ibsen (translated by William Archer and Edmund Gosse)

  Halvard Solness, a celebrated builder haunted by a fear of being overtaken by the young, is visited by Hilde Wangel, who says he once promised her a kingdom. She urges him to climb the tower of his newest house.

  3 chapters · About 108 minutes of published text

• The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes

  By Arthur Conan Doyle

  The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes is a collection of short stories by British writer Arthur Conan Doyle, first published late in 1893 with 1894 date. It was first published in the UK by G. Newnes Ltd., and was published in the US by Harper & Brothers in February 1894. It was the second collection featuring the consulting detective Sherlock Holmes, following The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Like the first it was illustrated by Sidney Paget.

  12 chapters · About 415 minutes of published text

• The Merchant of Venice

  By William Shakespeare

  To help his friend Bassanio court Portia, the merchant Antonio borrows money from the moneylender Shylock and signs a bond for a pound of his own flesh. When his ships fail, the case goes to court, and Portia appears in disguise to argue it.

  5 chapters · About 96 minutes of published text

• The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood

  By Howard Pyle

  The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood of Great Renown in Nottinghamshire is an 1883 novel by the American illustrator and writer Howard Pyle. Pyle compiled the traditional Robin Hood ballads as a series of episodes of a coherent narrative. For his characters' dialog, Pyle adapted the late Middle English of the ballads into a dialect suitable for children.

  22 chapters · About 480 minutes of published text

• The Monk: A Romance

  By M. G. Lewis

  The Monk: A Romance is a Gothic novel by Matthew Gregory Lewis, published in 1796 across three volumes. Written early in Lewis's career, it was published anonymously when he was 20. It tells the story of a virtuous Catholic monk who gives in to his violent and lustful urges, setting off a chain of events that leave him damned. It is a prime example of the type of Gothic that specializes in horror.

  12 chapters · About 594 minutes of published text

• The Moonstone

  By Wilkie Collins

  The Moonstone: A Romance by Wilkie Collins is an 1868 British epistolary novel. It is an early example of the modern detective novel, and established many of the ground rules of the modern genre. Its publication was started on 4 January 1868 and was completed on 8 August 1868. The story was serialised in Charles Dickens's magazine All the Year Round. Collins adapted The Moonstone for the stage in 1877.

  45 chapters · About 837 minutes of published text

• The Mysteries of Udolpho

  By Ann Ward Radcliffe

  The Mysteries of Udolpho: A Romance is a Gothic novel by Ann Radcliffe, which appeared in four volumes on 8 May 1794 from G. G. and J. Robinson of London. Her fourth and most popular novel, The Mysteries of Udolpho tells of Emily St. Aubert, who suffers misadventures that include the death of her mother and father, supernatural terrors in a gloomy castle, and machinations of Italian brigand Signor Montoni. It is often cited as an archetypal example of the Gothic novel.

  57 chapters · About 1261 minutes of published text

• The Mysterious Affair at Styles

  By Agatha Christie

  The Mysterious Affair at Styles is the first mystery novel by British writer Agatha Christie, introducing her fictional detective Hercule Poirot. It was written in the middle of the First World War, in 1916, and first published by John Lane in the United States in October 1920 and in the United Kingdom by The Bodley Head (John Lane's UK company) on 21 January 1921.

  13 chapters · About 245 minutes of published text

• The Mysterious Island

  By Jules Verne (translated by Agnes Kinloch Kingston)

  The Mysterious Island is a novel by Jules Verne, serialised from August 1874 to September 1875 and then published in book form in November 1875. The first edition, published by Hetzel, contains illustrations by Jules Férat. The novel is a crossover sequel to Verne's famous Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas (1870) and In Search of the Castaways (1867–68), though its themes are vastly different from those books. An early draft of the novel, rejected by Verne's publisher and wholly reconceived before publication, was titled Shipwrecked Family: Marooned with Uncle Robinson, indicating the influence of the novels Robinson Crusoe and The Swiss Family Robinson.

  62 chapters · About 840 minutes of published text

• The mystery of Angelina Frood

  By R. Austin Freeman

  R. Austin Freeman's 1925 Dr Thorndyke novel opens with a doper's wife and a mysterious Mr Johnson. The medico-legal detective unravels the case by patient attention to small physical clues. A classic of the scientific detective story.

  19 chapters · About 392 minutes of published text

• The Mystery of Edwin Drood

  By Charles Dickens

  The Mystery of Edwin Drood is a novel by English author Charles Dickens, originally published in 1870. It was his final novel and was left unfinished when he died. Though the novel is named after the character Edwin Drood, it focuses more on Drood's uncle, John Jasper, a precentor, choirmaster and opium addict, who lusts after his pupil, Rosa Bud. Miss Bud, Edwin Drood's fiancée, has also caught the eye of the high-spirited and hot-tempered Neville Landless. Landless and Edwin Drood take an instant dislike to each other. Later Drood disappears under mysterious circumstances. The story is set in Cloisterham, a lightly disguised Rochester.

  23 chapters · About 415 minutes of published text

• The Odyssey

  By Homer (translated by Samuel Butler)

  The Odyssey is one of two major epics of ancient Greek literature attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest surviving works of literature and remains popular with modern audiences. Like the Iliad, the Odyssey is divided into 24 books. It follows the heroic king of Ithaca, Odysseus, also known by the Latin variant Ulysses, and his homecoming journey after the ten-year-long Trojan War. His journey from Troy to Ithaca lasts an additional ten years, during which time he encounters many perils and all of his crewmates are killed.

  24 chapters · About 550 minutes of published text

• The Old Curiosity Shop

  By Charles Dickens

  The Old Curiosity Shop is the fourth novel by English author Charles Dickens; being one of his two novels (the other being Barnaby Rudge) published along with short stories in his weekly serial Master Humphrey's Clock, from 1840 to 1841. It was so popular that New York readers reputedly stormed the wharf when the ship bearing the final instalment arrived in 1841.

  73 chapters · About 938 minutes of published text

• The Oresteia

  By Aeschylus (translated by E. D. A. Morshead)

  Aeschylus's trilogy follows the house of Atreus: Clytemnestra murders her husband Agamemnon on his return from Troy, her son Orestes kills her in revenge, and the Furies pursue him until Athena sets up a court to try him. The three plays are the book's three chapters.

  3 chapters · About 149 minutes of published text

• The Phantom 'Rickshaw, and Other Ghost Stories

  By Rudyard Kipling

  The Phantom 'Rickshaw and Other Tales, also known as The Phantom 'Rickshaw & other Eerie Tales, is a collection of short stories by Rudyard Kipling, first published in 1888.

  4 chapters · About 198 minutes of published text

• The Phantom of the Opera

  By Gaston Leroux

  The Phantom of the Opera is a Gothic horror novel by French author Gaston Leroux. It was first published as a serial in Le Gaulois from 23 September 1909 to 8 January 1910, and was released in volume form in late March 1910 by Pierre Lafitte. The novel is partly inspired by historical events at the Paris Opera during the nineteenth century, and by an apocryphal tale concerning the use of a former ballet pupil's skeleton in an 1841 production of Carl Maria von Weber's Der Freischütz. It has been successfully adapted into various stage and film adaptations, most notable of which are the 1925 film depiction featuring Lon Chaney, and Andrew Lloyd Webber's 1986 musical.

  26 chapters · About 363 minutes of published text

• The Pickwick Papers

  By Charles Dickens

  The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club (also known as The Pickwick Papers) was the first novel by English author Charles Dickens, originally published in serial form from March 1836 to November 1837. Because of his success with Sketches by Boz published in 1836, Dickens was asked by the publisher Chapman & Hall to supply descriptions to explain a series of comic "cockney sporting plates" by illustrator Robert Seymour, and to connect them into a novel. The book became a publishing phenomenon, with bootleg copies, theatrical performances, Sam Weller joke books, and other merchandise.

  57 chapters · About 1294 minutes of published text

• The Picture of Dorian Gray

  By Oscar Wilde

  The Picture of Dorian Gray is an 1890 philosophical fiction and Gothic horror novel by Irish author Oscar Wilde. A shorter novella-length version was published in the July 1890 issue of the American periodical Lippincott's Monthly Magazine, while the novel-length version was published in April 1891. As the only novel written by Wilde, it is widely regarded as a classic of both Gothic and English literature, having been adapted many times for films, stage, plays, and other forms of art performances.

  20 chapters · About 341 minutes of published text

• The Pied Piper of Hamelin, and Other Poems

  By Robert Browning

  Browning's story of the piper who rid Hamelin of rats and then, unpaid, led away its children comes here with his other tales in verse for the young, Hervé Riel, the Cavalier Tunes, Incident of the French Camp and Clive. It is the schoolboys' selection of 1910 from the Every Boy's Library.

  12 chapters · About 57 minutes of published text