Showing results by narrator "Mason" in All Categories

"The Awful Reason of the Vicar's Visit" is a Story by G. K. Chesterton. First appeared in Harper's Weekly (May 28 & June 4, 1904) "Cherub" Swinburne is asked to investigate the mysterious assault on the Vicar of Chuntsey (in Essex). It is a mystery when a distressed reverend begins his tale of a monstrous outrage committed against him.

Æs Triplex is a short story by Robert Louis Stevenson: The changes wrought by death are in themselves so sharp and final, and so terrible and melancholy in their consequences, that the thing stands alone in man's experience, and has no parallel upon earth. It outdoes all other accidents because it is the last of them. Sometimes it leaps suddenly upon its victims, like a Thug; sometimes it lays a regular siege and creeps upon their citadel during a score of years.

Crabbed Age ad Youth is a short story by Robert Louis Stevenson: There is a strong feeling in favour of cowardly and prudential proverbs. The sentiments of a man while he is full of ardour and hope are to be received, it is supposed, with some qualification. But when the same person has ignominiously failed and begins to eat up his words, he should be listened to like an oracle. Most of our pocket wisdom is conceived for the use of mediocre people, to discourage them from ambitious attempts, and generally console them in their mediocrity.

"The Singular Speculation of the House-Agent" is a Story by G. K. Chesterton. First appeared in Harper's Weekly (June 11 and 18, 1904). Basil Grant investigates the mystery of Lieutenant Keith, whose house, "The Elms", Buxton Common, cannot be found.

"The Painful Fall of a Great Reputation" is a Story by G. K. Chesterton. Basil Grant investigates Wimpole, the great raconteur.: Basil Grant and I were talking one day in what is perhaps the most perfect place for talking on earth - the top of a tolerably deserted tram-car. To talk on the top of a hill is superb, but to talk on the top of a flying hill is a fairy tale.

"The Red Room" is a short gothic story written by H. G. Wells in 1894. It was first published in the March 1896 edition of The Idler magazine. An unnamed protagonist chooses to spend the night in an allegedly haunted room, colored bright red in Lorraine Castle. He intends to disprove the legends surrounding it. Despite vague warnings from the three infirm custodians who reside in the castle, the narrator ascends to "the Red Room" to begin his night's vigil.

A Plea for Gas Lamps is a short story by Robert Louis Stevenson: Cities given, the problem was to light them. How to conduct individual citizens about the burgess-warren, when once heaven had withdrawn its leading luminary.

The Last Man is a post-apocalyptic science fiction novel by Mary Shelley, which was first published in 1826. The book tells of a future world that has been ravaged by a plague. The novel was harshly reviewed at the time, and, except for a 1924 silent film based on it, was virtually unknown - having been eclipsed by Shelley's more popular works - until a scholarly revival in the 1960s. It contains semi-biographical portraits of Romantic figures in Shelley's circle, particularly Shelley's late husband Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron.

"The Dreams in the Witch House" is a horror short story by American writer H. P. Lovecraft, part of the Cthulhu Mythos cycle. Written in January/February 1932, it was first published in the July 1933 issue of Weird Tales. Walter Gilman, a student of mathematics and folklore at Miskatonic University, rents an attic room in the "Witch House", a house in Arkham, Massachusetts that is rumored to be cursed. The house once harboured Keziah Mason, an accused witch who disappeared mysteriously from a Salem jail in 1692.

The Club of Queer Trades is a collection of stories by G. K. Chesterton first published in 1905. Each story in the collection is centered on a person who is making his living by some novel and extraordinary means (a "queer trade", using the word "queer" in the sense of "peculiar"). To gain admittance one must have invented a unique means of earning a living and the subsequent trade being the main source of income.

"Tom Tiddler's Ground" is the title of an 1861 short story by Charles Dickens, and the phrase "Tom Tidler's ground" appears in his novels Nicholas Nickleby, David Copperfield and Dombey and Son. Tom Tiddler's Ground, also known as Tom Tidler's Ground or Tommy Tiddler's Ground, is a longstanding children's game. One player, "Tom Tiddler," stands on a heap of stones, gravel, etc. Other players rush onto the heap, crying "Here I am on Tom Tiddler's ground, picking up gold and silver," while Tom tries to capture.

"Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family" is a short story in the horror fiction genre, written by American author H. P. Lovecraft in 1920. The themes of the story are tainted ancestry, knowledge that it would be best to remain unaware of, and a reality which human understanding finds intolerable. The story begins by describing the ancestors of Sir Arthur Jermyn, a British nobleman.

"The Tremendous Adventures of Major Brown" is a Story by G. K. Chesterton. First appeared in Harper's Weekly (December 19th 1903) While investigating a case of assault brought by Major Brown, Rupert Grant, the private detective, and his brother Basil stumble upon the Adventure and Romance Agency, Limited, an agency that creates adventures for its clients. The story is notable for prefiguring the concept of the alternate reality game.

"The Eccentric Seclusion of the Old Lady" is a Story by G. K. Chesterton. First appeared in Harper's Weekly (July 9 & 16, 1904). Rupert Grant rescues a lady from her kidnappers but cannot understand why she refuses to be rescued. The answer leads to the final unveiling of the mystery of The Club of Queer Trades.

"The Noticeable Conduct of Professor Chadd" is a Story by G. K. Chesterton. First appeared in Harper's Weekly (June 25 1904). Basil Grant finds out why Professor Chadd insists on dancing. Basil Grant had comparatively few friends besides myself; yet he was the reverse of an unsociable man. He would talk to any one anywhere, and talk not only well but with perfectly genuine concern and enthusiasm for that person's affairs.

Oroonoko: or, the Royal Slave is a short work of prose fiction by Aphra Behn (1640-1689), published in 1688 by William Canning and reissued with two other fictions later that year. It was also adapted into a play. The eponymous hero is an African prince from Coramantien who is tricked into slavery and sold to British colonists in Surinam where he meets the narrator. Behn's text is a first-person account of his life, love, rebellion, and execution.

Herland is a utopian novel from 1915, written by feminist Charlotte Perkins Gilman. The book describes an isolated society composed entirely of women, who reproduce via parthenogenesis (asexual reproduction). The result is an ideal social order: free of war, conflict, and domination. It was first published in monthly installments as a serial in 1915 in The Forerunner, a magazine edited and written by Gilman between 1909 and 1916, with its sequel, With Her in Ourland beginning immediately thereafter in the January 1916 issue.

Brandt Wills tried to prevent a final cataclysmic war between Terra and Luna. He failed. Now he’s falling back to the totalitarian world of his birth, but he’s not alone. With advanced cybernetics, the AI computer ghost of Sharron, and a partly-tamed alien symbiont, he might even have a chance. All he has to do is land behind enemy lines, fight his way into the fortress-towers of the State of Terra, and find the location of the hidden laboratories of Singularity before the final war wipes all life from two worlds.

Elliot Archer struggles to deal with the aftermath of his best friend's death, and when he's at his lowest point, he makes a difficult decision with irreversible consequences. Instead of nothingness, or perhaps the endless dark, Elliot opens his eyes to find a mysterious gray room slowly filling with people, and they all have weapons. In a dungeon filled with monstrous beings, murderous teammates, and a strange system reminiscent of an RPG, Elliot must find a way to rise to the occasion, or he'll else he'll fall - again.

This early work by Ernest William Hornung was originally published in 1911 and we are now republishing it with a brand new introductory biography. "The Camera Fiend" is a novel about a young man who travels to London to see a doctor for his asthma but while there becomes involved in a spot of trouble with unexpected consequences.