- Romance
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Arcadia in Avernus
Unhappy wife leaves marriage of convenience for another man, the couple running away to the Dakota prairie to set up housekeeping. All seems romantically well... until the ex shows up. Surprisingly modern (if a little theatrical) novella from the early 1900's. From the posthumous collection of Lillibridge short stories, A Breath of Prairie, 1911. -
Pretty Sister Of José
Pepita would rather become a witch than a wife. She's seen too many women, including her mother, wither away at their husband's hands. Popular and respected, our gentle, but fiercely independent heroine immediately grows cruel and cold to any suitor drawn in by her allure. When a famous bullfighting lady killer from Madrid takes interest in her, will Pepita's resolve crumble with disastrous consequences?
A hit upon its 1899 release, this novella later spawned both a play and silent film adaptation. Despite its public popularity, its (now rather tame) intense love story and positive portrayal of Spaniards drew some controversy from English critics.
Summary by Mary Kay. -
Say and Seal, Volume 2
The arrival of a new schoolteacher causes quite a stir in the small New England town of Pattaquasset, not the least of it in the house of Mrs. Derrick and her daughter, where the young man boards. Mr. Linden's idea of teaching stretches far beyond the dusty walls of his classroom, and he is not slow in finding much work to be done for his Master. The schoolboys are soon captivated by their new teacher, and Miss Faith Derrick quickly joins the ranks of his eager pupils.But Mr. Linden is not the only man in Pattaquasset who is attracted to the bright young woman, and his rivals have no intention of letting him carry the field unopposed. When perplexities and dangers begin to multiply, will Faith have the strength to stay true to her heart--and to her newfound Lord? -
Aucassin and Nicolette
Aucassin and Nicolette is a medieval romance written in a combination of prose and verse called a “song-story.” Created probably in the early 13th century by an unknown French author, the work deals with the love between the son of a count and a Saracen slave girl who has been converted to Christianity and adopted by a viscount. Since Aucassin’s father is strongly opposed to their marriage, the two lovers must endure imprisonment, flight, separation in foreign lands, and many other ordeals before their ardent love and fierce determination finally bring them back together. Aucassin is the very model of an intrepid knight, totally devoted to his love; and Nicolette is daring and ingenious in her staunch perseverance against all odds. This translation, completed in 1887, is by Scottish poet, novelist, critic, and collector of folk tales Andrew Lang (1844-1912). -
Little Eve Edgarton
Eve Edgarton is not who she seems she is. A short encounter with Mr. Barton show that first impressions are not always right or indicative of one's seemingly obvious preference or one's proclivity. -
Theo
It's described as "A SPRIGHTLY LOVE STORY" and it is written by F. H. Burnett, "one of the most charming among American writers!" -
Damon and Delia
Damon and Delia fall in love instantly. Unfortunately, Damon is promised to another. Can true love prevail? Damon and Delia is a romance that is a bit tongue in cheek. It was penned on commission by William Godwin, political philosopher and writer, husband of Mary Wollstonecraft, and father of Mary Shelley. -
Visits of Elizabeth
Elizabeth is a young and naive debutante who is travelling around England and France fom one house party to the next, visiting friends and family, in search of a suitable husband. She is a rather good correspondent, sending her mother letters from all of these places and events. These letters are more shocking and concerning to her mother than Elizabeth might think, however, because due to her innocence the frequent innuendos made by her male acquaintances escape her. -
Little Stories of Married Life
Marriage is a big adventure. It makes for great stories, too: both in case of a happy marriage and in case of an unhappy one. Eleven of these stories are collected in this collection, concerning all the different obstacles that a couple may face during courtship, engagement, wedding, and the actual marriage. -
Shadow of Victory
This is another work by the author Myrtle Reed who is also the author of "The Spinster Book" and "Old Rose and Silver" and was a best-seller during 1903. -
Way of an Eagle
Muriel Roscoe has come to India to live with her father, a general. When the fort where they are staying comes under attack, General Roscoe charges the dauntless, wisecracking soldier Nick Ratcliffe with the responsibility for getting Muriel away in safety. The two manage to escape, but the experience is harrowing for Muriel. Meanwhile, Nick has fallen in love with her. Will she ever be able to shake off her old prejudices towards him or her association of him with their near debacle and see him for who he really is? Can she reconcile the fearsome creature she witnessed during their escape and the good-humored man beloved by his family and friends? ( Scarbo) -
Farewell Love! A Novel
This tragic love story begins by meeting the passionate Anna Acquaviva who is willing to leave her position in society to elope with her lover after her guardian Cesare Dias will not give his consent to the marriage. Things do not turn out quite like she expected, and Anna is left to deal with the fact that she did what “respectable girls don’t do”. Will Anna find true love after heartache or will she be forced say farewell to love forever? -
This Is the End
Some books have plots that drive relentlessly toward a conclusion. Others, like "This Is The End", just meander. It is the story of a Family halfheartedly searching for a missing relation who does not want to be found, while just off-stage, World War I is raging on the continent. It is a story about ordinary people trying to live ordinary lives in extraordinary times. The things they do are less important than the ways in which they do them: often comic, occasionally tragic, but always touching and true to life. It reminds us that Poetry and Romance can be found anywhere, hidden beneath the surface of the most commonplace things. -
Witness for the Defence
Part romance, part mystery, part courtroom and quasi-courtroom drama. Young love reignites itself after a hiatus of some years. Or does it? Much can change in that time -- both to the people themselves, and to the events that shape their lives. The action moves from England to India, and back again, confronting the protagonists with problems they never dreamed they’d have to face. ( Nicholas Clifford) -
Secresy, or, the Ruin on the Rock
This is the story of Caroline and Sibella, two female friends. Strong and smart women who try to make it in a man's world while keeping their values and loyalties intact. The only way to do that is to hide a few secrets. Yet secrets cannot remain hidden for ever, and everything has a price. This is both a social novel and a gothic novel. A true page turner with all the elements of a good 18th century novel: a woman locked in an estate, a hidden pregnancy, some politics of marriage, villains, sentimentality and thought provoking philosophy. Summary by Stav Nisser. -
Comedies of Courtship
A series of short stories about love and the process of courtship. -
Day of Fate
A night editor at a New York paper escapes to the country to avoid a nervous breakdown. Providence lands him in the middle of a loving Quaker family in time to save them from being roasted by a lightning strike. Then what could be more natural than falling in love with a girl already engaged to someone else? Truly, it was a Day of Fate for him. "Some shallow story of deep love." (Shakespeare) -
Fool There Was
Two friends were asked by their respective fathers on their death beds to promise to marry a special girl, who lived across the street and who they had been very fond of since childhood. Once they reached young manhood, one of these fulfilled his father's wish. The story takes off from there, and, while all three continued to be very close to one another as they grew older, the married man was sent abroad on business, allowing his friend to take care of his wife and child while he was away. While overseas, the married man fell into temptation. Many twists and turns, as well as surprises were to follow, rendering the reader curious as to how it would all turn out. (Roger Melin) -
Life's Morning
This is the story of a poor young lady Emily Hood who while working as a governess falls in love with Wilfrid Athel the son of her employer. They become engaged, however things do not run smoothly after a visit home to her parents and Emily has to make a heartbreaking choice. -
Romance of an Old Fool, The
A light-hearted account of a successful middle aged widower who chances to visit the small town in which he grew up to renew old acquaintances and perhaps reflect on his successes since his departure.
This visit, however, becomes far more to him than he would have imagined, as he finds that one of his dearest childhood girlfriends had died not long after his departure, and the widower envisions a relationship with none other than her daughter, who he senses to be her mother incarnate. -
Where the Path Breaks
The soldier awakened from the brink of death eight months after his injury on the battlefield. As he slowly regained his senses and his memory, the face of a girl creeps into his mind, and he soon recalls that this girl had married him out of pity on the day he went into battle. The wedding had been a true "war wedding".
Inspired by the face and the vague recollections which were taking shape, and after learning that his day-bride had since remarried (believing her day-husband killed in action), the battle-scarred soldier decides to re-invent himself, take on a new name, and seek a new life. To what extent his former life would have upon his adopted life unfolds in unforgettable detail with each chapter of Where the Path Breaks.
Captain Charles de Créspigny was a pseudonym used by Charles Norris (C.N.) Williamson. -
Beverly Of Graustark
Beverly Of Graustark is the second book in the Graustark series.Lorry and his wife, the princess, made their home in Washington, butspent a few months of each year in Edelweiss. During the periods spentin Washington and in travel, her affairs in Graustark were in the handsof a capable, austere old diplomat--her uncle, Count CasparHalfont. Princess Volga reigned as regent over the principality ofAxphain. To the south lay the principality of Dawsbergen, ruled by youngPrince Dantan, whose half brother, the deposed Prince Gabriel, had beenfor two years a prisoner in Graustark, the convicted assassin of PrinceLorenz, of Axphain, one time suitor for the hand of Yetive. (Project Gutenberg) -
Sowing and Reaping
This novel is subtitled A Temperance Story, which identifies explicitly the focus of the work. Frances Harper is a Christian moralist and uses her writings for didactic purposes. Here she contrast two couples, one, Belle and Paul, who do not drink and whose lives are happier and more productive, and the other, Jeanette and Charles, who lives are destroyed by the demon rum. (N.B. There are some missing portions of the text) -
Road To Mandalay
Sophy Leigh and Douglas Shafto come to Burma on the same ship in 1912. They come for different reasons. Through them, we learn about British India in the time between 1912 and 1914, just before WWI.
Academics view Bithia Mary Croker as one of the best authors who wrote about British India.
Note: This book is a product of its times. Therefore, some of the views which are expressed are different from today's. -
St. George and St. Michael, Volume 1
’St. George and St. Michael’ is a little-known historical romance telling the story of a young couple who find themselves on opposing sides during the tumultuous years of the English Civil Wars.
Tensions are rising between king and parliament, the Church of England and the numerous independent puritans, and rumours abound that Charles I will soon declare open war on the dissident elements within his realm. Seventeen-year-old Dorothy Vaughan knows little of the brewing conflict, yet is sure that her loyalty must be with her king and her nation. When she challenges her childhood friend, Richard Heywood, to prove himself a man and so worthy of winning her hand in marriage by becoming involved in the larger events that surround them, he finds that his convictions – both political and spiritual – lie with his father’s and the puritans. Determined to do what he believes is right, Richard finds that he cannot shake his immovable conscience, even for the woman he loves.
Though it is, for the most part, a realistic novel, ‘St. George and St. Michael’ is not without either the otherwordly atmosphere of the fantastic or the rich spiritual depth that characterises so much of MacDonald’s writing. -
Our Own Set
The Austrian nobility in Rome forms a very close circle, into which only those of high rank and wealth are admitted. They managed to get along with Cecil Sterzl, who, although not one of their own, is regarded as quite an amiable man. However, when he brings his younger sister Zinka into that circle, she is received very coldly at first, if at all. And when, with her fresh and unaffected manners, she wins one heart after another, especially that of the handsome Count Sempaly, she also excites jealousy and contempt in many members of that "set". They are not willing to give up the old notions of social rank and status without a fight...
Ossip Schubin [Aloisia Kirschner] is a now half-forgotten Austrian novelist of Bohemian descent, who has herself spent several years of her youth in Rome. -
St. George and St. Michael, Volume 3
’St. George and St. Michael’ is a little-known historical romance telling the story of a young couple who find themselves on opposing sides during the tumultuous years of the English Civil Wars. Volume 3 completes the series. Tensions are rising between king and parliament, the Church of England and the numerous independent puritans, and rumours abound that Charles I will soon declare open war on the dissident elements within his realm. Seventeen-year-old Dorothy Vaughan knows little of the brewing conflict, yet is sure that her loyalty must be with her king and her nation. When she challenges her childhood friend, Richard Heywood, to prove himself a man and so worthy of winning her hand in marriage by becoming involved in the larger events that surround them, he finds that his convictions – both political and spiritual – lie with his father’s and the puritans. Determined to do what he believes is right, Richard finds that he cannot shake his immovable conscience, even for the woman he loves.Though it is, for the most part, a realistic novel, ‘St. George and St. Michael’ is not without either the otherwordly atmosphere of the fantastic or the rich spiritual depth that characterizes so much of MacDonald’s writing.