The Cliff

Barry Lyndon is a picaresque novel by William Makepeace Thackeray, first published as a serial in Fraser's Magazine in 1844, about a member of the Irish gentry trying to become a member of the English aristocracy. Thackeray, who based the novel on the life and exploits of the Anglo-Irish rake and fortune-hunter Andrew Robinson Stoney, later reissued it under the title The Memoirs of Barry Lyndon, Esq. The novel is narrated by Lyndon himself, who functions...

Poe's stature as a major figure in world literature is based on his ingenious and profound poems, which established a highly influential rationale for the short form in poetry. Poe was also the principal forerunner of the "art for art's sake" movement in 19th-century literature. He demonstrated a brilliant command of language and technique as well as an inspired and original imagination. Poe's poetry greatly influenced the French Symbolists of the...

The consulting detective, Sherlock Holmes, and his faithful companion Dr. Watson, are two of fiction's most intriguing figures. This volume contains all four Sherlock Holmes novels - A Study in Scarlet, The Sign of the Four, The Hound of the Baskervilles and The Valley of Fear - as well as all the short stories originally collected in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. Facing down Victorian villains and elusive criminals...

Walter Whitman was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse. His work was controversial in its time, particularly his 1855 poetry collection Leaves of Grass, which was described as obscene for its overt sensuality. Whitman's...

Presents the traditional poem describing the visit of Santa Claus on Christmas Eve.

In the dimly lit alleys of Victorian London, a dense fog cloaks the city, wrapping its secrets in an enigmatic shroud. The air is thick with anticipation as a mysterious letter arrives at 221B Baker Street, the famed residence of the unparalleled detective, Sherlock Holmes. The sender, a shadowy figure known only as "The Midnight Scribe," beckons Holmes and his ever-loyal companion, Dr. John Watson, into a web of intrigue that will test the limits...

A brief biographical sketch of Franklin's life, followed by a collection (published in 1899) of 670 aphorisms, apothegms, or proverbs - short, pithy, instructive sayings - that were scattered throughout the pages of his Poor Richard's Almanack over its 25 years of once-a-year publication (1732-1758). Many of these sayings are familiar to all . . . "a penny saved is a penny earned" . . . "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush" . . . but there...

The Murders in the Rue Morgue" is a short story written by Edgar Allan Poe in 1841. Poe referred to it as a "tale of ratiocination" featuring the brilliant deductions of C. Auguste Dupin; it is today regarded as one of the first detective stories and is almost certainly the first locked room mystery. Auguste Dupin is a man in Paris who solves the mystery of the brutal murder of two women. Edgar Allan Poe was an American writer, poet, editor, and...

Herbert George Wells was an English writer. Prolific in many genres, he wrote dozens of novels, short stories, and works of social commentary, history, satire, biography, and autobiography. His work also included two books on recreational war games. Wells is now best remembered for his science fiction novels and is often called the "father of science fiction", along with Jules Verne. During his own lifetime, however, he was most prominent as a forward-looking,...

In The War of the Worlds (1898) H. G. Wells invented the myth of invasion from outer space. Martians land near London, conquering all before them, and ruin the metropolis; the fate of civilization and even of the human race remains in doubt until the very last..