Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

Dinah Maria Mulock was a talented author and poet. Among several of her children's classics are "The Adventures of a Brownie", followed by the world famous tale,"The Little Lame Prince". Yes, he was the most beautiful Prince that ever was born. Of course, being a prince, people said that; but it was true besides. The Prince's christening was to be a grand affair. By six in the morning all the royal household had dressed itself in its very best; and then the little Prince was dressed in his best -his magnificent christening- robe; which proceeding his Royal Highness did not like at all, but kicked and screamed like any common baby. In truth, though very few knew the Prince in coming to the chapel had met with a slight disaster. His nurse - not his ordinary one, but the state nurse-maid - an elegant and fashionable young lady of rank, whose duty it was to carry him to and from the chapel, had been so occupied in arranging her train with one hand, while she held the baby with the other, that she stumbled and let him fall, just at the foot of the marble staircase. To be sure, she contrived to pick him up again the next minute; and the accident was so slight it seemed hardly worth speaking of. Consequently nobody did speak of it. The baby had turned deadly pale, but did not cry, so no person a step or two behind could discover anything wrong; afterward, even if he had moaned, the silver trumpets were loud enough to drown his voice. It would have been a pity to let anything trouble such a day of felicity.

The greatest romantic narrative novel of the early 19th Century, John Halifax, Gentleman, tells the story of an orphan boy whose first words in the story are "Sir, I want work; may I earn a penny?" By hard work, diligent study and an unshakeable faith in his God John attains wealth and happiness, despite much hardship and heartbreak throughout his life. The story chronicles the class movement of the time and gives us a remarkable description of social, political, and industrial change. Set in Gloucestershire in the heart of England and told by Phineas, his soul mate and lifelong friend, who observes John through all his glorious moments, self doubt and resolution, the story is simple, uplifting and heroic. It is a detailed study of a man and his family that also presents the listener with a broad view of Britain during one of its most troubled times. A genuine classic, most entertaining and certainly a tale which lives up to the appellation epic in its conception and delivery. 'John Halifax, Gentleman' was first published in 1856. Due to popular demand it has never been out of print. This is the first unabridged recording of Dinah Craik's masterpiece.

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a book by Mark Twain, first published in England in December 1884 and in the United States in February 1885. Commonly recognized as one of the Great American Novels, the work is among the first in major American literature to be written in the vernacular, characterized by local color regionalism. It is told in the first person by Huckleberry "Huck" Finn, a friend of Tom Sawyer and narrator of two other Twain novels (Tom Sawyer Abroad and Tom Sawyer, Detective). The book is noted for its colorful description of people and places along the Mississippi River. Satirizing a Southern antebellum society that was already out of date by the time the work was published, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is an often scathing look at entrenched attitudes, particularly racism. The work has been popular with readers since its publication and is taken as a sequel to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. It has also been the continued object of study by serious literary critics. It was criticized upon release because of its coarse language and became even more controversial in the 20th century because of its perceived use of racial stereotypes and because of its frequent use of the racial slur "nigger".

Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton. The first version, published in 1667, consisted of ten books with over ten thousand lines of verse.

Once upon a time in a certain country there lived a king whose palace was surrounded by a spacious garden. But, though the gardeners were many and the soil was good, this garden yielded neither flowers nor fruits, not even grass or shady trees. The King was in despair about it, when a wise old man said to him...

"The Adventure of the Copper Beeches", one of the 56 short Sherlock Holmes stories written by British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is the last of the twelve collected in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. It was first published in Strand Magazine in June 1892.

If John Grantham Browne had a fault — which, mind you, I am not prepared to admit — it lay in the fact that he was the possessor of a cynical wit which he was apt at times to use upon his friends with somewhat peculiar effect. Circumstances alter cases, and many people would have argued that he was perfectly entitled to say what he pleased.

Emily of New Moon is the first in a series of novels by Lucy Maud Montgomery about an orphan girl growing up in Canada. It is similar to the author's Anne of Green Gables series. It was first published in 1923.

In the noon of a September day in the year of our dear Lord 1395, a merchant vessel nodded sleepily upon the gentle swells of warm water flowing in upon the Syrian coast. A modern seafarer, looking from the deck of one of the Messagerie steamers now plying the same line of trade, would regard her curiously, thankful to the calm which held her while he slaked his wonder, yet more thankful that he was not of her passage.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is a children's novel written by L. Frank Baum and illustrated by W.W. Denslow. It was originally published by the George M. Hill Company in Chicago on May 17, 1900,and has since been reprinted countless times, most often under the name The Wizard of Oz, which is the name of both the 1902 stage play and the extremely popular, highly acclaimed 1939 film version. The story chronicles the adventures of a girl named Dorothy in the Land of Oz. Thanks in part to the 1939 MGM movie, it is one of the best-known stories in American popular culture and has been widely translated. Its initial success, and the success of the popular 1902 Broadway musical Baum adapted from his story, led to Baum writing thirteen more Oz books. The original book has been in the public domain in the US since 1956. Baum dedicated the book "to my good friend & comrade, My Wife", Maud Gage Baum. In January 1901, the publisher, the George M. Hill Company, completed printing the first edition, which probably totaled around 35,000 copies. Records indicate that 21,000 copies were sold through 1900. Historians, economists and literary scholars have examined and developed possible political interpretations of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. However, the majority of the reading public simply takes the story at face value.

There was once a little boy named Diamond and he slept in a low room over a coach house. In fact, his room was just a loft where they kept hay and straw and oats for the horses. Little Diamond’s father was a coachman and he had named his boy after a favorite horse. Diamond’s father had built him a bed in the loft with boards all around it, because there was so little room in their own end of the coach house. So when little Diamond lay there in bed, he could hear the horses under him munching away in the dark or moving sleepily in their dreams. His father put old Diamond, the horse after whom he was named, in the stall under the bed because he was quiet and did not go to sleep standing, but lay down like a reasonable creature.

On a memorable morning of early December, London opened its eyes on a frigid grey mist. There are mornings when King Fog masses his molecules of carbon in serried squadrons in the city, while he scatters them tenuously in the suburbs; so that your morning train may bear you from twilight to darkness. But to-day the enemy's manoeuvring was more monotonous. From Bow even unto Hammersmith there draggled a dull, wretched vapour, like the wraith of an impecunious suicide come into a fortune immediately after the fatal deed. The barometers and thermometers had sympathetically shared its depression, and their spirits (when they had any) were low. The cold cut like a many-bladed knife.