William Hope Hodgson

Hodgson wrote a trilogy consisting of Date 1965 Modern Warfare, The House on the Borderland, and The Ghost Pirates. The setting for The House on the Borderland is an ancient house in a lonely part of Ireland, where an old man lives alone with his sister and his pets. His diary is found and it tells the story of a huge cavern below the house filled with white pig like monsters. The old man has had to flight these creatures. He then sees his house in an alternate space-time plain that is isolated from the rest of his world. This haunting tale conveys intense isolations and loneliness.

William Hope Hodgson was born in Essex, England on November 15th, 1877. Over his short career he produced a large body of work which explored and covered many genres. From horror, to science fiction, to stories on the sea, where he had spent much of his early life. In 1899, at the age of 22, he opened W. H. Hodgson's School of Physical Culture, in Blackburn, England, offering tailored exercise regimes for personal training. Eventually the business shut down and he immersed himself in writing. An article in 1903 "Physical Culture versus Recreative Exercises" seems to be one of the first and the following year came his first short story "The Goddess of Death". It was the beginning of an intensely creative period in his life. When war drew its shadow over Europe Hodgson received a commission as a Lieutenant in the Royal Artillery. In 1916, he was thrown from a horse and suffered a serious head injury; he received a mandatory discharge, and returned to writing. Hodgson recovered sufficiently to re-enlist but at the Battle of Ypres in April 1918 he was killed by an artillery shell.

RIGHT AWAY in the west of Ireland lies a tiny hamlet called Kraighten. It is situated, alone, at the base of a low hill. Far around there spreads a waste of bleak and totally inhospitable country; where, here and there at great intervals, one may come upon the ruins of some long desolate cottage — unthatched and stark. The whole land is bare and unpeopled, the very earth scarcely covering the rock that lies beneath it, and with which the country abounds, in places rising out of the soil in wave-shaped ridges.

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.

With an Introduction and Notes by Keith Wren, University of Kent at Canterbury The story of Edmund Dantes, self-styled Count of Monte Cristo, is told with consummate skill. The victim of a miscarriage of justice, Dantes is fired by a desire for retribution and empowered by a stroke of providence. In his campaign of vengeance, he becomes an anonymous agent of fate. The sensational narrative of intrigue, betrayal, escape, and triumphant revenge moves at a cracking pace. Dumas' novel presents a powerful conflict between good and evil embodied in an epic saga of rich diversity that is complicated by the hero's ultimate discomfort with the hubristic implication of his own actions.

One of the most universally loved and admired English novels, Pride and Prejudice was penned as a popular entertainment. But the consummate artistry of Jane Austen (1775–1817) transformed this effervescent tale of rural romance into a witty, shrewdly observed satire of English country life that is now regarded as one of the principal treasures of English language. In a remote Hertfordshire village, far off the good coach roads of George III's England, a country squire of no great means must marry off his five vivacious daughters. At the heart of this all-consuming enterprise are his headstrong second daughter Elizabeth Bennet and her aristocratic suitor Fitzwilliam Darcy — two lovers whose pride must be humbled and prejudices dissolved before the novel can come to its splendid conclusion.

Memoirs of a Geisha is a novel by Arthur Golden, published in 1997. The novel, told in first person perspective, tells the fictional story of a geisha working in Kyoto, Japan, before and after World War II.

The Pastor's Son by William W. Walter

"Study hard and get good grades and you will find a high-paying job with great benefits," my parents used to say. Their goal in life was to provide a college education for my older sister and me, so that we would have the greatest chance for success in life. When T finally earned my diploma in 1976-graduating with honors, and near the top of my class, in accounting from Florida State University-my parents had realized their goal. It was the crowning achievement of their lives. In accordance with the "Master Plan," I was hired by a "Big 8" accounting firm, and I looked forward to a long career and retirement at an early age.

War and Peace , a Russian novel by Leo Tolstoy, is considered one of the most celebrated works of fiction.It is regarded, along with Anna Karenina (1873–1877), as Tolstoy's finest literary achievement. Epic in scale, War and Peace delineates in graphic detail events leading up to Napoleon's invasion of Russia, and the impact of the Napoleonic era on Tsarist society, as seen through the eyes of five Russian aristocratic families.

This book was originally published in \"penny dreadful\" form. This edition does not include the entire 109 episodes, which were published in three lengthy volumes, but this slightly condensed form conveys the full story and complete reading experience. Note that authorship has also been ascribed to James Malcolm Rymer. [812 pages]

If Only etc. by Augustus Harris

Orphaned as a young woman, Miss Billy has had to struggle to make her way in the world. After finding a place in the family of her late father's dear friend, William Henshaw, she falls in love with his brother Bertram and helps bring him out of his shell. The two become engaged to be married, and though they are compatible in many ways, Billy begins to fear that she is making a grave error. Will the pair find happiness after all?

Romance of the Three Kingdoms, written by Luo Guanzhong in the 14th century, is a Chinese historical novel based upon events in the turbulent years near the end of the Han Dynasty and the Three Kingdoms era of China, starting in 169 and ending with the reunification of the land in 280. Romance of the Three Kingdoms is acclaimed as one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature; it has a total of 800,000 words and nearly a thousand dramatic characters (mostly historical)in 120 chapters. It is arguably the most widely read historical novel in late imperial and modern China.