H. Rider Haggard

Another of Henry Rider Haggard's renowned action-adventure tales, Nada the Lily tells the story of revered warrior Umslopogaas, an illegitimate son of the Zulu monarch Chaka, who is forced into exile and must fight to defend his honor -- as well as to win the love of the sought-after and seemingly unattainable beauty Nada. With plenty of battlefield action and stirring romance, this rollicking tale has something to offer every reader.

A series of misadventures lead Englishman Thomas Wingfield to join a Spanish expedition to New Spain. There he witnesses the first meeting between the conquerers and the natives, and the many abuses of the latter at the hands of the former. He marries the daughter of a native king, only to see his native family killed. He wreaks his revenge before returning to England.

"A peculiarly thrilling and vigorous tale of adventure."—Andrew Lang "It goes and it grips and it moves with all the freshness of youth."—Rudyard Kipling When Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island was first published, H. Rider Haggard made a five-shilling bet that he could write a better adventure tale. In 1885, he created King Solomon's Mines, a story in which Allan Quatermain, a gentleman adventurer, is hired to locate a man who had disappeared into the heart of Africa while hunting for the legendary lost diamond mines of King Solomon. The book became an instant sensation and has remained popular ever since. Tales of adventure in exotic settings were the hallmark of Haggard's art; and King Solomon's Mines was no exception. Here were all the elements for which his novels were famous: a gripping tale in a foreign setting, supernatural adventures, terror, passion, and discovery. Praised as "the most amazing story ever written," the book went on to become one of the best-selling novels of the nineteenth century.

Allan Quartermain is a sequel to the famous novel King Solomon's Mines. Quatermain has lost his only son and longs to get back into the wilderness. Having persuaded Sir Henry Curtis, Captain John Good, and the Zulu chief Umbopa to accompany him, they set out from the coast of east Africa, this time in search of a white race reputed to live north of Mount Kenya. They survive fierce encounters with Masai warriors, undergo a terrifying subterranean journey, and discover a lost civilization before being caught up in a passionate love-triangle that engulfs the country in a ferocious civil war. This novel is based on author's own experience in the African continent. Excerpt: 'I have just buried my boy, my poor handsome boy of whom I was so proud, and my heart is broken. It is very hard having only one son to lose him thus, but God's will be done. Who am I that I should complain? The great wheel of Fate rolls on like a Juggernaut, and crushes us all in turn, some soon, some late it does not matter when, in the end, it crushes us all. We do not prostrate ourselves before it like the poor Indians; we fly hither and thither we cry for mercy; but it is of no use, the black Fate thunders on and in its season reduces us to powder. 'Poor Harry to go so soon! just when his life was opening to him. He was doing so well at the hospital, he had passed his last examination with honours, and I was proud of them, much prouder than he was, I think. And then he must needs go to that smallpox hospital. He wrote to me that he was not afraid of smallpox and wanted to gain the experience; and now the disease has killed him, and I, old and grey and withered, am left to mourn over him, without a chick or child to comfort me. I might have saved him, too-I have money enough for both of us, and much more than enough-King Solomon's Mines provided me with that; but I said, "No, let the boy earn his living, let him labour that he may enjoy rest." But the rest has come to him before the labour. Oh, my boy, my boy!

The boy receiving this unmerciful punishment had been discovered riding the blind-baggage on the long, dust-covered train of Canadian Pacific coaches that had just come to a stop.

I quite recognise the force of your objection that an invalid or a woman in weak health would get no good from stories which attempt to treat some features of medical life with a certain amount of realism. If you deal with this life at all, however, and if you are anxious to make your doctors something more than marionettes, it is quite essential that you should paint the darker side, since it is that which is principally presented to the surgeon or physician.

Hurriedly he finished brushing his hair and raced downstairs to the dining room. His father was already at the table and waiting for the children to take their places. Mrs. Armstrong in the meanwhile was adding the finishing touches in setting the table. “Before you sit down, Ken,” his mother told him, “will you please go out and call Betty. She must be outside somewhere playing.”

Thomas Love Peacock's fantastic classic novel about Robin Hood's love Maid Marian has been enjoyed around the world for over 180 years.

For the simple reason that he is confident he has put you off the scent, was my companion's reply. "He is doing the one foolish thing the criminal always does sooner or later; that is to say, he is becoming over-confident of his own powers to elude us. You and I, my friend, should be able to remember several such instances. Now, strange to say, I came across a curious one the other day. Would you care to hear it?"

Warfare has become so largely a matter of science that in order to arrive at an intelligent understanding of the naval situation or of the military campaigns in the Great European War, a knowledge of the scientific factors contributing to victory or defeat is essential.

The reading-room of the Hotel de l’Univers et de Cheltenham was none too ample, and had seemed to Mr. Dosson from the first to consist principally of a highly-polished floor on the bareness of which it was easy for a relaxed elderly American to slip. It was composed further, to his perception, of a table with a green velvet cloth, of a fireplace with a great deal of fringe and no fire, of a window with a great deal of curtain and no light, and of the Figaro, which he couldn’t read, and the New York Herald, which he had already read.

Among my first passions was that for exploration. The Unknown—that region of mysteries lying upon the outskirts of commonplace environment—drew me with a mighty attraction. My earliest recollections are of wanderings into the domains of the neighbors, and of excursions—not infrequently in direct contravention to parental warnings—over fences, stone-walls, and roofs, and into cobwebbed attics, fragrant hay-lofts, and swaying tree-tops. Of my favorite tree, a sugar maple, I remember that, so thoroughly did I come to know every one of its branches, I could climb up or down unhesitatingly with eyes shut. At that advanced stage of acquaintance, however, it followed naturally that the mysteriousness, and hence the subtle attractiveness, of my friend the maple was considerably lessened.

In a little, we crept both of us so close to the door as the chests would allow, and there we crouched, listening; but could not tell what manner of thing it might be which produced so strange a noise. For it was neither shuffling, nor treading of any kind, nor yet was it the whirr of a bat's wings, the which had first occurred to me, knowing how vampires are said to inhabit the nights in dismal places.

It was an occasion, I felt — the prospect of a large party — to look out at the station for others, possible friends and even possible enemies, who might be going. Such premonitions, it was true, bred fears when they failed to breed hopes, though it was to be added that there were sometimes, in the case, rather happy ambiguities. One was glowered at, in the compartment, by people who on the morrow, after breakfast, were to prove charming; one was spoken to first by people whose sociability was subsequently to show as bleak; and one built with confidence on others who were never to reappear at all — who were only going to Birmingham. As soon as I saw Gilbert Long, some way up the platform, however, I knew him as an element.