Showing results by narrator "Alain Alexander" in All Categories

Some houses keep their secrets better than others. In the quiet English town of Dourville, a handsome old mill house stands beside a stream that once powered a busy paper mill. It is here that a young woman, Rhoda Pembury, is brought to recover after being rescued from a near-fatal bicycle...

Sea air, golf links and a secret waiting to be uncovered. The sleepy seaside town of Stroan has seen better days, but a new golf course is bringing visitors, and a little life, back to its streets. Among the holidaymakers are three friends: Otto, Clifford and Willie, who has never been able to...

A wealthy eccentric with a taste for playing the benevolent detective gathers nine guests aboard his barge, nine people whose lives have collided in ways none of them fully understands. One by one, they step forward with a story to tell: the Human Gargoyle, the Hypochondriacal Painter, the...

In "Biographies of Working Men" (1884), the notable Victorian naturalist and social critic Grant Allen presents an inspiring collection of biographical sketches celebrating the lives of ordinary laborers who achieved greatness through sheer perseverance and self-education. This classic work...

In the ancient city of Winton, three brothers grow up in the shadow of their family's old flour mill — and of the father whose sins seem to echo through its walls. Everything changes when a strange child named Zyp appears out of the woods, claiming to be a changeling with no home of her own...

In 1872, Irish soldier and adventurer Sir William Francis Butler published this vivid firsthand account of his journey across the vast, untamed expanse of Canada's Northwest. Dispatched on a hazardous reconnaissance mission during the Red River Rebellion, Butler travelled deep into contested...

At eighteen, Frank Bullen signs aboard the ramshackle whaler Cachalot, more out of desperation than choice, and finds himself thrown into one of the harshest trades on the high seas. What follows is a three-year voyage from New Bedford, Massachusetts, round the Cape of Good Hope, and on through...

Based on the true story of the mutiny aboard HMS Bounty, this historical adventure follows Fletcher Christian and his fellow mutineers after they cast Captain Bligh adrift and flee in search of a place beyond the reach of British law. Seeking an island remote enough to escape discovery, they...

A stormy night in London. Two friends, a card table, a heap of gold, and one moment of blind rage that can never be undone. Haunted by guilt and terrified of the consequences, Adrian Lancaster flees into the tempest and stumbles upon the enigmatic Dr. Michael Roversmire, a man steeped in occult...

A woman rising from a tomb. A deserted palazzo. A crime worthy of the Borgias. Verona, late nineteenth century. Hugo Cranston, a young Englishman studying music under a local maestro, spends his nights wandering the moonlit city, until one evening his steps lead him to the old cemetery. There he...

A gripping firsthand account of courage, resilience, and survival during the Great War. In My German Prisons, Captain Horace Gray Gilliland delivers an uncensored, deeply personal narrative of his experiences as a British officer captured during the brutal battles of World War I. For two and a...

First published in 1875, Thrift is Samuel Smiles' companion volume to his phenomenally popular Self-Help and Character. In it, Smiles argues that frugality and prudent saving form the true foundation of personal independence, dignity, and social progress. Drawing on historical anecdotes...

Step behind the veil of Victorian London into a world where love is never safe from the dark. First published in 1894, Tales of the Supernatural gathers six haunting tales in which romance and the occult are bound together by blood, ritual, and forbidden bargains. From a blood pact sworn beside...

Step into the fields, woods, and marshes of early twentieth-century New England with one of America's most graceful nature writers. In this collection of nine essays, Dallas Lore Sharp turns his naturalist's eye on the small, often-overlooked dramas of the countryside: a hawk's raid on a flock...

Dreamthorp is a collection of twelve reflective essays by the Scottish poet Alexander Smith, first published in 1863. Taking its name from the quiet, imaginary village where Smith claims to have retired to write, the book blends memoir, literary criticism, and philosophical musing in a leisurely...

First published in 1883, Sinners and Saints is British journalist Phil Robinson's witty and observant travelogue of a journey across the United States. Beginning with a train ride from New York toward Chicago, Robinson turns his sharp eye and dry humor on American landscapes, small towns, and...

From E. W. Hornung — the English author who gave the world Raffles, the gentleman thief, and who was Arthur Conan Doyle's own brother-in-law — comes a quieter, more intimate novel that stands apart from his famous crime fiction. Duncan Clephane is a war-wounded officer who has no illusions...

When Donald Prime opens his eyes, he finds himself lying on the shore of an unknown lake deep in the Canadian wilderness — his clothes on, his surroundings completely unfamiliar, and beside him a woman he has never seen before. Neither of them has any idea how they got there, or why. Their...

The Quirt is a gripping Western adventure set in the rugged cattle country of early twentieth-century Idaho. Britt Hunter and his old friend Frank have spent years eking out a living on the Quirt ranch, a modest outfit hemmed in on nearly all sides by the sprawling Sawtooth Cattle Company. The...

Paste Jewels is a collection of humorous short stories following the Perkins family — particularly newlyweds Thaddeus and Bessie — as they navigate the comic trials of managing a household and domestic staff in late 19th-century America. The book's seven tales include "The Emancipation of...