By Edgar Allan Poe.
The discovery of a message in code on a shoreline formerly infested with pirates sends William Legrand and his friends on a hunt for buried treasure.
London: Routledge, 1891. 153p.
By Wilkie Collins.
This book is a 19th-century novel by the master of sensation fiction, Wilkie Collins. A country gentleman is killed in an accident and his wife dies shortly after him. The blow is double for their daughters, who discover that they were born before their parents were married. Their sudden illegitimacy robs them of their inheritance and their accustomed place in society.
New York: Harper and Brothers, 1873. 622p.
By Wilkie Collins. .
A Novel . Two of the characters which appear in these pages -- "Rosamond," and "Uncle Joseph" -- had the good fortune to find friends everywhere who took a hearty liking to them. A more elaborately drawn personage in the story -- "Sarah Leeson" -- was, I think, less generally understood. The idea of tracing, in this character, the influence of a heavy responsibility on a naturally timid woman, whose mind was neither strong enough to bear it, nor bold enough to drop it altogether, was a favorite idea with me, at the time, and is so much a favorite still, that I privately give "Sarah Leeson" the place of honor in the little portrait-gallery which my story contains.
London: Bradbury and Evans, 1857. 322p.
By G.K. Chesterton.
When two men decide to fight for their respective beliefs, they discover to their astonishment that an unbelieving world won’t let them, and they find themselves partners and fugitives from the law in this steampunk satire. Penned by G.K. Chesterton in 1909, this whimsical and biting novel eerily foreshadows a world in which “tolerance” is the only god and all those who believe ideas are worth dying for are forced to stand together to defend freedom of speech and belief.
New York: J. Lane, 1909. 436p.
By G.K. Chesterton.
It is very difficult to classify The Man Who Was Thursday. It is possible to say that it is a gripping adventure story of murderous criminals and brilliant policemen; but it was to be expected that the author of the Father Brown stories should tell a detective story like no-one else. On this level, therefore, The Man Who Was Thursday succeeds superbly; if nothing else, it is a magnificent tour-de-force of suspense-writing. However, the reader will soon discover that it is much more than that. Carried along on the boisterous rush of the narrative by Chesterton’s wonderful high-spirited style, he will soon see that he is being carried into much deeper waters than he had planned on; and the totally unforeseeable denouement will prove for the modern reader, as it has for thousands of others since 1908 when the book was first published, an inevitable and moving experience, as the investigators finally discover who Sunday is.
Bristol: J.W. Arrowsmith, 1908. 329p.
By Gaston Leroux.
Young engineer Raymond Ozoux, accompanied by his uncle, arrives in Peru to meet his fiancée, Marie-Thérèse. Meanwhile, descendents of the Incas are preparing a great feast during which a virgin will be sacrificed to the Sun, walled up alive in a secret temple. At the same time, a mysterious Inca bracelet is sent to Marie-Thérèse purporting to be a gift of the Sun to his future bride.. The young girl is then kidnapped by the Incas and Raymond, his uncle and Marie-Thérèse's father set out on a trek across Peru to free her while a revolution shakes the country.
NY. Harrow and Heston Classic Reprint. (1912) 177 pages.
By Gaston Leroux.
Excerpt: “Excerpt: "The Nut lay on the scorching beach facing the terrible sea in which the hungry sharks, the warders of his prison, were disporting. The convict was like a weary animal at rest. In truth, he had availed himself of the "relaxation" at ten o'clock to seek out a little fresh air and seclusion between two precipitous crags which cut him off from the rest of the convict settlement. If only he could live alone! No longer to hear anything. No longer to see anything! No longer to think of anything. But how could he help thinking of what he had seen, of what he had been compelled to see, that morning?"
NY. Harrow and Heston Classic Reprint. (1924) 191 pages.
By Charles Dickens..
This is a rare detective story of Charles Dickens. The main character is a smart and attentive man named Sampson. One day he sees a strange Mr. Julius Silton in his office acting strangely as though he is hiding something. Sampson suspects that a crime is occurring and and from this point he becomes a real hunter of criminals. The story's antagonist is probably based on the real life of poisoner Thomas Wainewright.
NY. Harrow and Heston Classic Reprint. (1859) 39 pages.
By Charles Dickens.
This is Dickens’ tenth novel, published without illustrations, in Household Word, his weekly journal. Dickens continues to fly the banner of social reform, touching on themes of industrialization, education, and utilitarianism in the sweeping Industrial Revolution of the 1850's.
NY. Harrow and Heston Classic Reprint. (1854) 302 pages.