Description

After the conviction of two prominent politicians for sedition, Dumas’s story focuses on the trial of an accused collaborator: one Cornelius van Baerle, whose only wish is to grow his tulips in peace. His crowning achievement is set to be the impossible black tulip, a feat worth one hundred thousand guilders from the Horticultural Society of Haarlem, but before he can sprout the bulb he’s imprisoned with only the daughter of the prison warden to give him a glimmer of hope.

Set a few decades after the tulip mania of the 1630s, Alexandre Dumas’s novel opens with a historical incident: the mob killing of Johan and Cornelius de Witt, then high up in the government. Dumas successfully balances the romance of the protagonist’s love for both the heroine and his precious tulip with a quest to prove his innocence and thwart the schemes of his rival tulip-fancier Boxtel. The Black Tulip was originally published in three volumes in French in 1850; presented here is the 1902 translation by publisher P. F. Collier & Son.

Description

Set in 12th-century England, Prince John rules while his brother King Richard is away during the Crusades. During his reign, Prince John and others of Norman nobility abuse their power over the Saxons, forcing Saxons off their lands and many Saxon nobles into serfdom.

Ivanhoe, a man disowned by his own Saxon father for going to war alongside the Norman King Richard, returns from the Crusades in disguise and appears in a tournament at Ashby. After revealing himself, Prince John and his advisors learn that King Richard, too, has returned from the crusades.

Foiling Prince John’s plot against King Richard’s return to power, King Richard battles against Prince John’s allies, and executes the most guilty of his conspirators. After the events of the story, Ivanhoe leads a heroic career under King Richard until the king’s untimely death.

Ivanhoe is the first novel to feature the character Robin Hood, his merry men, and Friar Tuck, and serves as the basis for the portrayals of his character we still see in many modern adaptations.

Description

This work by H. G. Wells was first published in 1910. In contrast to Wells’ early speculative fiction works like The Time Machine, this is a comic novel set in the everyday world of the late Victorian and early Edwardian era in England. Despite the less than happy life-story of Mr. Polly, it is an amusing book, enlivened by Polly’s inventive attitude towards the English language.

Alfred Polly’s mother dies when he is only seven, and he is brought up by his father and a stern aunt. He is indifferently educated, and leaves school in his early teens to be employed as a draper’s assistant. As the years pass, he finds himself more and more disenchanted with his occupation, but it is too late to change it. Eventually his father dies and leaves him a legacy which may be enough to set up in business for himself. He sets up his own shop in a small town and stumbles into an unhappy marriage. The business is not profitable, and in his middle-age, unhappy and dyspeptic, Mr. Polly comes up with an idea to bring an end to his troubles. Things, however, do not go as he planned, and lead to an unexpected result.

Wells’ later work often displays his passion for social reform. Here, that passion is less obvious, but nevertheless he demonstrates his sympathy for middle-class people raised like Mr. Polly with but a poor education and trapped into either dead-end jobs or in failing retail businesses.

The History of Mr. Polly was well-received by critics at the time of publication and was subsequently made into both a film and two different BBC television serials.

Description

King Solomon’s Mines was published in September 1885, becoming an immediate best seller by tapping into people’s excitement for the unknown: in this case, the unexplored regions of Africa.

Haggard wrote the novel in a very short period, between six and sixteen months, on a bet with his brother to try to match Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island. In the process he created a new literary genre known as the “Lost World” genre, which would later influence other writers like Arthur Conan Doyle and H. P. Lovecraft.

The book tells the tale of Allan Quatermain, an adventurer and hunter, who is approached by Sir Henry Curtis and Captain Good to help them find Curtis’ lost brother, who went missing while trying to find the fabled King Solomon’s Mines.

This book has spawned multiple adaptations in the form of movies, comics, and TV shows.

Description

In this first full-length Arsène Lupin novel the gentleman-thief remains a shadowy figure for most of the novel, working two steps beyond the law with a hidden aim. To fight against this anti-hero, Leblanc introduces Isidore Beautrelet, the prodigious school-boy detective. Also making an appearance are old foes Detective Ganimard and (in yet another copyright-defeating name change) Holmlock Shears. The battle of wills that ensues pulls Isidore through rural France as he tries to get to the bottom of Lupin’s motives.

The Hollow Needle was originally serialized in the magazine Je Sais Tout from 1908 to 1909, and was translated into English in 1910. Arsène Lupin starred in many further stories and plays, and a direct sequel to this story, Le second visage d’Arsène Lupin, was written by Pierre Boileau and Pierre Ayraud in 1975.

Description

“This shop is haunted” reads the sign on the front of the bookshop; not by the ghost of a person from the past, but by the ghosts of all great literature which haunt all libraries and bookstores.

The owner of the bookshop is so focused on his books that he cannot see the unusual things that are going on in his shop. It takes a young advertising salesman who is seeking new business and the daughter of a rich client who has been sent to earn a living for herself in the bookshop to discover the plot that’s brewing amongst the bookshelves.

The Haunted Bookshop is a gentle mystery story which is full of wonderful literary references. It is set in the aftermath of the First World War before the Paris Peace Conference took place in an age where the “Lost and Found” columns are the place to look for significant information.

Description

It’s 1913, and war is on the horizon. The disgraced English aristocrat, Everard Dominey, is stumbling through East Africa when he comes across his old classmate and lookalike—the German Baron von Ragastein. Shortly after their chance encounter, Dominey returns to England. But is it really him, or a German secret agent, looking to infiltrate English society?

As Dominey attempts to resume his life, he must reacquaint himself with his insane and murderous wife, the passionate ex-lover that recognizes him, and uncover the mystery of the death that led to his exile.

Oppenheim’s classic spy-thriller was enormously popular when it was first published in 1920, selling over a million copies, and leading to three major motion pictures. It is featured on The Guardian’s list of “1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read.”

Description

Written in 1886, Kidnapped is an adventure novel set in Scotland in the mid-1700s, not long after the Jacobite rebellion in the Highlands which had attempted to set Bonnie Prince Charlie on the throne. This rebellion was put down brutally and afterwards the Government imposed strict controls on Highlanders, outlawing many clan leaders.

The protagonist of Stevenson’s novel is young David Balfour, who is in his late teens. David sets off from his hometown after the death of both of his parents to seek out his sole remaining relative, his uncle Ebenezer. Expecting to be welcomed, he is shocked by the hostile reception he is given by the old man, who is a hermit much despised by his neighbours. Ebenezer tricks young David and arranges for him to be kidnapped and taken to be sold into slavery. A series of unexpected events occur, however, and David finds himself at large in the Highlands, seeking the help of the outlaw Alan Breck Stewart, who entangles him in further complications.

Kidnapped is one of Stevenson’s most popular novels for young people, and has been adapted several times for movies and television.

Description

Originally published as a serial, Nostromo is set in a fictional South American country where the outbreak of civil war puts the mining town of Sulaco in turmoil. Giovanni Battista Fidanza, known as Nostromo, is given the task of smuggling out a large amount of silver to keep it from the revolutionaries.

Conrad was inspired to write the book when he read, in a sailor’s memoir, the tale of a man who singlehandedly stole a boatload of silver. He had first heard the same story a quarter of a century earlier as a young sailor.

Nostromo has met with critical acclaim: it is often regarded as Conrad’s greatest novel and Francis Scott Fitzgerald said he would rather have written Nostromo than any other novel.

Description

Published in 1920, The Forerunner: His Parables and Poems is the second collection of philosophical poetry and short stories by Lebanese author Khalil Gibran. A spiritual successor to The Madman, The Forerunner consists of 25 poems and parables relating to spirituality, love, our greater selves.