Psychological fiction
A Mortal Antipathy
Oliver Wendell Holmes was a physician and Harvard professor who rose to literary acclaim on the strength of his essays, poetry and novels, many of which drew on his medical knowledge. In this, Holmes' third and final novel, a young man who has suffered through a number of awkward romantic encounters develops a toxic and deep-seated fear of women.
A Secret Sharer
During his voyage to the Gulf of Siam, a young and rather insecure English captain finds a stranger in the water. The man is taken on board and turns out to be the chief mate of another English ship who was arrested by his crew but could escape. The young captain decides to help the mate and houses him in his cabin. This is the beginning of a nerve-racking hide and seek because neither the captain?s own crew nor the mate?s captain looking for the deserter are allowed to find him. ?A Secret Sharer? was originally published in 1912 in Conrad?s volume of tales ?Twixt Land and Sea?. Joseph Conrad was born in 1857 in former Poland. In 1886 he obtained British citizenship and two years later was appointed captain of the British merchant marine. His voyages to the Malay Peninsula and to the Congo Free State became the setting for his stories. Conrad published many tales and novels in English and is still regarded as one of the most brilliant authors in English literature. He died in 1924 in England.
Alexander’s Bridge + One of Ours (2 Unabridged Classics): One of Ours, 2 Unabridged Classics
This carefully crafted ebook: "Alexander's Bridge + One of Ours (2 Unabridged Classics)" contains 2 books in one volume and is formatted for your eReader with a functional and detailed table of contents. Alexander's Bridge is the first novel by Willa Cather. First published in 1912, it was re-released with an author's preface in 1922. Bartley Alexander is a construction engineer and world-renowned builder of bridges undergoing a mid-life crisis. Although married to Winifred, Bartley resumes his acquaintance with a former lover, Hilda Burgoyne, in London. The affair gnaws at Bartley's sense of propriety and honor. One of Ours is a novel by Willa Cather. It tells the story of the life of Claude Wheeler, a Nebraska native around the turn of the 20th century. Claude, working on the family farm, and married to a woman who is more interested in her missionary work, than she is in him, tires of his monotonous life. When his wife leaves for China, he decides to enlist in the US Army, which has just begun preparing to enter the First World War. Claude believes that he has finally found his purpose in life, a place where he matters. Willa Sibert Cather (1873 ? 1947) was an American author who achieved recognition for her novels of frontier life on the Great Plains, in works such as O Pioneers!, My ?ntonia, and The Song of the Lark. In 1923 she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for One of Ours, a novel set during World War I.
An Outcast of the Islands
Running Away Doesn't Always Remove the Problem?It's only those who do nothing that make no mistakes, I suppose.? - Joseph Conrad, An Outcast of the Islands This second novel of Conrad details the undoing of Peter Willems, a disreputable, immoral man who, on the run from a scandal in Makassar, finds refuge in a hidden native village, only to betray his benefactors over lust for the tribal chief's daughter.
Anthem (Reissue)
Written with all the power and conviction that made THE FOUNTAINHEAD and ATLAS SHRUGGED classics of American letters, Ayn Rand's ANTHEM is a hymn to man's independent spirit and to the highest word in the human language , the word "Ego." ANTHEM tells the story of a man who rediscovers individualism and his own "I" It is a world of absolute collectivization, a world where sightless, joyless, selfless men exist for the sake of serving the State; where their work, their food, and their mating are prescribed to them by order of the Collective's rulers in the name of society's welfare. It is a world which lost all the achievements of science and civilization when it lost its root, the independent mind, and reverted to primitive savagery a world where language contains no singular pronouns, where the "We" has replaced the "I," and where men are put to death for the crime of discovering and speaking the "unspeakable word." ANTHEM presents not merely a frightening projection of existing trends, but, more importantly, a positive answer to those trends and a weapon against them, a key to the world's moral crisis and to a new morality of individualism , a morality that, if accepted today, will save us from a future such as the one presented in this story.
Armadale & the Moonstone
Armadale is a novel by Wilkie Collins, first published in 1864-66. It is the third of his four 'great novels' of the 1860s: after The Woman in White (1859-60) and No Name (1862), and before The Moonstone (1868).In the German spa town of Wildbad, the 'Scotchman' Mr. Neal is asked to transcribe the deathbed confession of Allan Armadale; his story concerns his murder of the man he had disinherited (also called Allan Armadale), who had subsequently married the woman he was betrothed to under false pretensions. Under Allan's instructions, the confession is left to be opened by his son once he comes of age.Nineteen years later, the son of the murdered man, also Allan Armadale, rescues a man of his own age--Ozias Midwinter. The stranger reveals himself to Reverend Decimus Brock, a friend of Allan through his late mother, as another Allan Armadale (the son of the man who committed the murder). Ozias tells Decimus of his desperate upbringing, having run away from his mother and stepfather (Mr. Neal). The Reverend promises not to disclose their relation to one another, and the young men become close companions. Ozias remains haunted by a fear that he will harm Allan as a result of their proximity, a fate warned of in his father's letter; this feeling intensifies when the pair spend a night on a shipwreck off the Isle of Man--as it turns out, the very ship on which the murder was committed. Also on the vessel, Allan has a mysterious dream involving three characters; Ozias believes that the events are a prophecy of the future.Three members of Allan's family die in mysterious circumstances, one of which was instigated in the rescue of a woman who attempted to commit suicide by drowning. As a result, Allan inherits the estate of Thorpe-Ambrose in Norfolk and relocates there with Ozias, intending to make him steward. Once there he falls in love with Eleanor (Neelie) Milroy, the sixteen-year-old daughter of Major Milroy, to whom he has rented a cottage. During this time, correspondence takes place between Maria Oldershaw and Lydia Gwilt concerning the latter's ambitions to marry Allan as a means of achieving retribution for his family's apparent wrongdoings (she was originally a maid in the service of his mother).Rachel Verinder, a young English woman, inherits a large Indian diamond on her eighteenth birthday. It is a legacy from her uncle, a corrupt British army officer who served in India. The diamond is of great religious significance and extremely valuable, and three Hindu priests have dedicated their lives to recovering it. The story incorporates elements of the legendary origins of the Hope Diamond (or perhaps the Orloff Diamond or the Koh-i-Noor diamond). Rachel's eighteenth birthday is celebrated with a large party at which the guests include her cousin Franklin Blake. She wears the Moonstone on her dress that evening for all to see, including some Indian jugglers who have called at the house. Later that night the diamond is stolen from Rachel's bedroom, and a period of turmoil, unhappiness, misunderstandings and ill luck ensues. Told by a series of narratives from some of the main characters, the complex plot traces the subsequent efforts to explain the theft, identify the thief, trace the stone and recover it.
Assignment’s End
Alcorn's wild talent was miraculous ... he brought peace to everybody who came near him. Only one person was exempt-himself! He was just emerging for the hundredth time during the week from the frightening hallucination that had come to plague him, when Kitty Murchinsom came into his office. "It's almost 15:00, Philip," she said. When she had entered, her face had taken on the placid look that everyone wore-unwittingly, but inevitably-the instant they came near Alcorn. Finding Kitty's cool blonde loveliness projected so abruptly against the bleak polar plain of his waking dream, he knew how much more she was than either fiancee or secretary alone. She was a beacon of reassurance in a sea of uncertainty. "Thanks, darling," he said, and looked at his watch. "I'd have woolgathered past my appointment and it's an important one." He stood up. Kitty came closer and put both hands on his shoulders.
Babbitt
In the fall of 1920, Sinclair Lewis began a novel set in a fast-growing city with the heart and mind of a small town. For the center of his cutting satire of American business he created the bustling, shallow, and myopic George F. Babbitt, the epitome of middle-class mediocrity. The novel cemented Lewis?s prominence as a social commentator. Babbitt basks in his pedestrian success and the popularity it has brought him. He demands high moral standards from those around him while flirting with women, and he yearns to have rich friends while shunning those less fortunate than he. But Babbitt?s secure complacency is shattered when his best friend is sent to prison, and he struggles to find meaning in his hollow life. He revolts, but finds that his former routine is not so easily thrown over.
Burning Secret
A suave baron takes a fancy to twelve-year-old Edgar's mother, while the three are holidaying in an Austrian mountain resort. His initial advances rejected, the baron befriends Edgar in order to get closer to the woman he desires. The initially unsuspecting child soon senses something is amiss, but has no idea of the burning secret that is driving the affair, and that will soon change his life for ever.
Charlotte Temple: A Tale of Truth
Susanna Rowson?s work is the story of an innocent British schoolgirl who takes the advice of her depraved French teacher? with tragic consequences. Seduced by the dashing Lieutenant Montraville, who persuades her to move to America with him, the fifteen-year-old Charlotte leaves her adoring parents and makes the treacherous sea voyage to New York. In the land of opportunity, Charlotte is callously abandoned by Montraville. Alone and pregnant with an illegitimate child, she valiantly fights to stave off poverty and ruin.