Unabridged Start Classics Series

The first of five collections containing the complete works of Edgar Allan Poe.

The third of five collections containing the complete works of Edgar Allan Poe.

"I entered literary life as a meteor, and I shall leave it like a thunderbolt." These words of Maupassant to Jose Maria de Heredia on the occasion of a memorable meeting are, in spite of their morbid solemnity, not an inexact summing up of the brief career during which, for ten years, the writer, by turns undaunted and sorrowful, with the fertility of a master hand produced poetry, novels, romances and travels, only to sink prematurely into the abyss of madness and death. . . . . This book contains all thirteen volumes of his original short stories.

Anna Katharine Green (November 11, 1846 - April 11, 1935) was an American poet and novelist. She was one of the first writers of detective fiction in America and distinguished herself by writing well plotted, legally accurate stories (no doubt assisted by her lawyer father).

Samuel Pickwick is the founder and perpetual president of the Pickwick Club. He and his fellow Pickwickians travel to the far-flung corners of London in search of adventure - luckily for the gentlemen, amusement and hilarity are never in short supply. Along their way, they encounter plenty of characters - from villains who land them in deep trouble to one woman who sues Pickwick to force him into marriage, providing the Pickwickians with plenty of tales to entertain.

A young girl frantically summons a gentleman walking by on the street to come in and help her grandfather. Arthur Outhwaite answers her cry for help only to find himself as the last person to see her grandfather alive and left with the admonishment from the dying man to deliver a letter to someone, and to that person only. Unfortunately, he dies before he can inform Outhwaite who that particular person is. Being in a house of strangers, Outhwaite is thrust into the mystery of not only finding this unknown person, but is also faced with the mysterious circumstances under which the child's grandfather died.

When it was first published in 1781, The Confessions scandalised Europe with its emotional honesty and frank treatment of the author's sexual and intellectual development. Since then, it has had a more profound impact on European thought. Rousseau left posterity a model of the reflective life - the solitary, uncompromising individual, the enemy of servitude and habit and the selfish egoist who dedicates his life to a particular ideal. The Confessions recreates the world in which he progressed from incompetent engraver to grand success; his enthusiasm for experience, his love of nature, and his uncompromising character make him an ideal guide to eighteenth-century Europe, and he was the author of some of the most profound work ever written on the relation between the individual and the state.

The fourth of five collections containing the complete works of Edgar Allan Poe.

The second of five collections containing the complete works of Edgar Allan Poe.

The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana, in seven parts, with preface, introduction, and concluding remarks, is the classic translation of what is arguably the world's oldest sex manual and relationship advice handbook. Much more than just erotic advice, this is a revelation of the social mores and customs of the ancient world and the daily lives of men and women in India, their views of intimacy, love and communication between the sexes -- all filtered through the British Victorian worldview and commentary of the translators. Instructions are given for wives, husbands, lovers, in-laws, courtesans, eunuchs, harems, go-betweens, matchmaking and breakups, compatibility, personal hygiene, and even recipes for potions to increase genital size and pleasure. This edition strives to preserve the quaint charm of the original translation (1883), including uncommon spellings, and includes fifty-eight explicit classic interior illustrations. Translated from the Sanskrit by Richard Burton

In THE FORSAKEN INN, a young bride is murdered on her wedding night. Did her new husband, Edwin Urquhart, kill her to run off with her sister, or is something much more sinister afoot at THE FORSAKEN INN.

The fifth of five collections containing the complete works of Edgar Allan Poe.

The Seventh Man by Max Brand, tells part of the story of the larger-than-life western character, Dan Barry, known as "Whistling Dan," and his alter-ego companions, Black Bart, the wolf-dog, and Satan, the indomitable black stallion. It's also the story of Kate Cumberland and the incredible five-year-old daughter of Kate and Dan, Joan. We first see Dan as a gentle, caring man with a deep sense of fairness. But then, after six years of a peaceful life in their mountain cabin Dan, more feral than human, sets out to revenge an injustice by killing seven men. Ultimately, it is his devotion to his daughter and Kate's love for the child that brings about the climax of the tale. Warning: don't look for a typical cowboy story here - it's far deeper and stronger than that.

In CYNTHIA WAKEHAM'S MONEY, a young lawyer is summoned to the house of a dying woman to draw up her will. In the search for her legitimate heirs, he encounters a beautiful woman with a mysterious scar. Events then take a very sinister turn...

And maybe I ain't. Sinclair brushed the entire argument away into a thin mist of smoke. "Now, look here, Cold Feet, I'm about to go to sleep, and when I sleep, I sure sleep sound, taking it by and large. They's times when I don't more'n close one eye all night, and they's times when you'd have to pull my eyes open, one by one, to wake me up. Understand? I'm going to sleep the second way tonight. About eight hours of the soundest sleep you ever heard tell of."

The initiator of the literary fairy tale genre, Charles Perrault, published in 1695 under the name of his son a collection of fairy tales Histoires ou contes du temps passés, avec des moralités, which grew better known under its subtitle, Contes de ma mère l'Oye or Tales of My Mother Goose. Perrault's publication marks the first authenticated starting-point for Mother Goose stories.

The Gray Madam' is one of Green's short stories of crime and mystery. Anna Katharine Green was born in Brooklyn, New York, USA in 1846. She aspired to be a writer from a young age, and corresponded with Ralph Waldo Emerson during her late teens. When her poetry failed to gain recognition, Green produced her first and best-known novel, The Leavenworth Case (1878). Praised by Wilkie Collins, the novel was year's bestseller, establishing Green's reputation. Green wrote at a time when fiction, and especially crime fiction, was dominated by men. However, she is now credited with shaping detective fiction into its classic form, and developing the trope of the recurring detective.

A Difficult Problem' is one of Green's short stories of crime and mystery. Anna Katharine Green was born in Brooklyn, New York, USA in 1846. She aspired to be a writer from a young age, and corresponded with Ralph Waldo Emerson during her late teens. When her poetry failed to gain recognition, Green produced her first and best-known novel, The Leavenworth Case (1878). Praised by Wilkie Collins, the novel was year's bestseller, establishing Green's reputation. Green wrote at a time when fiction, and especially crime fiction, was dominated by men. However, she is now credited with shaping detective fiction into its classic form, and developing the trope of the recurring detective.

When Ronicky Doone arrives in Twin Springs, he finds himself in the midst of a deadly feud between two rival families. The stakes are high - honor, revenge, and rich ranch land. Though the townsmen favor the Jenkinses, Ronicky is drawn to the Bennetts - and especially the beautiful Elsie Bennett. As the struggle builds up in violence and shifting alliances, only Ronicky has the power to restore the peace.

General Webb had a simply magnificent idea for getting ground forces into the enemy's territory despite rockets and missiles and things like that. It was a grand scheme, except for one minor detail.

The word pragmatism is used everywhere today, from business to sports to politics. Although the word hadn't yet entered everyday language when William James published "Pragmatism" in 1907, the philosopher believed its doctrine had virtually become common sense in twentieth-century America. For James, pragmatism was a specific philosophical alternative to essentialism and foundationalism and argued that ideas are meaningful only insofar as they have practical consequences in concrete human experience; however today pragmatism has come to denote merely a general willingness to compromise principles, even to the point of selfishness or irresponsibility. Written in an engaging and accessible style, "Pragmatism" is a valuable corrective to modern uses of the word, since the voice that speaks in its pages embodies precisely the opposite values from the pejorative semes the word has acquired.

Ronicky Doone (1926) is a hero of the west, respected by the law-abiding citizen and hated by bushwhacking bandits. Bill Gregg is a man in love, not about to be deflected from meeting his lady love for the first time, and willing to stand up to the living legend to reach her. This initial meeting leads to a friendship between the two and they travel east to New York City on the trail of the girl. When they find the girl, Caroline Smith, and she refuses to leave, Ronicky must discover the secret that holds her. They encounter the sinister John Mark and the beautiful Ruth Tolliver and are exposed to the horrors and vices of big city life as they attempt to rescue Caroline and find their way back to the mountain-desert of the west.

He made one mistake in the beginning. He pushed the chestnut too hard the first and second days, so that on the third day he was forced to give the gelding his head and go at a jarring trot most of the day. On the fourth and fifth days, however, he had the reward for his caution. The chestnut's ribs were beginning to show painfully, but he kept doggedly at his work with no sign of faltering. The sixth day brought Andrew Lanning in close view of the lower hills. And on the seventh day he put his fortune boldly to the touch and jogged into the first little town before him.

Whistlin' Dan Berry is one of the most interesting characters in Western fiction. With uncanny abilities he controls a wild stallion, appropriately named Satan, and a ferocious wolf dog, Black Bart. Easy going, Berry proves absolutely unforgiving when physically assaulted by a feared, vicious outlaw, Jim Silent. Seemingly without any emotions, Whistlin' Dan is relentless in his vengeful search for Silent and his outlaw gang. The is the first book in the "Whistlin Dan" series.

You've probably heard, "You reap what you sow!" A truth from God's Word, we certainly see the effects of our work and day-to-day choices, whether positive or negative. Through Moody's stories and illustrations, we see the outcome of deceiving in and the reward of a wise, righteous life. Be challenged as you reflect on your own life-What are you sowing?

A reward of five thousand dollars is offered, by Phil Ocumpaugh, to whoever will give such information as will lead to the recovery, alive or dead, of his six-year-old daughter, Gwendolen, missing since the afternoon of August the 16th, from her home in New York.

The five stories brought together in Tales of Unrest (1898) mark a turning point in the writer's career. Conrad's first short story collection evidences a writer firmly in control of his new craft staking a claim to diverse cultural and fictional territories. The introduction situates the writing of these stories in Conrad's career and discusses their sources and contemporary reception. The explanatory notes identify literary and historical references and real-life places, and indicate influences. Two maps and six illustrations enrich the explanatory matter. The essay on the text lays out the history of the work's composition and publication, details interventions by Conrad's typists, compositors and editors, and explains editorial policy.

Short stories written by Anna Katharine Green. This collection includes: The Old Stone House, A Memorable Night, The Black Cross, A Mysterious Case, Shall He Wed Her?

I am not an inquisitive woman, but when, in the middle of a certain warm night in September, I heard a carriage draw up at the adjoining house and stop, I could not resist the temptation of leaving my bed and taking a peep through the curtains of my window. First: because the house was empty, or supposed to be so, the family still being, as I had every reason to believe, in Europe; and secondly: because, not being inquisitive, I often miss in my lonely and single life much that it would be both interesting and profitable for me to know. Luckily I made no such mistake this evening. I rose and looked out, and though I was far from realizing it at the time, took, by so doing, my first step in a course of inquiry which has ended—— But it is too soon to speak of the end. Rather let me tell you what I saw when I parted the curtains of my window in Gramercy Park, on the night of September 17, 1895. Not much at first glance, only a common hack drawn up at the neighboring curb-stone. The lamp which is supposed to light our part of the block is some rods away on the opposite side of the street, so that I obtained but a shadowy glimpse of a young man and woman standing below me on the pavement. I could see, however, that the woman—and not the man—was putting money into the driver's hand. The next moment they were on the stoop of this long-closed house, and the coach rolled off.

Notoriously unreliable and digressive in structure, it is nonetheless the principal contemporary source for information about the author's life.[citation needed] It tells about his schooling in Russian Poland, his sailing in Marseille, the influence of his Uncle Tadeusz, and the writing of Almayer's Folly. It provides a glimpse of how Conrad wished to be seen by his British public, as well as being an atmospheric work of art.[citation needed] The "Familiar Preface" Conrad wrote for it includes the often quoted lines: "Those who read me know my conviction that the world, the temporal world, rests on a few very simple ideas; so simple that they must be as old as the hills. It rests notably, among others, on the idea of Fidelity."