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A tale of mystery, romance, and honor, as David Carrigan must choose between his duty as an officer of the law and a girl who holds him captive; a girl who Carrigan thinks he may have fallen in love with no less! Who is this strange girl Jean-Marie, and why won't she give him his freedom? And who are the people that she surrounds herself with along the great Canadian rivers and wilderness barrens and forests of the northwest? Summary by Roger Melin....

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Adventure, Mystery, Romance

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The dead body of a man is found on the steps to some chambers of Middle Temple Lane, near London's law courts. A journalist and a young lawyer start investigating. - This classic English murder mystery was written in 1920 by J.S. Fletcher, himself a lawyer turned journalist and author. (Summary by Gesine)...

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Mystery

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Ill feelings exist between the Meadowcroft sons and John Jago, the foreman of the Meadowcroft estate. Then, John Jago disappears, and a body is found in a kiln. The Meadowcroft brothers stand accused of the crime, but are they guilty? The Dead Alive is a novel written by Wilkie Collins based on the true-life Boorn Brothers murder conviction case of 1819. Jesse and Stephen Boorn were sentenced to death for the murder of their brother-in-law, but were they wrongly convicted? (Summary by M Z Spark, Phil, and Barry)...

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Fiction, Tragedy

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Here we were, only a month married, and spending our honeymoon at a most charming summer resort, where there was no excuse for getting out of patience. Everything was beautiful and attractive: Little hotel, strange to say, quite delightful; no fault to find with surroundings and accommodations; my darling Bessie, as sweet as an angel and determined to be happy and to make me happy; everything, in short, calculated to give us a long summer of delight. That is, if Bessie had only been an orphan. But there was her mother, who had joined us on our summer trip, after the first two weeks of unalloyed happiness, and threatened to accompany us through life. (excerpt from chapter 1)...

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Fiction

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Jeremy Garnet, a second-rate novelist, gets talked into joining his old pal Stanley Featheringstonehaugh Ukridge in an insane plan to start a chicken ranch. Garnet should bail out on his crazy friend, but he falls in love with one of Ukridge's neighbors, Phyllis. Soon he is up to his neck in sick chickens, bad debts, a hostile future father-in-law, a sinister plot, and dirty golf. It all gets a bit thick, what? (Summary by Mark Nelson)...

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Comedy

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Someone had to take the bank notes to Pittsburgh and take a statement from John Gilmore confirming that they were indeed forged. It was McKnight's turn to go, but he was bagging off because he wanted to spend the weekend visiting Alison West in Richmond. And so his law partner, Lawrence Blakeley, is left with no choice but to make the trip himself. All goes well at first, but on the train home, Blakeley wakes to find that the notes, along with his clothes, are missing from his sleeping berth. It was an eventful night. In addition to the theft, there's been a murder in the berth across, and when the weapon is found under Blakeley's pillow, he becomes one of the prime suspects. (Summary by MaryAnn)...

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Published as a serial in 1875, Roderick Hudson is James's first important novel. The theme of Americans in Europe, so important in much of James's work, is already central to the story. Hudson is a young law student in Northampton, Massachusetts, who shows such surprising ability as a sculptor that the rich Rowland Mallett, visiting a cousin in Northampton, decides to stake him to several years of study in Rome, then a center of expatriate American society. The story has to do not only with Roderick's growth as an artist and the problems it brings, but also as a man susceptible to his new environment, and indeed his occasional rivalries with his American friend and patron. Interestingly enough, at least two of the book's characters made sufficient impression on James that he brought them back in other books: the French-Italian-Yankee sculptor, Gloriani, who appears later in The American, and Christina Light, the American who becomes the subject of Princess Casamassima, one of James's later (and much longer) novels. (Introduction by Nicholas Clifford)...

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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

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A biography of Abraham Lincoln by his long-time law partner, William Herndon and Herndon's collaborator, Jesse Weik. The book is notable for its extensive use of first hand interviews (unusual for its time) and for Herndon's overriding determination to convey an affectionate but frank picture of his law partner's life story as remembered by Lincoln's family, friends, associates and neighbors. (Summary by RalphK)...

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Biography

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A mysterious young widow arrives at Wildfell Hall, an Elizabethan mansion which has been empty for many years, with her young son. She lives there under an assumed name, Helen Graham, and very soon finds herself the victim of local slander. Refusing to believe anything scandalous about her, Gilbert Markham discovers her dark secrets. In her diary Helen writes about her husband's physical and moral decline through alcohol and the world of debauchery and cruelty from which she has fled. This passionate novel of betrayal is set within a moral framework tempered by Anne's optimistic belief in universal salvation. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is mainly considered to be one of the first sustained feminist novels. May Sinclair, in 1913, said that the slamming of Helen's bedroom door against her husband reverberated throughout Victorian England. In escaping from her husband, she violates not only social conventions, but also English law....

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Play

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Ethelberta was raised in humble circumstances but became a governess and consequently, at the age of 18, married well. However, her husband died two weeks after the wedding. Her father-in-law, Lord Petherwin, died shortly afterwards. Ethelberta (now 21) lives with her mother-in-law, Lady Petherwin. In the three years that have elapsed since her marriage, Ethelberta has been treated to foreign travel and further privileges by Lady Petherwin but restricted from seeing her own family. The story follows Ethelberta's career as a famous poetess and storyteller. Meanwhile, she struggles to support her family and conceal the fact that her father is a butler. Ethelberta easily attracts four very persistent suitors but is reluctant to give her much-coveted hand. The book is written in serial form. (Summary by Simon Evers)...

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Fiction

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Anna Katharine Green was one of the first female mystery writers to publish under her own name. She was never very successful as an author, but the technical excellence of her books caused several law schools to use The Leavenworth Case as a textbook in some of their classes, as an example of how misleading circumstantial evidence can be....

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Mystery

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This short Old Testament book tells the story of Naomi and Ruth, Naomi's daughter-in-law and great-grandmother of King David. (Summary by TriciaG)

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Religion, History

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THAT a secret society, based upon the lines of similar institutions so notorious on the Continent during the last century, could ever have existed in the London of our day may seem impossible. Such a society, however, not only did exist, but through the instrumentality of a woman of unparalleled capacity and genius, obtained a firm footing. A century ago the Brotherhood of the Seven Kings was a name hardly whispered without horror and fear in Italy, and now, by the fascinations and influence of one woman, it began to accomplish fresh deeds of unparalleled daring and subtlety in London. By the wide extent of its scientific resources, and the impregnable secrecy of its organisations, it threatened to become a formidable menace to society, as well as a source of serious anxiety to the authorities of the law. (excerpt from The Brotherhood of the Seven Kings )...

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Mystery

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The Agricola (Latin: De vita et moribus Iulii Agricolae, lit. On the life and character of Julius Agricola) is a book by the Roman historian Tacitus, written c 98, which recounts the life of his father-in-law Gnaeus Julius Agricola, an eminent Roman general. It also covers, briefly, the geography and ethnography of ancient Britain. As in the Germania, Tacitus favorably contrasts the liberty of the native Britons to the corruption and tyranny of the Empire; the book also contains eloquent and vicious polemics against the rapacity and greed of Rome. This translation by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb, was first published in 1877. (Summary from Wikipedia.)...

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History, Biography

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The Epistle of James is a book in the Christian New Testament. The author identifies himself as James (James 1:1), traditionally understood as James the Just, the brother of Jesus, first of the Seventy Disciples and first Bishop of Jerusalem. With no overriding theme, the text condemns various sins and calls on Christians to be patient while awaiting the imminent Second Coming. The epistle has caused controversy: Protestant reformer Martin Luther argued that it was not the work of an apostle. Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy and Mormonism claim it contradicts Luther's doctrine of justification through faith alone (Sola fide) derived from his translation of Romans 3:28. The Christian debate over Justification is still unsettled, see also Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification and Christian view of the Law. (Summary from Wikipedia)...

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Religion

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The Epistle to Galatians is a book of the New Testament. It is a letter from Paul of Tarsus to a number of early Christian communities in the Roman province of Galatia in central Anatolia. It is principally concerned with the controversy surrounding Gentile Christians and the Mosaic Law within Early Christianity. Along with the Epistle to the Romans, it is the most theologically significant of the Pauline epistles, and has been particularly influential in Protestant thought....

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Religion

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Fortress-walled Saint Catherine's monastery on the Sinai peninsula has been a pilgrimage site since its founding by the Byzantine Emperor Justinian in the 6th century. According to tradition, the monastery sits at the base of the mountain where Moses received the Tablets of the Law. Set in rugged country, accessible in times past only by a many days journey by camel across barren desert, the monastery survived intact through the centuries, and, as a result, became a rich repository of religious history—told through its icons, mosaics, and the books and manuscripts in the monastery library. Our Journey to Sinai by Agnes Bensly is the story of a visit to Saint Catherine's by a group of British scholars in the 1890's, who were drawn there in quest of manuscripts from early Christian times. The group had one particular prize in their sights. It was a second century translation of the Gospels from Greek into an Aramaic dialect called Syriac. This was a rare find indeed. One of the group, Agnes Smith Lewis, an accomplished linguist, had been to the monastery once before. On that visit, she had spotted a “palimpsest of most venerable appea...

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Memoirs, History, Travel

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The Epistle to the Galatians is a book of the New Testament. It is a letter from Paul of Tarsus to a number of early Christian communities in the Roman province of Galatia in central Anatolia. It is principally concerned with the controversy surrounding Gentile Christians and the Mosaic Law within Early Christianity. Along with the Epistle to the Romans, it is the most theologically significant of the Pauline epistles, and has been particularly influential in Protestant thought. (Summary from Wikipedia)...

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Religion

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The Book of Psalms, commonly referred to simply as Psalms, is a book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Bible. Taken together, its 150 poems express virtually the full range of Israel's religious faith. They each have a poetic character with frequent use of parallelism. In addition to the title of the collection, which translates as song or hymns from both Hebrew and Greek, superscriptions (or headings) in many of the Psalms provide musical references and some direction, in some cases even references to melodies that would have been well known by early congregations. Songs that can be identified as such in the Psalms include songs of thanksgiving (e.g., Ps 30), hymns of praise (e.g., Ps 117) and royal psalms, which may have been used in coronations and weddings. Identification of some psalms as prayers is also seen within the text, for example in the conclusion to Psalm 72, The prayers of David son of Jesse are ended. The largest category of Psalms, though not grouped as such in the text, is that of lament (expressions of complaint and pleas for help from God). There appears to also have been an instructional function of the psal...

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Poetry, Religion