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Guy de Maupassant, France's gift to the world of short stories, was a prolific writer of this genre. His complete collection numbers just under 200.

Another action-packed mystery by Maurice LeBlanc! This story has to do with the final Will of a man named Mornington, who, in the year 1900, left behind the sum of $400 million francs. Of that, three-fourths went to his adopted country - which left $100 million francs to be distributed to his heirs. The executor of the estate was Mornington's friend, Don Luis Perenna (AKA Arsene Lupin). The problem, however, was that no one knew where (or even who) some of the heirs were. If no heirs were to be found within 3 months, the entire $100 million francs would go to Perenna.

The world's premier thief looks back on a lifetime of adventure in these tales of his outrageous exploits. It has been a fortnight since the baroness Repstein disappeared from Paris, taking with her a fortune in jewels stolen from her husband. French detectives have chased her all over Europe, following the trail of gemstones like so many precious breadcrumbs, but she has eluded their efforts. When Arsène Lupin finds her, she will not escape so easily.

Arsene Lupin may have finally met his match in Deputy Daubrecq, a cunning detective who foils Lupin's most cunning roberies, thefts, and even a kidnapping. Can the world's greatest thief get his act together, save his arrested men from the guillotine, and recover his lost honor? A thrilling adventure from the author of "Arsene Lupin", "Arsene Lupin vs. Herloch Sholmes", and "The Hollow Needle".

"The Eight Strokes of the Clock" is a collection of short stories centred on Arsène Lupin, former gentleman thief extraordinaire. In this series, Lupin has abandoned his life of crime in favour of that of crime solver. In Paris, six women have vanished, only to be found a week later, emaciated and disfigured, their skulls split open. What little evidence the police have suggests that the murderer is a woman and that she is preparing to strike again. When Prince Rénine’s lover disappears on a cold night in October, he fears that she is about to become the latest victim.

When one of Arséne Lupin' victims is found dead in a way that implicates the wily criminal, he insists on heading the police search for the real murderer. The mystery involves finding a package of letters once written to Bismarck, locating a clock on which the number 813 has significance, as well as causing a reigning emperor to make several journeys incognito. Murders by the dozens, suicide and mild forms of torture are warp and woof of the plot.

Louis de Rouvroy, Duke of Saint-Simon (1675-1755) provides the world with unparalleled insight both into the rule of France's Sun King, Louis XIV, and the tantalizing intrigues of the monarch's inner circle. Saint-Simon notes in his Memoirs that it was his love of reading - and of history in particular - that sparked his interest in recording his own observations. The length and breadth of his notes were undoubtedly made the more possible because he kept his writings secret.

Nestled in a cove on Oregon's coastline, the town of Somewhere is charming, picturesque, inhabited by townsfolk who love their community - and teeming with mystery. You are invited to join the heroes and heroines of Somewhere as they solve mysteries, discover romance, experience inexplicable phenomena, and fight injustice - just the usual stuff!

Guy de Maupassant, France's gift to the world of short stories, was a prolific writer of this genre. His complete collection numbers just under 200. Volume X contains the following titles: The Christening; The Farmer's Wife; The Devil; The Snipe; The Will; Walter Schnaff's Adventure; At Sea; Minuet; and much more.

Volume I introduces the French history enthusiast to the author's beginnings, the king's unrelenting desire to establish his illegitimate children, his meddling in the lives of his court, and his successes and reverses on the battlefield.

Sandy Gutierrez wonders if she's in the midst of a lucid dream or perhaps a nightmare. As owner of the popular boutique Bathing Suits Galore in Somewhere, Oregon, she unexpectedly finds her orderly life shifted unimaginably when a handsome tourist enters her shop.

Guy de Maupassant, France's gift to the world of short stories, was a prolific writer of this genre. His complete collection numbers just under 200. Volume IX contains the following titles: Toine; Madame Husson's "Rosier"; The Adopted Son; Coward; Old Mongilet; Moonlight; The First Snowfall; Sundays of a Bourgeois; A Recollection; Our Letters; The Love of Long Ago; Friend Joseph; The Effeminates; and Old Amable.

Guy de Maupassant, French master of the short story, had a simple, efficient style of writing and, like Anton Chekhov, found inspiration for his stories in the daily lives of humans, which often reveal our darker nature. Many of his works also centered on the Franco-Prussian War, in which he served. Volume VIII of his Complete Original Short Stories contains the following:

Today we have ghosts that haunted our ancestors, as well as our own modern revenants, and there appears to be no earthly use trying to banish or exorcise them by such a simple strategy as refusing to believe in them. Since man knows that whether or not he has seen a ghost, presently he will become one, and thus he has become fascinated with the subject. Therefore he creates ghosts, not merely in his own image, but according to his dreams of power.

Guy de Maupassant, France's gift to the world of short stories, was a prolific writer of this genre. His complete collection numbers just under 200.

The publication in 1848 of The Communist Manifesto came at a time when industrialization was reaching its peak, and signs of the cost to the working class blatant; the Revolutions of 1848 were just getting under way. Marx and Engels shared the belief that "the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles" and this notion formed a central part of the manifesto they crafted together. They believed that industrialization was simply a new form of struggle among the classes - the price paid by the lower class still high.

Russell's The Problems of Philosophy, first published in 1912, is both a primer for the philosophy-curious and the practicing philosopher. He introduces his readers to his thoughts on the difference between knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by description, and asks the question: If we cannot be certain that external objects exist, how can we then have knowledge of them but by probability? There is no reason to doubt the existence of external objects simply because of sense data.

Voices of Today presents two stories by Anna Katharine Green, the great American mystery writer who published before Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie. In "To the Minute", a man returns to his native village after many years absence, after being advised of the death of his misanthropic grandfather. Will the dead miser's decaying mansion contain the secret to his lost wealth? In "Scarlet and Black", a man returns home to find mysterious foreigners playing cards in his house and cannot rest until he finds out the reason for this unexpected visitation and what the stakes are.

The second of four novels by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle featuring famed detective Sherlock Holmes, The Sign of the Four is set in London but has its origins in colonial India. Four men in Agra make a pact to share the proceeds of a stolen treasure, but they are deceived by a fifth, who finds and takes the loot back to England and hides it. A decade on, young Mary Morstan receives the first of several lustrous pearls in the post - a mysterious gift delivered to her on the same date for several years.

Emile Gaboriau first introduced the young police officer and detective Monsieur Lecoq in his novel L'Affaire Lerouge. He based his character on an actual thief who later became no less than the head of the Paris police -- Eugine Francois Vidocq. As a character, Lecoq would later influence Arthur Conan Doyle in his creation of Sherlock Holmes. In this, his first foray into detection, Lecoq reveals his mastery of the art of disguise and his zeal for detection. Monsieur Lecoq: Volume I is the first of a two-part novel and details the crime and ensuing investigation.