Missing diamonds, untouched safe, two blood smeared thumb prints and a mysterious Mr X. If these are present, Dr Thorndyke must be there too. Will he be able to solve this case? The Red Thumb Mark is the first novel of Freeman’s best-selling Thorndyke series. (Summary by Diana Majlinger)...

Mystery

The Plastic Age (1924) is a novel by Percy Marks, which tells the story of co-eds at a fictional college called Sanford. With contents that covered or implied hazing, partying, and petting, the book sold well enough to be the second best-selling novel of 1924. The following year, it was adapted into a film of the same name, starring Clara Bow....

Fiction

With international book sales in the millions, Ralph Connor was the best-known Canadian novelist of the first two decades of the Twentieth Century. Glengarry School Days (1902), hugely popular in its time, is based on his memories of growing up in rural Ontario around the time of Canadian confederation. Although Connor saw himself as writing moral fiction for adults, generations of younger readers have also enjoyed these affectionate and gently amusing sketches, and excerpts from Glengarry School Days have appeared in school anthologies. (Summary by Bruce Pirie)...

Fiction

Burning Daylight, Jack London's fictional novel published in 1910, was one of the best selling books of that year and it was his best selling book in his lifetime. The novel takes place in the Yukon Territory in 1893. The main character, nicknamed Burning Daylight was the most successful entrepreneur of the Alaskan Gold Rush. The story of the main character was partially based upon the life of Oakland entrepreneur Borax Smith. (Wikipedia)...

Adventure, Fiction

Trilby, published in 1894, fits into the gothic horror genre which was undergoing a revival during the Fin de siècle and is one of the most popular novels of its time, perhaps the second best selling novel of the Fin de siècle period after Bram Stoker's Dracula. The story of the poor artist's model Trilby O'Ferrall, transformed into a diva under the spell of the evil musical genius Svengali, created a sensation. Soap, songs, dances, toothpaste, and Trilby, Florida were all named for the heroine, and a variety of soft felt hat with an indented crown (worn in the London stage production of a dramatization of the novel) came to be called a trilby.

Fiction, Horror/Ghost stories

The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is the original title of a novel written by the Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson that was first published in 1886. It is about a London lawyer named Gabriel John Utterson who investigates strange occurrences between his old friend, Dr Henry Jekyll and the misanthropic Edward Hyde. The novella's impact is such that it has become a part of the language, with the phrase Jekyll and Hyde coming to mean a person who is vastly different in moral character from one situation to the next. Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde was an immediate success and is one of Stevenson's best-selling works. Stage adaptations began in Boston and London within a year of its publication and it has gone on to inspire scores of major film and stage performances. ( Summary by Wikipedia )...

Fiction, Horror/Ghost stories, Literature, Mystery, Short stories

May Agnes Fleming is renowned as Canada's first best-selling novelist. She wrote 42 novels, many of which have only been published posthumely. The Midnight Queen is set in London, in the year of the plague 1665. Sir Norman Kingsley visits the soothsayer La Masque who shows him the vision of a beautiful young lady. Falling madly in love with her, he is astonished to find her only a short time later and saves her from being buried alive. He takes her home to care for her, but while he fetches a doctor, she disappears. Sir Kingsley and his friend Ormistan embark on an adventure to solve the mystery of the young lady - will they ever find her again? (Summary by Availle)...

Fantasy, Mystery

By his own admission, Thomas Frost found it hard to make a living from his writing, and no doubt he used the name of Dickens in the title of this book to boost sales. Frost tells a good tale, and the book is not only of interest to enthusiasts of Dickens and the county of Kent. He includes some of Dickens' own descriptions of locations, as well as regaling us with anecdotes about towns and villages which he visits, including an account of the last armed rising on British soil - the Battle of Bossenden Wood. As well as accounts of his travels through the highways and byways of Kent in the footsteps of Dickens and his characters, he also wanders into the lanes of myth and legend, sometimes making up his own stories along the way. After managing to forgive his cardinal sin of confusing Men of Kent and Kentish Men in the first chapter, I found this rather odd mixture of memoir, short stories and literary travelogue a most enjoyable read. (Summary by Ruth Golding)...

Biography, Memoirs, Literature, Travel

An outbreak of plague in London forces a gentleman, Lovewit, to flee temporarily to the country, leaving his house under the sole charge of his butler, Jeremy. Jeremy uses the opportunity given to him to use the house as the headquarters for fraudulent acts. He transforms himself into 'Captain Face', and enlists the aid of Subtle, a fellow conman and Dol Common, a prostitute. In The Alchemist, Jonson unashamedly satirizes the follies, vanities and vices of mankind, most notably greed-induced credulity. People of all social classes are subject to Jonson's ruthless, satirical wit. He mocks human weakness and gullibility to advertising and to miracle cures with the character of Sir Epicure Mammon, who dreams of drinking the elixir of youth and enjoying fantastic sexual conquests. The Alchemist focuses on what happens when one human being seeks advantage over another. In a big city like London, this process of advantage-seeking is rife. The trio of con-artists - Subtle, Face and Dol - are self-deluding small-timers, ultimately undone by the same human weaknesses they exploit in their victims....

Comedy, Satire, Play

King Solomon’s Mines, first published in 1885, was a best-selling novel by the Victorian adventure writer H. Rider Haggard. It relates a journey into the heart of Africa by a group of adventurers led by Allan Quatermain in search of the legendary wealth said to be concealed in the mines of the novel’s title. It is significant as the first fictional adventure novel set in Africa, and is considered the genesis of the Lost World literary genre. - Haggard wrote over 50 books, among which were 14 novels starring Allan Quatermain. ( John Nicholson)...

Adventure

Common Sense, Paine's pro-independence monograph published anonymously on 10 January 1776, spread quickly among literate colonists. Within three months, 120,000 copies are alleged to have been distributed throughout the colonies, which themselves totaled only four million free inhabitants, making it the best-selling work in 18th-century America. Its total sales in both America and Europe reached 500,000 copies. It convinced many colonists, including George Washington and John Adams, to seek redress in political independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain, and argued strongly against any compromise short of independence. (Wikipedia)...

Essay/Short nonfiction, Politics

Horatio Alger, Jr. was well known for his best-selling series of books highlighting “the American Dream” of poor boys making good and becoming rich and successful through “luck and pluck”. Ragged Dick was the first in this niche, and follows the adventures of Dick Hunter, a ragged bootblack as he makes the decision to “grow up ’spectable”, and how he goes about achieving his goals through the help of his friends, his inherent honesty, and his belief in hard work and study. (Summary by Alice)...

Adventure, Children

At thirty-four Mr. Wrenn was the sales-entry clerk of the Souvenir Company. He was always bending over bills and columns of figures at a desk behind the stock-room. He was a meek little bachelor--a person of inconspicuous blue ready-made suits, and a small unsuccessful mustache. Mr. Wrenn, however has a rich inner life embellished by his own imagination. When he comes into a modest inheritance, he feels he ought to learn to get out and wander a bit, and then his education begins. He finds life more interesting, perhaps than he had imagined. . . (Introduction by Don Jenkins)...

Fiction, Comedy

The plot concerns two – literally starcrossed – lovers: Swithin St. Cleeve, a very young amateur astronomer, and Viviette Constantine, an unhappily married and abandoned woman 8 or 9 years his senior. Each night Swithin climbs the old tower of the title, in the grounds of the Constantine estate. Lady Constantine, whose husband has been absent some years on an extended hunting and exploring journey to Africa, joins the young man in his stargazing, and supports his astronomical ambitions by buying him equipment, though his dreams of scientific renown are disappointed.Their relationship then deepens and takes several twists and turns.(Summary by Tadhg)...

Fiction

If Winter Comes, was in many aspects ahead of its time, dealing with an unhappy marriage, eventual divorce, and an unwed mother who commits suicide. According to the New York Times, If Winter Comes was the best-selling book in the United States for all of 1922. ( Summary by Wikipedia )...

Fiction, Romance

In this collection of essays, Bruce Barton, considered to be among the most influential advertising men of the 20th century, uses history, religion and current events of the 1920s to teach common sense ideals. From Jesus to Beethoven to Napoleon to Abraham Lincoln, Barton uses stories of great individuals to encourage the reader to make the most of life and at the same time to build strong character traits. (Summary by Stephen Escalera)...

Essay/Short nonfiction

Neither the name of Shakespeare nor that of Stratford appears directly in this short piece by James, and yet both are absolutely central to his plot. The story has to do with Mr. and Mrs. Gedge, tempted away from a dreary northern town library, which he runs, to become the wardens – caretakers and tour guides – of the house where the greatest writer of the English language was born, and in which he grew up. Or did he? There is, after all, a paucity of facts about His life (in James's text, that pronoun is always capitalized, as befits a deity) and only the slenderest of historical evidence about the existence of such a man. No matter; what is important is the myth of his life, and the myth needs to be cared for and fostered so that crowds upon crowds of tourists may come, and, with a proper reverence, worship at His Birthplace. And yet it is only myth, and the more he thinks of it, the unhappier poor honest Gedge becomes (to Mrs. Gedge, however, a job is a job, and too much speculation on reality might perhaps lead to dismissal). James himself was high skeptical about the Shakespeare question (who actually did write all those plays?...

“Unless we are all mad, there is at the back of the most bewildering business a story: and if we are all mad, there is no such thing as madness. If I set a house on fire, it is quite true that I may illuminate many other people's weaknesses as well as my own. It may be that the master of the house was burned because he was drunk; it may be that the mistress of the house was burned because she was stingy, and perished arguing about the expense of the fire-escape. It is, nevertheless, broadly true that they both were burned because I set fire to their house. That is the story of the thing. The mere facts of the story about the present European conflagration are quite as easy to tell. (Summary by Gilbert Keith Chesterton)...

Essay/Short nonfiction

Padre Quadrupani was an Italian priest and member of the Clerics Regular of St. Paul, also known as the Barnabites, from their association with St. Barnabas Catholic Church in Milan, Italy. Quadrupani's spirituality is based on that of the illustrious Doctor of the Church, St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622). Like St. Francis, the Padre offers spiritual advice that is practical and balanced. Perhaps it is owing to this that Quadrupani's treatise has been so well received by Catholic laypersons and has been recommended by numerous bishops over the years. This English edition, Light and Peace, is introduced by The Most Rev. Patrick John Ryan, Archbishop of Philadelphia, and bears an imprimatur. It is generously augmented with excerpts from the writings of St. Francis de Sales, St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Bernard, Pope St. Gregory the Great, St. Philip Neri, Archbishop Francois Fenelon, Father Lorenzo Scupoli, and other spiritual authorities. (Summary by dave7)...

Religion, Instruction

Best known for his literary work The Blue Lagoon , which has been made into film several times over, H. De Vere Stacpoole’s first publication was a book titled The Intended in 1894. Stacpoole was disappointed at its lack of commercial success, and felt the story was too good to let go. He eventually re-worked the book, culminating in The Man Who Lost Himself , a light-hearted story of a luckless American visiting London on yet another of his failed business ventures, when he happens upon a gentleman of status and wealth, who also just happens to be his exact look-alike. (Summary by Roger Melin)...

Fiction