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The Lane Fleming collection of early pistols and revolvers was one of the best in the country. When Fleming was found dead on the floor of his locked gunroom, a Confederate-made Colt-type percussion .36 revolver in his hand, the coroner's verdict was death by accident. But Gladys Fleming had her doubts. Enough at any rate to engage Colonel Jefferson Davis Rand—better known just as Jeff—private detective and a pistol-collector himself, to catalogue, appraise, and negotiate the sale of her late husband's collection. There were a number of people who had wanted the collection. The question was: had anyone wanted it badly enough to kill Fleming? And if so, how had he done it? Here is a mystery, told against the fascinating background of old guns and gun-collecting, which is rapid-fire without being hysterical, exciting without losing its contact with reason, and which introduces a personable and intelligent new private detective. It is a story that will keep your nerves on a hair trigger even if you don't know the difference between a cased pair of Paterson .34's and a Texas .40 with a ramming-lever. (Summary from the text)...

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Mystery

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The Unbearable Bassington was the first novel written by Saki (H. H. Munro). It also contains much of the elegant wit found in his short stories. Comus (The Unbearable) Bassington, is a charming young man about town. His perversity however thwarts all his mother’s efforts to advance his prospects and lands him in hot water. Like many a “black sheep” he ends up being sent off to one of the colonies to fend for himself. This book showcases Saki’s wonderful writing and that ability to be so very funny and terribly sad at the same time. (Summary by Noel Badrian)...

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Fiction, Humor, Satire

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The Mudfog Papers was written by Victorian era novelist Charles Dickens and published from 1837–38 in the monthly literary serial Bentley's Miscellany, which he then edited. They were first published as a book as 'The Mudfog Papers and Other Sketches. The Mudfog Papers relates the proceedings of the fictional 'The Mudfog Society for the Advancement of Everything', a Pickwickian parody of the British Association for the Advancement of Science founded in York in 1831, one of the numerous Victorian learned societies dedicated to the advancement of Science. Like The Pickwick Papers, The Mudfog Papers claim affinity with Parliamentary reports, memoirs, and posthumous papers. The serial was illustrated by George Cruikshank. The fictional town of Mudfog was based on Chatham in Kent, where Dickens spent part of his youth. Mudfog was described by Dickens as being the town where Oliver Twist was born and spent his early years when the story first appeared in 'Bentley's Miscellany' in February 1837, making it a continuation of The Mudfog Papers, but this allusion was removed when the story was printed in book form. At the conclusion of his fir...

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Fiction, Short stories

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Upton Sinclair is best known for his novel The Jungle, an expose of the meatpacking industry. He was also a playwright whose works for the stage reflected the same progressive viewpoints found in his other writing. In The Machine, published as part of Sinclair's 1912 collection Plays of Protest, Socialist activists show a rich man's daughter the truth about the society in which she has been raised. (Summary by wildemoose)...

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Play, Politics

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This reading is in Hebrew.Yosef Haim Brenner (murdered by Arab terrorists in 1921 at the age of 40) presented in his book From Here and There a piercing, soul searching portrayal of the second aliyah, the dominant immigration into Palestine at the beginning of the twentieth century. The following words have influenced many at the time, and are still thought to represent Brenner's literary will: Life is bad, but always secret ... Death is bad. The world is conflicted, but also diverse, and sometimes beautiful. The world is miserable, but can also be wonderful. The nation of Israel, by the rules of logic, has no future. One must, nonetheless, work. So long as you have a soul, there are sublime acts and uplifting moments. Long live Hebrew human labor! (Summary by Omri Lernau)...

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Fiction

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A collection of 48 wonderful English language stories from Sholem Alechem, I. L. Perez, Shalom Asch, and others. Tales of humour and drama, tragedy and pathos set mostly in the Jewish communities of 19th-century eastern Europe, Russia, and the Ukraine. Translated from Yiddish by Helena Frank. (Summary by Adrian Praetzellis)...

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Short stories

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Not only is The House of the Vampire (1907) one of the first known gay vampire stories, but it is also one of the first psychic vampire stories—where a vampire feeds off more than just blood....

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Horror/Ghost stories

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Following a failed love affair in England, Lady Bridget O'Hara accepts an invitation to travel to colonial Australia as companion to Lady Rosamund Tallant, the wife of the newly-appointed governor of Leichardt's Land. In Leichardt's Town, Lady Bridget, also known as Biddy, is reunited with her old friend and collaborator, Joan Gildea, special correspondent for The Imperialist newspaper. While visiting Joan, Biddy meets Colin McKeith, a roughly-hewn, Scottish-born pioneer, drover, miner, sometime-politician, and magistrate in the north-eastern colony. Biddy and Colin fall in love: she with the adventure a life with him promises, he with an ideal of her noble heritage. In spite of Joan Gildea's misgivings, Biddy and Colin are soon married and leave Leichardt's Town to travel several days north to Colin's cattle property in a region known as the Leura. As Biddy and Colin embark on their life together, the contemporary issues of colonial Australia are revealed: the extreme environment, labour shortages and organisation, police brutality, immigration policy, and the plight of Australia's First Peoples. The couple discover fundamental dif...

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Fiction

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Shakespeare’s sonnets comprise a collection of 154 poems in sonnet form that deal with such themes as love, beauty, politics, and mortality. (Summary from wikipedia.org)...

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Poetry

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In the course of time a very considerable public feeling was aroused in the United States and Canada over this state of affairs. The lack of reciprocity in it seemed unfair. It was felt (or at least I felt) that the time had come when some one ought to go over and take some impressions off England. The choice of such a person (my choice) fell upon myself. By an arrangement with the Geographical Society of America, acting in conjunction with the Royal Geographical Society of England (to both of whom I communicated my proposal), I went at my own expense. And from thence follow the impressions of Canadian political economist and humourist, Stephen Leacock, after a lecturing visit to England. (Summary by the author & TriciaG)...

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Humor, Essay/Short nonfiction

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I propose to discuss in what follows the evil of the great modern Capitalist Press, its function in vitiating and misinforming opinion and in putting power into ignoble hands; its correction by the formation of small independent organs, and the probably increasing effect of these last. (Introduction by Hilaire Belloc)...

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Politics

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The poet Katherine Philips was called The Matchless Orinda in her day and was well known for her works, both personal and political. She was a staunch Royalist (a supporter of Charles I and his son during the English Civil Wars) and wrote poetic defenses of the monarchy. She was also part of a literary coterie, in which she and her friends had code names. Philips herself was Orinda, her husband Antenor, and her friend Anne Owen Lucasia. She is perhaps best known today for her passionate poems celebrating female friendship. (Summary by Elizabeth Klett)...

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Poetry

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A defense of the Christian faith delivered by St. Justin Martyr to the Roman Senate in the second century AD (Summary by IWYLLPA)

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Religion

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A political society secretly operates in Baltimore. When he tries to help his beautiful neighbor Miss Calhoun recover a stolen ring which might cause great unknown danger, Mr. Abbott is drawn into the midst of the conspiracy. (Introduction by Carolin)...

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Mystery, Fiction

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Publisher's Note.—This address was delivered shortly after Mr. Darrow's triumphant acquittal on a charge growing out of his defense of the McNamaras at Los Angeles, California. The man, the subject and the occasion makes it one of the greatest speeches of our time. It is the hope of the publishers that this message of Mr. Darrow's may reach the millions of men, women and youth of our country, that they may see the labor problem plainer and that they may receive hope and inspiration in their efforts to make a better and juster world. -Paul Turner, Otto Newman,
Julius Knispel....

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Advice, Essay/Short nonfiction, Politics

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The Wit and Humor of America is a 10 volume series. In this, the fourth volume, 40 short stories and poems have been gathered from 33 authors. This volume is sure to delight listeners. (Summary by Linette Geisel)...

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Humor, Fiction, Satire, Politics, Comedy, Poetry

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The Prince (Italian: Il Principe) is a political treatise by the Italian diplomat, historian and political theorist Niccolò Machiavelli. The descriptions within The Prince have the general theme of accepting that ends of princes, such as glory, and indeed survival, can justify the use of immoral means to achieve those ends....

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Advice, Instruction, Politics

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What Is Man?, published by Mark Twain in 1906, is a dialogue between a young man and an older man jaded to the world. It involves ideas of destiny and free will, as well as of psychological egoism. The Old Man asserted that the human being is merely a machine, and nothing more. The Young Man objects, and asks him to go into particulars and furnish his reasons for his position. This collection of short stories covers a wide range of Twain's interests: the serious, the political and the ironically humorous. (Summary by Wikipedia and John Greenman)...

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Essay/Short nonfiction, Fiction, Satire

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Shakespeare’s Sonnets , or simply The Sonnets , comprise a collection of 154 poems in sonnet form written by William Shakespeare that deal with such themes as love, beauty, politics, and mortality. The poems were probably written over a period of several years. (Summary from wikipedia)...

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Poetry

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Framed for a murder he did not commit, John North must rely on his friends to help clear him of the charge. But, are they really his friends? Many have dirty little secrets they wish to keep private, even at the expense of John North’s life. Ironically, those keeping quiet include members of the legal profession. Only one drunken man knows the true identity of the killer but he has mysteriously disappeared. Deceit and betrayal flourish in this story, with a tense conclusion. (Introduction by Tom Weiss)...

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Mystery