This cynical allegory takes place on a Mississippi riverboat on April Fools Day. It portrays a group of passengers--- including several satires of nineteenth-century literary greats---and their reactions to the central character, an ambiguous stranger who sneaks aboard the boat and test their confidence.

Originally published pseudonymously in 1893, "Maggie: A Girl of the Streets" follows the tragic tale of Maggie and her life in the harsh streets and tenements of the New York City Bowery district. Initially rejected by publishers for being viewed as too brutal and accurate in its descriptions of poverty and female sexuality, Stephen Crane published the work at his own expense. Following the success of Crane's novel "The Red Badge of Courage," this...

The Last Man (1826) is a dystopian novel by Mary Shelley. Dedicated to the recently deceased Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron, The Last Man was controversial upon publication and was immediately suppressed by British authorities. Resurrected by dedicated critics and readers, the novel is now recognized as a pioneering work of science fiction and as the first work of dystopian literature to be published in English. The ambitious and semi-autobiographical...

It is the story of Sterne's fictional travel through both countries, particularly France. Sterne made two trips within the continent, in 1762-64 and 1765-66, but the book is not about his errands, but those of parson Yorick's (a character in "Tristram Shandy"). With a less acid and outrageous humor than in his previous work, Sterne anyway mixes the picaresque with an ironic and, frequently, hilarious philosophical irony. Yorick begins by trying to...

A dog describes being mistreated by a cruel master but then later being taken in by a kind family.

First published in Russian in 1866, "The Gambler", by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, is a gripping narrative of the dangers of gambling. As was common with Dostoyevsky's other writings, he draws upon his own life in a semi-autobiographical way. Dostoyevksy himself suffered from a compulsion to gambling and had to complete "The Gambler" under a strict deadline to pay off his own debts. These first-hand experiences bring a depth of realism to the novel and to...

This semi-autobiographical book is about the life of a young English woman who marries an ageing German aristocrat and in the marriage she focuses on her garden and children, at the same time running a country house. She also writes down her observations of the stuffy German aristocratic set using her razor sharp wit. Von Arnim was a successful author in her time and deserves to be re-discovered, this novel is a gem. In the first year of publication...

The sequel to Dreiser's The Financier, which continues the saga of the ups and downs in the life of Frank Cowperwood.

"Lives" is a series of biographies of famous Greeks and Romans by the ancient Greek historian Plutarch who lived during the first and second century AD. "Lives" consists of twenty-three paired biographies, one Greek and one Roman, and four unpaired, which explore the influence of character on the lives and destinies of the subjects. Rather than providing strictly historical accounts, Plutarch was most concerned with capturing this issue of character....

First published in 1907, "The Hill of Dreams" is a semi-autobiographical novel by Welsh author and mystic Arthur Machan. The tale revolves around the life of Lucian Taylor, a young man who had an idyllic childhood in rural Wales. Lucian experiences mystical visions at an old Roman fort locally known as The Hill of Dreams, and later becomes an impoverished author in London pursuing art and history. Offering an illuminating insight into Machan's life...