by H.G. Wells. Edited with an Introduction by Colin Heston.

What happens when science makes life bigger—but the world refuses to grow with it?

In The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth, H. G. Wells transforms a seemingly absurd scientific experiment into a sweeping and surprisingly modern story about progress, fear, power, and humanity’s resistance to change.

Two scientists, Mr. Bensington and Professor Redwood, develop an extraordinary substance—Herakleophorbia, soon known simply as “the Food”—capable of producing astonishing growth. Intended as little more than an improved food supply, their invention quickly escapes the laboratory. The consequences are spectacular: gigantic plants, monstrous wasps, enormous rats, and eventually human children who grow to dimensions that make ordinary society seem absurdly small.

At first, the giants are treated as curiosities and inconveniences. But as the children mature, their extraordinary strength and intelligence threaten a civilization constructed—physically, politically, and socially—for smaller people. The new generation can lift enormous weights, cross great distances, and contemplate achievements beyond the abilities of ordinary humanity.

Fear soon becomes political. Caterham, the self-proclaimed “Jack the Giant-killer,” rises to power as hostility toward the giants intensifies. Laws restrict their movement, society demands their submission, and the conflict between the old world and the new moves inexorably toward confrontation.

First published in book form in 1904, The Food of the Gods is one of Wells’s most imaginative works of speculative fiction—a novel he described as a “fantasia on the change of scale in human affairs.”Beneath its giant insects, colossal children, scientific mishaps, and dark comedy lies a serious question: When something new outgrows the society that created it, should humanity suppress it—or make room for the future?

This Read-Me.Org Classic Reprint preserves the novel’s original three-book structure and presents Wells’s remarkable vision for a new generation of readers. It includes a new Introduction by Colin Heston.

A classic of early science fiction filled with giant creatures, scientific catastrophe, political satire, social conflict—and H. G. Wells’s unmistakable fascination with the terrifying possibilities of the future.

.Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2026. 176p.

by H.G. Wells. Edited with an Introduction by Colin Heston.

What if you fell asleep—and awoke more than two hundred years later to discover that you owned the world?

Graham, an exhausted nineteenth-century man, falls into a mysterious cataleptic trance. When at last he awakens, London has become an immense mechanized metropolis of moving walkways, towering structures, mass communications and flying machines. But the greatest shock is not technological. During his extraordinary sleep, Graham's modest fortune has multiplied through compound interest until he has become the richest man alive—and, at least in name, the Master of the World.

Yet ownership is not power. Graham discovers that a ruling Council has governed in his name while millions of ordinary people live under a rigid system of economic and political control. His awakening threatens the entire structure. Revolution erupts, and Graham is forced to choose between the calculating Ostrog, who believes the masses must be controlled, and a population determined to overthrow its masters.

First published in 1899 as When the Sleeper Wakes, Wells substantially revised the novel in 1910 under the title The Sleeper Awakes. He removed much of the original romantic subplot, tightened the later chapters, reconsidered the story's flying machines, and gave the struggle between rulers and ruled a darker and more ambiguous conclusion.

More than a century later, Wells's vision remains startling. Concentrated wealth, manipulation of public opinion, mass entertainment, technological surveillance, economic inequality and political elites who claim to know what is best for the people make The Sleeper Awakes one of the great precursors of modern dystopian fiction.

This new Read-Me.Org edition presents Wells's revised text, newly reset and lightly corrected for typographical consistency, while retaining the language and character of the original. It also includes a new Introduction by Colin Heston and five public-domain period illustrations by Henri Lanos, the celebrated illustrator of the original 1899 publication.

For readers of The Time Machine, The War of the Worlds, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Brave New World and other classics of speculative and dystopian fiction, The Sleeper Awakes reveals H. G. Wells not merely as a prophet of technology, but as a remarkably prescient critic of wealth, power and the politics of the modern mass society.

Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2026. 174p.

by H.G. Wells. Edited with an Introduction by Colin Heston.

H. G. Wells imagined the nightmare of modern aerial warfare before the modern airplane had truly arrived.

First published in 1908, The War in the Air: And Particularly How Mr. Bert Smallways Fared While It Lasted is one of Wells’s most startling works of speculative fiction—a sweeping story of technological progress, global conflict, and the terrifying consequences of inventions that humanity may be clever enough to create but not wise enough to control.

Bert Smallways is no soldier, statesman, or scientific genius. He is an ordinary, ambitious young bicycle mechanic whose enthusiasm for the new age of machines leads him into an extraordinary adventure. By accident, Bert finds himself swept into the world of experimental aviation and then carried aboard a German aerial armada crossing the Atlantic to attack the United States.

What begins with the excitement and comedy of early flight rapidly becomes something much darker.

Wells imagines fleets of gigantic airships, military aeroplanes, battles fought above oceans and cities, the destruction of New York, international retaliation, and finally a conflict so widespread that the political, commercial, and technological foundations of civilization begin to collapse.

Written years before the First World War demonstrated the military importance of aviation, The War in the Air is remarkable for the questions it asks. What happens when technological change moves faster than political institutions can respond? Can a weapon that can destroy an enemy actually secure victory? What becomes of civilians when the battlefield expands into the sky above their homes? And what happens when every great power possesses the ability to strike beyond traditional frontiers?

Yet this is not simply a novel of machines and warfare. At its center is Bert Smallways—bewildered, resourceful, comic, frightened, and unmistakably human—trying to survive a catastrophe whose causes are far beyond his understanding or control.

More than a century after its first appearance, Wells’s warning has lost little of its force. Aircraft, missiles, nuclear weapons, drones, cyberwarfare, and autonomous military technologies have changed the instruments, but the fundamental problem remains: human beings continually acquire new powers before they have necessarily acquired the wisdom to govern them.

This new Read-Me.Org Classic Reprint reproduces Wells’s historic novel in a freshly reset edition, supplemented by period public-domain aviation illustrations and a new Introduction by Colin Heston that places the book in its historical setting while examining its continuing relevance to warfare, technology, and the uncertain future of civilization.

A classic of early science fiction, future-war literature, and political prophecy, The War in the Air remains both a gripping adventure and one of H. G. Wells’s most disturbing warnings about the price of uncontrolled progress.

.Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2026. 210p.

by H.G. Wells. Edited with an Introduction by Colin Heston.

H. G. Wells takes humanity beyond Earth in one of the earliest—and still one of the most imaginative—novels of lunar exploration.

When the eccentric scientist Mr. Cavor invents Cavorite, an extraordinary substance capable of shielding matter from gravity, his commercially minded neighbor Mr. Bedford immediately recognizes its possibilities. Together they construct a spherical spacecraft and embark upon an experiment that carries them farther than either man intended: all the way to the Moon.

But Wells's Moon is no lifeless wilderness. Beneath its strange surface lies an enormous subterranean world of caverns, vegetation and astonishing forms of life. Most remarkable of all are the Selenites, an advanced insect-like civilization whose society has developed along principles utterly different from those of humanity.

What begins with the exuberance of scientific discovery gradually becomes something much more unsettling. Bedford sees opportunity, wealth and conquest; Cavor seeks knowledge and understanding. Their reactions to the Selenites allow Wells to turn the adventure back upon its readers. Who, after all, is truly alien? What happens when one civilization encounters another that it neither understands nor controls? And what might an intelligent extraterrestrial species conclude after learning about human warfare, greed and empire?

First published in book form in 1901, The First Men in the Moon was the culmination of the extraordinary sequence of scientific romances that included The Time Machine, The Island of Doctor Moreau, The Invisible Man and The War of the Worlds. It combines humor, adventure, speculation and social criticism with an imaginative vision of extraterrestrial life that helped shape modern science fiction.

This Read-Me.Org Classic Reprint presents Wells's original narrative for a new generation of readers, together with an introduction placing the novel in its literary and historical setting. The edition preserves Wells's extraordinary mixture of Victorian adventure and remarkably modern speculation about alien intelligence, specialization, colonialism and humanity's place in the universe.

A classic voyage beyond Earth—and an encounter with a world stranger, larger and more sophisticated than its human visitors ever imagined.

Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2026. 184p.

by H.G. Wells. Edited with an Introduction by Colin Heston.

What separates the human being from the animal—and what happens when science attempts to erase the boundary?

Shipwrecked and close to death, Edward Prendick is rescued from the Pacific and carried aboard a strange schooner transporting an assortment of animals to an unnamed island. His relief at surviving soon gives way to suspicion. The island is inhabited by the mysterious Doctor Moreau, a brilliant scientist whose notorious experiments forced him to abandon civilized society.

Then Prendick discovers what Moreau has been doing.

Hidden within the island is the terrible House of Pain, where Moreau has attempted to transform animals into beings resembling men and women. His creations walk upright, speak, obey commandments and struggle to suppress their animal instincts. They call themselves the Beast Folk.

And they live according to the Law.

First published in 1896, The Island of Doctor Moreau followed The Time Machine and became one of H. G. Wells's most disturbing scientific romances. Written during the fierce Victorian controversy surrounding vivisection and experimental biology, the novel pushes scientific ambition to its most horrifying conclusion. Moreau is not simply a conventional mad scientist. He is more frightening than that: an intelligent investigator who has convinced himself that knowledge justifies suffering and that scientific curiosity need recognize no moral boundary.

Yet Wells's real target extends far beyond the laboratory. The Beast Folk imitate humanity through speech, ritual, prohibition and fear. When Moreau's authority begins to collapse, so does the Law that has restrained them. The resulting nightmare forces Prendick to confront an even more disturbing possibility—that civilization itself may be only a thin covering over humanity's own animal inheritance.

More than a century after its publication, the questions raised by Doctor Moreau have become more rather than less provocative. Genetic engineering, biotechnology, animal experimentation and the power of scientists to manipulate living organisms give Wells's nightmare a striking contemporary resonance.

Part science fiction, part Gothic horror and part philosophical investigation, The Island of Doctor Moreau asks questions that remain profoundly uncomfortable: How far should science be permitted to go? Does the ability to alter life confer the right to do so? And how certain are we that the boundary between civilization and savagery is as secure as we imagine?

This Read-Me.Org Classic Reprint presents Wells's original 1896 narrative, together with a new introduction exploring the scientific, ethical and evolutionary questions behind one of the darkest masterpieces of early science fiction.

.Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2026. 135p.

by H.G. Wells. Edited with an Introduction by Colin Heston.

They came from Mars—and suddenly humanity was no longer the dominant species on Earth.

When a strange cylinder crashes into the English countryside, curious spectators gather around the crater. What emerges changes the world forever.

The Martians have arrived.

Armed with terrifying technology, towering fighting machines, deadly Heat-Rays, and poisonous Black Smoke, the invaders sweep aside human resistance with shocking ease. Soldiers, artillery, cities, governments, and the certainties of Victorian civilization collapse before an enemy whose scientific superiority appears overwhelming.

Through the experiences of an unnamed narrator struggling across a devastated England, H. G. Wells creates one of literature’s greatest stories of invasion, survival, panic, and social breakdown.

First published in 1898, The War of the Worlds helped establish the modern alien-invasion story, but Wells intended much more than spectacular science fiction. Behind the Martian machines lies a provocative reversal of imperial power. What does conquest look like when the technologically superior invader is no longer European—and humanity itself becomes the apparently inferior population?

Wells strips civilization of its confidence with astonishing speed. Refugees choke the roads. Authority disintegrates. Ordinary people flee for their lives. Humanity discovers that intelligence, technology, and military power do not necessarily guarantee survival.

More than a century after its publication, The War of the Worlds retains its extraordinary power because its central question remains unsettlingly simple:

What if something arrived that we could not defeat?

This Read-Me.Org edition brings Wells’s revolutionary scientific romance to contemporary readers while preserving the extraordinary imagination, urgency, and menace of the original.

.Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2026. 207p.

by H.G. Wells. Edited with an Introduction by Colin Heston.

In 1914 H. G. Wells imagined the atomic bomb—and a world forced to confront what such a weapon would mean.

Among Wells’s extraordinary works of scientific speculation, The World Set Free occupies a unique place. Written in 1913 and published in 1914, the novel imagined the release of atomic energy and weapons Wells explicitly called “atomic bombs” decades before Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

But Wells was interested in far more than predicting a new weapon.

Beginning with humanity’s long struggle to harness energy, the novel moves toward the discovery of practical atomic power—and then toward catastrophe. The new energy promises abundance on an unprecedented scale, but nations quickly transform scientific achievement into military power. Atomic war follows, devastating cities and demonstrating that the traditional international order can no longer survive the destructive capacities science has placed in human hands.

From that destruction Wells develops his larger and more controversial argument. If technology has made war potentially catastrophic for civilization itself, must humanity eventually abandon competing sovereign states and construct some form of world government?

The World Set Free is therefore simultaneously scientific romance, future history, political argument, and warning.

Its historical significance is remarkable. Physicist Leó Szilárd, who later played an important role in the development of nuclear physics and the history of the atomic bomb, acknowledged Wells’s novel as an influence on his thinking about atomic chain reactions.

Yet the book’s greatest interest today may lie in the question Wells asks beyond the bomb itself: Can humanity develop political institutions rapidly enough to control the destructive technologies its scientists create?

The uploaded Read-Me.Org edition includes Wells’s important 1921 preface, in which he reconsidered his predictions after the catastrophe of the First World War.

More than a century after Wells wrote it, The World Set Free remains an extraordinary encounter between science fiction and history—a novel that did not merely imagine atomic warfare but helped place the idea into the intellectual world from which the nuclear age eventually emerged.Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2026. 216p.

by H.G. Wells. Edited with an Introduction by Colin Heston.

A hidden garden behind a green door. A valley where the blind rule. A magic shop where every trick is real. A crystal window onto Mars.

H. G. Wells is celebrated for The Time Machine, The War of the Worlds, and The Invisible Man, but his short fiction reveals the full breadth of his imagination. In these pages, ordinary men and women stumble across impossible discoveries, strange inventions, terrifying creatures, and worlds that exist just beyond the boundaries of everyday experience.

The Door in the Wall and Other Stories brings together forty of Wells's finest short stories, including every story from his definitive 1911 collection The Country of the Blind and Other Stories together with the additional tales from The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents that Wells himself later left behind. The result is the most complete single-volume gathering of his greatest short fiction from the remarkable decade in which he transformed modern speculative storytelling.

Here are unforgettable classics such as:

• The Door in the Wall

• The Country of the Blind

• The Crystal Egg

• The Magic Shop

• The New Accelerator

• The Star

• The Man Who Could Work Miracles

• The Empire of the Ants

• The Red Room

• The Remarkable Case of Davidson's Eyes

Alongside these famous masterpieces are comic tales, Gothic horrors, scientific romances, social satires, mysteries, and fantasies that display Wells at his most inventive and entertaining.

Whether imagining alien visions, miraculous powers, invisible thresholds, or the unexpected consequences of scientific discovery, Wells continually asks a question that became the foundation of modern science fiction: What would happen if the impossible were suddenly true?

Complete, authoritative, and newly introduced for modern readers, this volume is an essential collection for fans of classic science fiction, fantasy, horror, and one of the greatest imaginative writers in English literature.

Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2026. 172p.

by H.G. Wells. Edited with an Introduction by Colin Heston.

A hidden garden behind a green door. A valley where the blind rule. A magic shop where every trick is real. A crystal window onto Mars.

H. G. Wells is celebrated for The Time Machine, The War of the Worlds, and The Invisible Man, but his short fiction reveals the full breadth of his imagination. In these pages, ordinary men and women stumble across impossible discoveries, strange inventions, terrifying creatures, and worlds that exist just beyond the boundaries of everyday experience.

The Door in the Wall and Other Stories brings together forty of Wells's finest short stories, including every story from his definitive 1911 collection The Country of the Blind and Other Stories together with the additional tales from The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents that Wells himself later left behind. The result is the most complete single-volume gathering of his greatest short fiction from the remarkable decade in which he transformed modern speculative storytelling.

Here are unforgettable classics such as:

• The Door in the Wall

• The Country of the Blind

• The Crystal Egg

• The Magic Shop

• The New Accelerator

• The Star

• The Man Who Could Work Miracles

• The Empire of the Ants

• The Red Room

• The Remarkable Case of Davidson's Eyes

Alongside these famous masterpieces are comic tales, Gothic horrors, scientific romances, social satires, mysteries, and fantasies that display Wells at his most inventive and entertaining.

Whether imagining alien visions, miraculous powers, invisible thresholds, or the unexpected consequences of scientific discovery, Wells continually asks a question that became the foundation of modern science fiction: What would happen if the impossible were suddenly true?

Complete, authoritative, and newly introduced for modern readers, this volume is an essential collection for fans of classic science fiction, fantasy, horror, and one of the greatest imaginative writers in English literature.

Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2026. 360p.

by Hugh Walpole. Introduction by Colin Heston.

A single blow. A single death. A lifetime of consequences.

On a misty November afternoon near Cambridge, Olva Dune kills a fellow undergraduate in a moment of long-suppressed fury. The act is sudden, irrevocable, and witnessed by no one. Yet standing over the body, Olva experiences something far more disturbing than fear or remorse: the overwhelming certainty that he is no longer alone.

As suspicion slowly gathers around the unsolved crime, Olva returns to the routines of college life carrying a secret that separates him from everyone around him. Friendship, ambition, and a growing love for the brilliant Margaret Craven seem to offer escape, but an unseen presence pursues him with relentless patience, demanding truth, sacrifice, and surrender.

Set against the atmospheric backdrop of Edwardian Cambridge, The Prelude to Adventure is a haunting psychological novel that explores guilt, conscience, faith, and redemption. Decades before such themes became staples of modern literary fiction, Hugh Walpole crafted an unforgettable portrait of a man forced to choose between the life he desires and the truth he cannot escape.

Dark, compelling, and profoundly moving, this neglected classic deserves its place beside the great novels of moral conflict and spiritual awakening.

"A remarkable psychological study of crime, conscience, and the search for grace."

This edition includes a new introduction by Colin Heston and presents Walpole's classic novel in a carefully modernized text for contemporary readers.

Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2026. 204p.

by Hugh Walpole. Introduction by Colin Heston.

A young woman’s search for freedom leads her into a world where faith, love, and human loyalty become their own forms of captivity.

After the sudden death of her harsh and miserly clergyman father, nineteen-year-old Maggie Cardinal leaves the lonely West Country village she has always known and journeys to London to live with two deeply religious aunts. There she is drawn into the orbit of the Warlocks, leaders of a fervent sect convinced that the Second Coming of Christ is near at hand.

As Maggie struggles to find her place in an unfamiliar world, she becomes entangled in powerful emotional and spiritual conflicts. The Warlock community offers belonging and purpose, yet demands unquestioning devotion. Her growing love for Martin Warlock, the troubled and self-destructive son of the sect’s revered leader, forces her to confront difficult questions about faith, independence, sacrifice, and the price of personal happiness.

First published in 1920, The Captives is one of Hugh Walpole’s most compelling psychological novels. Combining vivid characterization, emotional intensity, and penetrating insight into the nature of belief, Walpole explores how people become prisoners not only of institutions and doctrines, but also of love, family, memory, and their own deepest desires.

This new Read-Me.Org edition presents a carefully corrected and modernized text, preserving the full power of Walpole’s original masterpiece for contemporary readers.

Perfect for readers of E.M. Forster, Arnold Bennett, George Gissing, and early twentieth-century literary fiction exploring religion, identity, and the struggle for personal freedom.

Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2026. 394p.

by Hugh Walpole. Introduction by Colin Heston.

A single blow. A single death. A lifetime of consequences.

On a misty November afternoon near Cambridge, Olva Dune kills a fellow undergraduate in a moment of long-suppressed fury. The act is sudden, irrevocable, and witnessed by no one. Yet standing over the body, Olva experiences something far more disturbing than fear or remorse: the overwhelming certainty that he is no longer alone.

As suspicion slowly gathers around the unsolved crime, Olva returns to the routines of college life carrying a secret that separates him from everyone around him. Friendship, ambition, and a growing love for the brilliant Margaret Craven seem to offer escape, but an unseen presence pursues him with relentless patience, demanding truth, sacrifice, and surrender.

Set against the atmospheric backdrop of Edwardian Cambridge, The Prelude to Adventure is a haunting psychological novel that explores guilt, conscience, faith, and redemption. Decades before such themes became staples of modern literary fiction, Hugh Walpole crafted an unforgettable portrait of a man forced to choose between the life he desires and the truth he cannot escape.

Dark, compelling, and profoundly moving, this neglected classic deserves its place beside the great novels of moral conflict and spiritual awakening.

"A remarkable psychological study of crime, conscience, and the search for grace."

This edition includes a new introduction by Colin Heston and presents Walpole's classic novel in a carefully modernized text for contemporary readers.

Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2026. 180p.

by Hugh Walpole. Introduction by Colin Heston.

A wild man, a stolen valley, and the love that outlasted everything.

In 1730, Francis Herries — reckless, restless, and already half a scandal — abandons his comfortable Yorkshire life and drags his wife, his mistress, and his children into the wilds of Borrowdale, a Cumberland valley whose people want nothing to do with outsiders. They call him "Rogue," and they are not wrong. He is cruel when he shouldn't be, unfaithful when it costs him everything, and incapable of being tamed by property, propriety, or the good opinion of his neighbors.

He is also unforgettable — and so is the country that swallows him whole.

Across four decades of storms both domestic and historical, Rogue Herries follows Francis's turbulent household: his son David, whose steadier heart anchors the family through scandal and rebellion; the Jacobite rising of 1745, when terror reaches the gates of Carlisle; and above all Francis's decades-long, never-quite-requited obsession with Mirabell Starr, the gypsy girl he first meets as a child and cannot stop pursuing for the rest of his life.

Hugh Walpole knew this ground before he wrote a word of it — he lived within sight of these fells for years — and it shows. Critics and readers have agreed for nearly a century that the true hero of this novel may be the Lake District itself: its weather, its light, its way of shutting a valley off from the world and daring you to belong to it.

First published in 1930, Rogue Herries became Walpole's best-selling and most enduring novel, the foundation of his celebrated four-volume Herries Chronicle, and the book by which he is still best remembered today.

This Read-Me.Org Classic Reprint edition features:

• A newly corrected and reformatted text of the original 1930 American edition

• A new critical introduction by Colin Heston, covering Walpole's life, the novel's origins, and its place in literary history

• The original Herries family tree and map of Borrowdale, reproduced from the first edition

• Clean, modern formatting for today's readers

Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2026. 389p.

Colin Hestpn Editor and Preface. J. S. Fletcher author.

Crime in the Counting House gathers three of J. S. Fletcher’s most compelling investigations into the hidden workings of money, law, and power, where crime is concealed not in darkened streets but within the very institutions designed to uphold order. In The Chestermarke Instinct, The Herapath Property, and The Root of All Evil, Fletcher reveals a world in which trust is fragile, appearances are deceptive, and the pursuit of wealth can obscure both truth and justice. These are mysteries shaped as much by financial intrigue and legal complexity as by human ambition, drawing the reader into a network of secrets that extends far beyond the immediate crime.

Writing at a pivotal moment in the development of modern detective fiction, Fletcher shifts the genre’s focus from the isolated act of wrongdoing to the systems that make such acts possible. His narratives probe the respectable surfaces of society—banks, estates, partnerships, and inheritances—and uncover the tensions and hidden motives that lie beneath. Each novel unfolds with methodical precision, yet the solutions they offer point to a deeper unease, suggesting that corruption and deception are rarely confined to individuals alone.

This edition, introduced by a new preface from Colin Heston, situates Fletcher’s work within the broader history of crime writing and highlights its enduring significance. Heston argues that these stories occupy a crucial middle ground in the evolution of the genre, where the traditional puzzle begins to expand into a more complex exploration of social and economic reality. The result is a collection that is not only deeply engaging as narrative, but also revealing in its portrayal of a world where the most dangerous crimes are often those committed in plain sight.

For readers who value classic British mystery, Crime in the Counting House offers both intellectual intrigue and narrative richness, demonstrating why Fletcher remains one of the most important and versatile writers of early twentieth‑century crime fiction.

Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2026. 425 p.

by Colin Heston (Author), Alexandre Dumas (Author)

Against All Odds: The Black Tulip is a timeless historical novel by Alexandre Dumas that blends romance, suspense, and moral courage into a quietly powerful tale of perseverance in the face of injustice.

Set in the Dutch Republic during the political chaos of 1672, the story unfolds as fear and intrigue tear a nation apart. While violence and ambition dominate public life, Cornelius van Baerle pursues a far more fragile dream: to cultivate the world’s first perfect black tulip. His devotion to this ideal—symbolizing beauty, patience, and order—sets him apart in a society consumed by suspicion.

Betrayed by jealousy and falsely accused of treason, Cornelius is cast into prison, where his future appears lost. Yet even behind stone walls, hope survives. With the help of Rosa, the jailer’s daughter, he continues his delicate work in secrecy, risking everything to protect his dream. As rivalry intensifies and danger closes in, the black tulip becomes more than a prize—it becomes a testament to integrity, love, and resilience against overwhelming odds.

Edited and introduced by Colin Heston, this paperback edition places Dumas’s novel in its historical and literary context, illuminating its enduring relevance and emotional depth. Elegant, moving, and rich with meaning, Against All Odds: The Black Tulip is a compelling story of quiet heroism—proof that even in the darkest times, hope can still bloom.

Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2026. 261p.

by Colin Heston (Author), Alexandre Dumas (Author)

In this gripping and unsettling volume, Alexandre Dumas—best known for his sweeping historical adventures—turns his formidable narrative power to one of the darkest chapters of European history. Massacres of the South: “Not THE USA”, introduced by Colin Heston, brings together Dumas’s haunting account of religious violence in southern France, where centuries of conflict between Catholics and Protestants erupted into cycles of vengeance, terror, and mass killing.

Originally part of Dumas’s Celebrated Crimes, this work reconstructs a landscape in which ideology hardened into hatred and neighbors became enemies. From the early convulsions of the Reformation through later uprisings and reprisals, Dumas reveals how massacre became not an aberration but a recurring instrument of power—sanctioned, remembered, and repeated. His narrative is both historical and psychological, exposing the mechanisms by which fear, belief, and authority combine to justify the unthinkable.

Colin Heston’s new introduction reframes these events for modern readers with a provocative comparative lens. By drawing parallels between the religious massacres of southern France and the racial and political violence of the American South in the nineteenth century, Heston challenges readers to reconsider the universality of collective violence. The subtitle—“Not THE USA”—is both ironic and incisive, underscoring how easily the patterns Dumas describes reappear across different societies, identities, and eras.

This edition restores a powerful and often overlooked work to contemporary attention, presenting it as more than a historical curiosity. It is a study in the anatomy of atrocity—how divisions become absolutes, how institutions fail, and how ordinary people are drawn into extraordinary cruelty. For readers interested in history, criminology, political conflict, or the enduring question of why societies turn against themselves, this volume offers a compelling and deeply relevant exploration.

Disturbing, illuminating, and unflinching, Massacres of the South stands as a reminder that the past is never as distant as it seems—and that the forces shaping it remain with us still.

Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2026. 211p.

By Alexandre Dumas. Edited and introduced by Graeme R. Newman

Amazon KDP Book Description

Enter the most perilous phase of the French Revolution in Book Five of The Romance of Revolution, featuring Alexandre Dumas’s gripping novel, The Chevalier de Maison-Rouge. In this powerful continuation of his sweeping historical saga, Dumas shifts from the explosive birth of revolution to its darkest and most personal consequences.

Paris is no longer a city of hope, but of suspicion, fear, and relentless political upheaval. The monarchy has fallen, and Marie Antoinette, once Queen of France, now languishes in captivity, awaiting an uncertain fate. Amid this storm of violence and shifting loyalties, a daring royalist plot emerges—led by the mysterious and devoted Chevalier de Maison-Rouge—whose single aim is to rescue the Queen from imprisonment and certain death.

Yet nothing in revolutionary France is simple. As secret plans unfold, personal lives become entangled in the struggle. Maurice Lindey, a loyal republican, finds himself torn between duty and love as he becomes drawn into a conspiracy that challenges everything he believes. Trust is fragile, identities are uncertain, and the line between hero and traitor grows dangerously thin.

Edited and introduced by Graeme R. Newman, this volume situates Dumas’s narrative within the broader arc of the series, illuminating how The Chevalier de Maison-Rouge represents a turning point—from revolution as collective uprising to revolution as personal tragedy. Newman’s introduction highlights the profound human cost of political change and the way Dumas blends historical drama with emotional depth.

Rich in suspense, romance, and historical detail, Book Five of The Romance of Revolution reveals the Revolution at its most intense and intimate. It is a story of loyalty under siege, courage in the face of hopeless odds, and the enduring power of love in a world transformed by fear and fate.

Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2026. p.308..

by Colin Heston (Author), Alexandre Dumas (Author)

Who was the mysterious prisoner forced to live behind a mask of iron—hidden from the world, erased from history, and known only in whispers? Was he a traitor, a political threat… or something far more dangerous: the king’s own brother?

In The Man in the Iron Mask, the final and most powerful chapter of Dumas’s sweeping Musketeer saga, the fate of France turns on a secret so explosive it must be buried in darkness. Set in the glittering yet ruthless court of Louis XIV, this gripping historical novel follows d’Artagnan and the aging musketeers as they are drawn into a conspiracy that challenges the very foundations of royal power.

Imprisoned in silence and steel, the masked man becomes the center of a daring plot—one that could replace a king, ignite civil war, and reshape the destiny of a nation. Loyalty and betrayal collide as ambition, justice, and friendship are tested to their limits.

This new edition, Not Ned Kelly, brings a fresh and provocative perspective. In his original introduction, Colin Heston explores the enduring mystery of the iron mask and places it in dialogue with the legend of Ned Kelly, the Australian bushranger who fashioned his own crude “iron mask” in defiance of authority. One mask imposed, the other chosen—together they reveal a timeless struggle over identity, power, and resistance.

More than a classic adventure, this is a profound meditation on secrecy, legitimacy, and the cost of power.

A masterpiece of historical fiction from one of the world’s greatest storytellers—now presented with a bold new interpretation for modern readers.

Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2026. 406p.

By Alexandre Dumas. Edited and introduced by Graeme R. Newman

Step into the heart of revolution with Book Four of The Romance of Revolution, where Alexandre Dumas transforms one of history’s most dramatic upheavals into a vivid tapestry of passion, courage, and human struggle. This volume brings together two of the most powerful episodes in the series—Taking the Bastile and The Countess of Charny—capturing the moment when ideas erupt into action and a nation is irrevocably transformed.

In Taking the Bastile, Dumas recreates the iconic event that ignited the French Revolution. The storming of the fortress is no distant historical episode but a living, breathing drama, filled with urgency, danger, and the voices of ordinary people rising against tyranny. As the walls of the Bastille fall, so too does the illusion of absolute monarchy, replaced by the unpredictable force of popular will. Through unforgettable characters—idealists, citizens, prisoners, and leaders—Dumas shows how individuals are swept up into events far greater than themselves, yet remain central to its unfolding.

The Countess of Charny deepens the narrative, shifting from the explosive beginnings of revolution to its personal and emotional consequences. Here, the reader enters a world where loyalties are tested, families are divided, and love must survive amidst political chaos. The aristocracy, once secure at the centre of power, faces a future of uncertainty and loss, while the reforming energy of the Revolution grows ever more intense. Through richly drawn characters and intertwining relationships, Dumas reveals how historical change reshapes not only nations but the most intimate human bonds.

Edited and introduced by Graeme R. Newman, this volume places Dumas’s masterwork in its broader historical and literary context, offering readers a deeper appreciation of both the narrative and the extraordinary period it depicts. Newman’s introduction illuminates the continuity of the series and highlights how these two works mark a turning point—where the philosophical groundwork of earlier volumes gives way to the lived reality of revolution.

Sweeping, dramatic, and deeply human, Book Four of The Romance of Revolution is essential reading for anyone drawn to historical fiction, political drama, or the timeless questions of justice, power, and change. Dumas brings the French Revolution to life not as a distant event, but as an experience filled with urgency, complexity, and unforgettable characters—reminding us that history is always, at its core, a story about people.

Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2026. p.368..

The Queen’s Necklace
By Alexandre Dumas. Edited and Introduced by Graeme R. Newman

Step into the glittering yet fragile world of late eighteenth-century France in The Queen’s Necklace, the dramatic third volume of Alexandre Dumas’s sweeping historical series The Romance of Revolution. In this richly layered narrative, Dumas brings together intrigue, ambition, and scandal at the very moment when the foundations of the French monarchy begin to crack.

Set against the dazzling backdrop of Versailles and the restless streets of Paris, the novel unfolds in 1784, a time when luxury and hardship coexist in stark and dangerous contrast. While the aristocracy continues its rituals of elegance, the people suffer under the weight of poverty and neglect. Out of this tension emerges a story that is both intimate and monumental, revealing how private actions can ignite public catastrophe.

At the heart of the narrative lies one of the most infamous scandals in French history: the Affair of the Diamond Necklace. Through the intertwined lives of a queen, a clever and desperate noblewoman, and a cast of courtiers, conspirators, and visionaries, Dumas crafts a tale in which illusion and reality blur, and reputation becomes more powerful than truth. Marie Antoinette appears not as a caricature of excess, but as a complex and vulnerable figure whose generosity and misjudgments alike contribute to her tragic fate. Opposite her stands Jeanne de la Motte, a woman driven by ambition and circumstance, determined to reclaim status in a society that has cast her aside.

As rumor spreads and perception takes hold, Dumas reveals a crucial insight: revolutions are not born in a single moment of upheaval, but in the slow erosion of trust. The glittering necklace at the center of the scandal becomes more than an object—it is a symbol of extravagance, illusion, and the fatal misunderstandings that can topple a kingdom.

This edition, edited and introduced by Graeme R. Newman, provides readers with a thoughtful and engaging entry into Dumas’s historical vision. The introduction situates the novel within its broader revolutionary context, illuminating its themes of power, perception, and inevitability while preserving the narrative’s literary richness and dramatic force.

Combining romance, history, and psychological insight, The Queen’s Necklace stands as one of Dumas’s most compelling explorations of how societies unravel. It is a story of intrigue and destiny, of individuals caught in forces beyond their control, and of a world on the brink of transformation.

Perfect for readers of historical fiction, lovers of classic literature, and anyone fascinated by the origins of the French Revolution, this volume offers both gripping storytelling and enduring insight into one of history’s most pivotal eras.

Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2026. p.313..