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It is the absorbing account of the use and development of magic, customs, social practices and religion among primitive men and women. It was based upon the author's personal research during many years of exploration in the farthest and most obscure corners of the world.

John Ridd, an unsophisticated farmer, falls in love with the beautiful and aristocratic Lorna Doone, kidnapped as a child by the outlaw Doones on Exmoor. Ridd's rivalry with the villainous Carver Doone reaches a dramatic climax that will determine Lorna's future happiness. First published in 1869, Lorna Doone was praised by R. L. Stevenson and Thomas Hardy and has remained constantly in print. The novel has many aspects: it is a romance; a historical...

"The Man Who Would be King and Other Stories" is a classic collection of some of the most loved short stories of Rudyard Kipling, one of the most important and accomplished English authors of the twentieth century. The youngest winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature at age 42 in 1907, Kipling, who was born in India in 1865, captured in his writing the British Empire in all of its glory and contradiction in unparalleled detail and nuance. Contained...

Highly successful novel, "Trilby" (1894), is perhaps the second bestselling novel of its time after Bram Stoker's "Dracula." The novel is set in the 1850's in an idyllic bohemian Paris. Trilby O'Ferrall, the novel's heroine, is a half-Irish girl working in Paris as an artists' model and laundress. One of the most memorable characters is Svengali, a Jewish rogue, masterful musician, and hypnotist who, by hypnotization, transforms Trilby into a great...

Madonna, the Queen of Pop, was not the first to be named in honour of the graceful Madonna in art. The focal point of this novel, Mary, is affectionately known as "Madonna" on account of her beauty. Moreover, Mary is both deaf and dumb: "Hide and Seek" is a bold and thrilling Victorian novel that reflects on disability in a positive light. Mary was adopted from a circus by Lavinia – who also has a disability – and Valentine Blyth. That circus...

German philosopher and significant 18th century late Enlightenment thinker Immanuel Kant wrote "Critique of Judgment" in 1790 to solidify his ideas on aesthetics. Divided into two sections, one on aesthetic judgment and the other on teleological judgment, "Critique" proceeds to analyze the human experience of the beautiful and the sublime. From the effect of art and nature to the role of imagination, from objectivity of taste to the limits of representation,...

Lady Audley is young, beautiful, and universally adored. Everyone comments on her sweet nature and her perfect marriage to the wealthy and aristocratic Sir Michael Audley. Sir Michael's nephew Robert is equally struck by his new aunt's angelic ways--until he notices the strange, terrifying effect Lady Audley has on his friend George Talboys. When George mysteriously vanishes, Robert is convinced that Lady Audley is neither as innocent nor as helpless...

The story of Mowgli, the abandoned “man-cub” who is brought up by wolves in the jungles of Central India, is one of the greatest literary myths ever created. As he embarks on a series of thrilling escapades, Mowgli encounters such unforgettable creatures as the bear Baloo, the graceful black panther Bagheera and Shere Khan, the tiger with the blazing eyes. Other animal stories in The Jungle Books range from the dramatic battle between good and...

Plantagenet Palliser must face new challenges and a changing world if he is to hold his family together in the final installment of the Palliser Novels. After losing his devoted wife, Glencora, Duke Plantagenet Palliser takes on a task he has never had the time or skills to bother with before: dealing with his children. Palliser has never been a doting father, what with the responsibilities of title and duty constantly beckoning him away, but now...

The story unfolds with the arrival of a new governess at a remote country estate, who has been hired by the uncle of two young orphans to take complete charge of the children's lives and upbringing. Her first peaceful weeks are disturbed by the apparition of the ghosts of two evil servants who once served in the house.