H. P. Lovecraft

When a traveller in north central Massachusetts takes the wrong fork at the junction of Aylesbury pike just beyond Dean’s Corners he comes upon a lonely and curious country. The ground gets higher, and the brier-bordered stone walls press closer and closer against the ruts of the dusty, curving road. The trees of the frequent forest belts seem too large, and the wild weeds, brambles and grasses attain a luxuriance not often found in settled regions. At the same time the planted fields appear singularly few and barren; while the sparsely scattered houses wear a surprisingly uniform aspect of age, squalor, and dilapidation.

A road novel fifty years before Kerouac, The Valley of the Moon traces the odyssey of Billy and Saxon Roberts from the labor strife of Oakland at the turn of the century through Central and Northern California in search of land they can farm independently—a journey that echoes Jack London's own escape from urban poverty. As London lost hope in the prospects of the socialist party and organized labor, he began researching a scientific and environmentally sound approach to farming. In his novel, it is Saxon, London's most fully realized heroine, who embodies these concerns. The Valley of the Moon is London's paean to his second wife Charmian and to the pastoral life and his ranch in Glen Ellen, the Valley of the Moon.

Melmoth the Wanderer is an 1820 Gothic novel by Irish playwright, novelist and clergyman Charles Maturin. The novel's title character is a scholar who sold his soul to the devil in exchange for 150 extra years of life, and searches the world for someone who will take over the pact for him, in a manner reminiscent of the Wandering Jew.

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The Modern Library recently placed Sons and Lovers ninth on their list of the 100 best novels of the 20th century. The autobiographical novel tells the story of Paul Morel, sensitive and talented son of an English coal miner in Nottinghamshire. His mother, Gertrude, the educated daughter of Puritanical middle-class parents, has married the miner in the heat of physical attraction. The marriage soon disintegrates; Walter Morel takes to drink and beats his wife and children, and Mrs. Morel pours all her possessive love upon her sons, especially Paul. The novel is concerned with Paul's painful introduction to the commercial world, his discovery of books and art, his growing discontent with his background of poverty and gloom, and his developing talent for painting. It records his lover affairs with Miriam and with Clara Dawes. Because of the strong bond of love between him and his mother, he is never able to give his affection wholly to either of the women. Sons and Lovers, which was attacked on its publication because of its frankness in dealing with sexual matters, is more naturalistic than Lawrence's later work. It is remarkable for its portrayal of English mining life, its vivid characterizations, and its poetic descriptions of nature.

When a traveller in north central Massachusetts takes the wrong fork at the junction of Aylesbury pike just beyond Dean’s Corners he comes upon a lonely and curious country. The ground gets higher, and the brier-bordered stone walls press closer and closer against the ruts of the dusty, curving road. The trees of the frequent forest belts seem too large, and the wild weeds, brambles and grasses attain a luxuriance not often found in settled regions. At the same time the planted fields appear singularly few and barren; while the sparsely scattered houses wear a surprisingly uniform aspect of age, squalor, and dilapidation.

Daphne is 'well-born, elegant, beautiful, and not especially bright'. In this, Yates' earliest collection of stories, we meet the Pleydell clan and encounter their high-spirited comic adventures. It is a world of Edwardian gentility and accomplished farce that brought the author instant fame when the stories appeared in 'Windsor Magazine'.

Regarded as the first gothic horror novel ever written, The Castle of Otranto is a dark, thrilling tale, delightfully shocking for its time and hugely influential. A fantastic, provocative and playful tale of medieval dynastic and sexual politics, The Castle of Otranto is regarded as the first ever published gothic novel and has inspired authors from Edgar Allan Poe to J.K. Rowling. Abounding with unfulfilled prophecies, supernatural occurrences, adventure, suspense and destiny it follows the fortunes of the royal family of Sicily in the thirteenth century. Prince Conrad is crushed to death on the day of his wedding to the beautiful Princess Isabella. Heirless – and terrified of an ancient prophecy that foretells the downfall of his dynasty – his father, King Manfred, divorces his wife and resolves to marry the princess himself. Far from enamoured with her new fiancé, Isabella flees the royal castle and makes for the sanctuary of a nearby church with the help of the humble Theodore. When the pair is captured their respective fates seem inescapable; but at the moment of Theodore's death, delivery comes from the most unexpected of places.

The loud speaker whined through laboratories, permeated kitchens, rasped in corridors. In the service corridor of Medicine Clinic the orderly rolling the laundry bin halted to listen and expectorate. Four floors above, Cub Sterling pulled in his long stride and reached for a nurse’s desk ’phone. His voice pushed through the mouthpiece and almost immediately severed the monotonous breathing of the loud speaker.

Eden Phillpotts (1862-1960) was an English novelist, poet, and dramatist. He was the author of many novels, plays and poems about Dartmoor. He was for many years the President of the Dartmoor Preservation Association and cared passionately about the conservation of Dartmoor. He also wrote a series of novels each set against the background of a different trade or industry. Although mainly a novelist, he also wrote several plays, the most famous being Yellow Sands. Late in his long writing career he wrote a few books of interest to science fiction readers. Amongst his other works are Lying Prophets (1896), Children of the Mist (1898), The Spinners (1918), The Grey Room (1921), The Red Redmaynes (1922) and The Torch and Other Tales (1929).

"When you sell a man a book," says Roger Mifflin, protagonist of these classic bookselling novels, "you don't sell him just twelve ounces of paper and ink and glue you sell him a whole new life." The new life the itinerant bookman delivers to Helen McGill, the narrator of Parnassus on Wheels, provides the romantic comedy that drives the novel. Published in 1917, Morley's first love letter to the traffic in books remains a transporting entertainment. Its sequel, The Haunted Bookshop, finds Mifflin and McGill, now married, ensconced in Brooklyn. The novel's rollicking plot provides ample doses of diversion, while allowing more room for Mifflin (and Morley) to expound on the intricacy of the bookseller's art. Introduction by James Mustich, Jr.