By Joseph C. Lincoln. Designed and Edited with an Introduction by Colin Heston

Cap’n Warren’s Wards by Joseph C. Lincoln is a heartwarming and humorous novel set in a quaint Cape Cod town in the late 19th century. The story follows Captain Elihu Warren, a retired sea captain who has settled into a quiet life after years at sea. His peaceful routine is upended when he unexpectedly becomes the guardian of two orphaned siblings, Joseph and Ruth. These children, who have been raised in a more refined and urban environment, are suddenly thrust into the rustic and straightforward world of Cape Cod, creating a clash of cultures and expectations that fuels much of the novel’s charm and humor.

Captain Warren, though initially bewildered by the responsibility, approaches his new role with a mix of gruff kindness and genuine care. As he navigates the challenges of raising two young people, he finds his life enriched by their presence. Joseph is headstrong and idealistic, while Ruth is sensitive and intelligent, and both bring a new sense of purpose and vitality to the captain’s life. The novel explores their gradual adjustment to Cape Cod life, the bonds they form with the local community, and the personal growth they experience under the captain’s guidance.

The story is populated with a cast of colorful secondary characters, including the eccentric Aunt Lavinia and the mischievous Eben Salters, who add depth and humor to the narrative. Lincoln’s portrayal of small-town life is affectionate and detailed, filled with the rhythms of daily chores, community gossip, and the ever-present influence of the sea. The novel emphasizes themes of resilience, the importance of family—whether by blood or by choice—and the quiet heroism of everyday kindness.

As the characters face various trials and misunderstandings, they come to understand the value of simplicity, honesty, and love. Captain Warren, in particular, undergoes a transformation from a solitary figure to a beloved patriarch, discovering that the greatest adventures can sometimes be found not on the high seas, but in the hearts of those we care for. Lincoln’s storytelling is rich with Cape Cod dialect and atmosphere, offering readers a nostalgic and uplifting glimpse into a bygone era.

Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2025. p.

By Joseph C. Lincoln . Designed and Edited by Colin Heston.

*Cape Cod Stories* by Joseph C. Lincoln is a charming collection of short stories that vividly captures the spirit, humor, and character of life in small-town Cape Cod at the turn of the 20th century. The stories are narrated by a local character, often Cap’n Jonadab or his friend, and revolve around the fictional town of East Wellmouth, a stand-in for the many quaint villages that dot the Cape. Each tale is steeped in the dialect, customs, and eccentricities of the region, offering a nostalgic and affectionate portrayal of New England coastal life. The collection includes stories such as “Two Pairs of Shoes,” “The Count and the Manager,” “The South Shore Weather Bureau,” “The Dog Star,” “The Mare and the Motor,” “The Mark on the Door,” “The Love of Lobelia ’Ankins,” “The Meanness of Rosy,” “The Antiquers,” “His Native Heath,” and “Jonesy.” These stories often center on humorous misunderstandings, romantic entanglements, and the clash between tradition and modernity. For example, in “The Mare and the Motor,” the arrival of a newfangled automobile causes a stir in the community, leading to a series of comic events that highlight the tension between old ways and new technologies. In “The Count and the Manager,” a visiting European nobleman becomes entangled in local affairs, revealing both the pretensions and the down-to-earth wisdom of the Cape Codders. Lincoln’s characters are often crusty but kind-hearted, with a deep sense of community and a wry sense of humor. The stories are rich in local color, with detailed descriptions of the landscape, the sea, and the rhythms of daily life. Lincoln’s prose is warm and engaging, drawing readers into a world where values like honesty, hard work, and neighborliness prevail. While the stories are light-hearted and often comedic, they also reflect deeper themes of change, identity, and the enduring strength of community bonds. Through these tales, Lincoln preserves a way of life that was already beginning to fade, offering readers both entertainment and a poignant reminder of the past.

Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2025. p.144.

By Robert Louis Stevenson. Edited by Colin Heston

A Child’s Garden of Verses is a celebrated collection of poetry by Robert Louis Stevenson, first published in 1885. This volume, part of the Swanston Edition—a comprehensive and scholarly presentation of Stevenson’s works—appears as Volume XIV in the series, offering readers a carefully curated and historically contextualized version of this beloved classic.

The collection contains over 60 poems that reflect the world through the eyes of a child. Stevenson explores themes such as play, imagination, solitude, illness, and the natural world, capturing the emotional and intellectual landscape of childhood with remarkable sensitivity and lyrical grace. Poems like “My Shadow,” “The Land of Nod,” and “Bed in Summer” have become enduring favorites, celebrated for their rhythm, simplicity, and universal appeal.

The Swanston Edition enhances the reading experience with thoughtful editorial notes, biographical context, and period-appropriate formatting, making it ideal for literary scholars, collectors, and general readers alike. This edition not only preserves the charm and innocence of Stevenson’s verse but also situates it within the broader scope of his literary legacy.

By Robert Louis Stevenson:. Edited by Colin Heston

The Master of Ballantrae is a dark historical novel by Robert Louis Stevenson, set during the Jacobite rising of 1745. It tells the story of two brothers—noble and dutiful Henry Durie and his charming but treacherous elder brother James, the Master of Ballantrae—whose rivalry leads to betrayal, vengeance, and tragedy. Narrated by the loyal steward Ephraim Mackellar, the novel explores themes of family loyalty, pride, and the destructive power of ambition, set against a backdrop that spans Scotland, America, and India. With its psychological depth and moral complexity, the book stands as one of Stevenson’s most powerful works.

Read-Me.Org. Inc. Australia, New York, Philadelphia. 2025. 171p.

By R. L. Stevenson. Edited by Colin Heston

"The Black Arrow: A Tale of the Two Roses" is a historical adventure novel by Robert Louis Stevenson, first published in 1888. Set during the tumultuous period of the Wars of the Roses in 15th-century England, the story follows the young protagonist, Richard Shelton. Richard is caught in the conflict between the houses of York and Lancaster, and his journey is marked by themes of loyalty, betrayal, and revenge. The novel begins with Richard discovering that his guardian, Sir Daniel Brackley, is involved in treacherous activities. As Richard seeks justice for his father's murder, he joins forces with a band of outlaws known as the Black Arrow. The leader of the outlaws, John Amend-All, becomes a key ally in Richard's quest. Throughout the narrative, Richard faces numerous challenges, including battles, escapes, and romantic entanglements with Joanna Sedley, a young woman disguised as a boy. Stevenson's vivid descriptions and fast-paced plot make "The Black Arrow" a captivating read. The novel seamlessly combines elements of adventure, romance, and historical fiction, offering readers a thrilling portrayal of medieval England and its intricate political landscape.

Volume VIII of the Swanston Edition of "The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson" continues to showcase Stevenson's literary versatility. This volume typically includes a mix of his essays, short stories, and other writings, reflecting his wide-ranging interests and talents. The Swanston Edition is renowned for its comprehensive and authoritative compilation of Stevenson's works, providing readers with an in-depth exploration of his literary contributions. Each volume in this series highlights Stevenson's ability to engage readers with his storytelling prowess across various genres and styles. This volume has been carefully edited and redesigned by Colin Heston, a renowned novelist and storyteller, to make the book more enjoyable and comprehensible to the modern reader.

Read-Me.Org Inc. New York, Philadelphia, Australia. 2025. 178p.

By “The Senator from Alaska”

THE glittering particles of worthless mica found in the sands of the many streams in the West and Alaska deceived innumerable untrained prospectors who had gone out, full of hope and ambition, to locate Nature’s hidden stores of real gold. Posting their location notices and believing that they were rich beyond even the fondest dreams of avarice, they hastened to the nearest mining camp there to celebrate their good fortune in days and nights of riotous spending. When they had exhausted their available cash and much of the credit they had gained by telling of their discovery, they retired to sleep off the debauch. Upon awakening, they were informed by some old-timer that what they had found was nothing but worthless fools gold.

MADISON & MARSHALL, INC. 1936, 242p.

By Hsuan L. Hsu

Perhaps the most popular of all canonical American authors, Mark Twain is famous for creating works that satirize American formations of race and empire. While many scholars have explored Twain’s work in African Americanist contexts, his writing on Asia and Asian Americans remains largely in the shadows. In Sitting in Darkness, Hsuan Hsu examines Twain’s career-long archive of writings about United States relations with China and the Philippines. Comparing Twain’s early writings about Chinese immigrants in California and Nevada with his later fictions of slavery and anti-imperialist essays, he demonstrates that Twain’s ideas about race were not limited to white and black, but profoundly comparative as he carefully crafted assessments of racialization that drew connections between groups, including African Americans, Chinese immigrants, and a range of colonial populations. Drawing on recent legal scholarship, comparative ethnic studies, and transnational and American studies, Sitting in Darkness engages Twain’s best-known novels such as Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, as well as his lesser-known Chinese and trans-Pacific inflected writings, such as the allegorical tale “A Fable of the Yellow Terror” and the yellow face play Ah Sin. Sitting in Darkness reveals how within intersectional contexts of Chinese Exclusion and Jim Crow, these writings registered fluctuating connections between immigration policy, imperialist ventures, and racism.

New York: NYU Press.2015.

By Markus Nehl

Markus Nehl focuses on black authors who, from a 21st-century perspective, revisit slavery in the U.S., Ghana, South Africa, Canada and Jamaica. Nehl’s provocative readings of Toni Morrison’s »A Mercy«, Saidiya Hartman’s »Lose Your Mother«, Yvette Christiansë’s »Unconfessed«, Lawrence Hill’s »The Book of Negroes« and Marlon James’ »The Book of Night Women« delineate how these texts engage in a fruitful dialogue with African diaspora theory about the complex relation between the local and transnational and the enduring effects of slavery. Reflecting on the ethics of narration, this study is particularly attentive to the risks of representing anti-black violence and to the intricacies involved in (re-)appropriating slavery's archive.

Bielefeld, Germany: transcript Verlag, 2016. 213p.

BY ROLF BOLDREWOOD

Step into a thrilling world of high-seas adventure and daring exploits with "A Modern Buccaneer Vol. 2." In this riveting sequel, Captain Morgan embarks on a new series of treacherous voyages, facing formidable foes and unexpected challenges at every turn. As alliances are tested and secrets are revealed, readers will be swept away on a pulse-pounding journey filled with twists and turns. With vivid storytelling and vibrant characters, this book is a must-read for fans of action-packed tales of the sea. Join Captain Morgan on another epic escapade in "A Modern Buccaneer Vol. 2."

Macmillan, 1895, 245 pages

By John Belton

This book introduces the reader to basic issues related to the phenomenon of American Cinema. It looks at American Film Industry from the 1890s through th 1990s, but it does not always explore this history in a purely chronological way. In fact, it is not (strictly speaking) a history, which focusses more on topics and issues than on what happened when.

It begins with a profile of classical Hollywood cinema as a unique economic, industrial, aesthetic, and cultural institution. It considers the experience of moviegoing; the nature of Hollywood story-telling: and the roles played by the studio system, the star system, and film genres in the creation of a body of work that functions not only as entertainment but as a portrait of the relationship between an American national identity and an industrialized mass culture that has slowly evolved over the past century.

NY. McGraw Hill. 1994. 396p.

By Yuanfei Wang

In Writing Pirates, Yuanfei Wang connects Chinese literary production to emerging discourses of pirates and the sea. In the late Ming dynasty, so-called “Japanese pirates” raided southeast coastal China. Hideyoshi invaded Korea. Europeans sailed for overseas territories, and Chinese maritime merchants and emigrants founded diaspora communities in Southeast Asia. Travel writings, histories, and fiction of the period jointly narrate pirates and China’s Orient in maritime Asia. Wang shows that the late Ming discourses of pirates and the sea were fluid, ambivalent, and dialogical; they simultaneously entailed imperialistic and personal narratives of the “other”: foreigners, renegades, migrants, and marginalized authors. At the center of the discourses, early modern concepts of empire, race, and authenticity were intensively negotiated. Connecting late Ming literature to the global maritime world, Writing Pirates expands current discussions of Chinese diaspora and debates on Sinophone language and identity.

Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2021. 227p.

Edited by Ralf Grüttemeier

From the 19th century onwards, famous literary trials have caught the attention of readers, academics and the public at large. Indeed it is striking that more often than not, it was the texts of renowned writers that were dealt with by the courts, as for example Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary and Charles Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du Mal in France, James Joyce's Ulysses and Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer in the US, D.H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover in Great-Britain, up to the more recent trials on Klaus Mann's Mephisto and Maxim Biller's novel Esra in Germany. By bringing together international leading experts, Literary Trials represents the first step towards a systematic discussion of literary trials on a global scale. Beginning by first reassessing some of the most famous of these trials, it also analyses less well-known but significant literary trials. Special attention is paid to recent developments in the relationship between literature and judicature, pointing towards an increasing role for libel and defamation in the societal demarcation of what literature is, and is not, allowed to do.

New York: London: Bloomsbury Academic, .2016. 242p.

Edited by Giulia Gaimari and Catherine Keen

Ethics, Politics and Justice in Dante presents new research by international scholars on the themes of ethics, politics and justice in the works of Dante Alighieri, including chapters on Dante’s modern ‘afterlife’.

Together the chapters explore how Dante’s writings engage with the contemporary culture of medieval Florence and Italy, and how and why his political and moral thought still speaks compellingly to modern readers. The collection’s contributors range across different disciplines and scholarly traditions – history, philology, classical reception, philosophy, theology – to scrutinise Dante’s Divine Comedy and his other works in Italian and Latin, offering a multi-faceted approach to the evolution of Dante’s political, ethical and legal thought throughout his writing career.

Certain chapters focus on his early philosophical Convivio and on the accomplished Latin Eclogues of his final years, while others tackle knotty themes relating to judgement, justice, rhetoric and literary ethics in his Divine Comedy, from hell to paradise. The closing chapters discuss different modalities of the public reception and use of Dante’s work in both Italy and Britain, bringing the volume’s emphasis on morality, political philosophy, and social justice into the modern age of the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries.

London: UCL Press, 2019. 192p.

By  Sonja Schillings,

Hostis humani generis, meaning “enemy of humankind,” is the legal basis by which Western societies have defined such criminals as pirates, torturers, or terrorists as beyond the pale of civilization. Sonja Schillings argues that this legal fiction does more than characterize certain persons as inherently hostile: it provides a narrative basis for legitimating violence in the name of the state. The work draws attention to a century-old narrative pattern that not only underlies the legal category of enemies of the state, but more generally informs interpretations of imperial expansion, protest against government-sponsored oppression, and the transformation of institutions as “legitimate” interventions on behalf of civilized society.

Hanover, NH, Dartmouth University Press,, 2016. 304p.

By Jason E. Pierce

In the early nineteenth century, critics like Zebulon Pike and Washington Irving viewed the West as a “dumping ground” for free blacks and Native Americans, a place where they could be segregated from the white communities east of the Mississippi River. But as immigrant populations and industrialization took hold in the East, white Americans began to view the West as a “refuge for real whites.” The West had the most diverse population in the nation with substantial numbers of American Indians, Hispanics, and Asians, but Anglo-Americans could control these mostly disenfranchised peoples and enjoy the privileges of power while celebrating their presence as providing a unique regional character. The first comprehensive study to examine the construction of white racial identity in the West, Making the White Man’s West shows how these two visions of the West shaped the history of the region and influenced a variety of contemporary social issues in the West today. 

Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2016. 323p.

By  Werner Riess

This book offers the first attempt at understanding interpersonal violence in ancient Athens. While the archaic desire for revenge persisted into the classical period, it was channeled by the civil discourse of the democracy. Forensic speeches, curse tablets, and comedy display a remarkable openness regarding the definition of violence. But in daily life, Athenians had to draw the line between acceptable and unacceptable behavior. They did so by enacting a discourse on violence in the performance of these genres, during which complex negotiations about the legitimacy of violence took place. Since discourse and reality were intertwined and the discourse was ritualized, actual violence might also have been partly ritualized. By still respecting the on-going desire to harm one’s enemy, this partial ritualization of violence helped restrain violence and thus contributed to Athens’ relative stability.

Berlin; Boston: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co,  2012.  492p.

By David Brion Davis

Homicide has many social and psychological implications that vary from culture to culture and which change as people accept new ideas concerning guilt, responsibility, and the causes of crime. A study of attitudes toward homicide is therefore a method of examining social values in a specific setting. Homicide in American Fiction, 1798–1860 is the first book to contrast psychological assumptions of imaginative writers with certain social and intellectual currents in an attempt to integrate social attitudes toward such diverse subjects as human evil, moral responsibility, criminal insanity, social causes of crime, dueling, lynching, the "unwritten law" of a husband's revenge, and capital punishment. In addition to works of literary distinction by Cooper, Hawthorne, Irving, and Poe, among others, Davis considers a large body of cheap popular fiction generally ignored in previous studies of the literature of this period. This is an engrossing study of fiction as a reflection of and a commentary on social problems and as an influence shaping general beliefs and opinions.

Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 196f 367p.

By Gene. D. Phillips

From the Introduction: “….In sum, this book presents an in-depth discussion of several gangster films, some of which are familiar members of the gangster genre, like John: Huston’s The Asphalt Jungle, and some that deserve to be better known, for example, Stephen Frears’s The Grifters. That a few meaningful books on the gangster film have appeared throughout the years demonstrates the continued interest in the genre….in this volume, I include some overlooked crime movies that deserve more attention than they have received. In addition, I have interviewed film directors, as well as other artists and technicians, associated with the films I treat. I also focus on some more recent movies, along with some from the classic period. These later movies are reminders that the gangster genre is still with us and is not going away.

NY. Rowman & Littlefield. 2014. 204p. CONTAINS MARK-UP

By Anthony Trollope

Barchester Towers is a novel by English author Anthony Trollope published by Longmans in 1857. It is the second book in the Chronicles of Barsetshire series, preceded by The Warden and followed by Doctor Thorne. Among other things it satirises the antipathy in the Church of England between High Church and Evangelicaladherents. Trollope began writing this book in 1855. He wrote constantly and made himself a writing-desk so he could continue writing while travelling by train. "Pray know that when a man begins writing a book he never gives over", he wrote in a letter during this period. "The evil with which he is beset is as inveterate as drinking – as exciting as gambling". In his autobiography, Trollope observed "In the writing of Barchester Towers I took great delight. The bishop and Mrs. Proudie were very real to me, as were also the troubles of the archdeacon and the loves of Mr. Slope". When he submitted his finished work, his publisher, William Longman, initially turned it down, finding much of it to be full of "vulgarity and exaggeration".[1

London. Longmans. 1857. 559p.

By Charles Dickens

From Wikipedia: “Hard Times: For These Times (commonly known as Hard Times) is the tenth novel by Charles Dickens, first published in 1854. The book surveys English society and satirises the social and economic conditions of the era. Hard Times is unusual in several ways. It is by far the shortest of Dickens's novels, barely a quarter of the length of those written immediately before and after it.[1] Also, unlike all but one of his other novels, Hard Times has neither a preface nor illustrations. Moreover, it is his only novel not to have scenes set in London.[1] Instead the story is set in the fictitious Victorian industrial Coketown, a generic Northern English mill-town, in some ways similar to Manchester, though smaller. Coketown may be partially based on 19th-century Preston. One of Dickens's reasons for writing Hard Times was that sales of his weekly periodical Household Words were low, and it was hoped the novel's publication in instalments would boost circulation – as indeed proved to be the case. Since publication it has received a mixed response from critics.

London. Chapman and Hal. 1905. 304p.