Showing results by author "Mc bill frank" in All Categories

After The Three Muskateers and Twenty Years After the adventurous story of Athos, Porthos, Aramis and D'Artagnan continues! The Vicomte of Bragelonne: Ten Years Later (French: Le Vicomte de Bragelonne ou Dix ans plus tard) is the last of the Musketeer novels. It is usually divided into four volumes and this third volume contains chapters 141-208. (Summary by Diana Majlinger)

In Pendennis, William Makepeace Thackeray skillfully shows the coming of age of Arthur Pendennis, a young gentleman trying to make his way in the world. Pen's difficulties in finding his place in the difficult maze of social obstacles are created to some extent by his being raised in the country and being from an ancient though impoverished family. We follow his course from the village in which he was raised via Oxbridge to London, meeting the most memorable characters, falling in and out of love, navigating the difficulties of society, and hopefully finally arriving at a happy end.

The Librivox Coffee Break Collections are themed anthologies, selected and read by Librivox readers. Each short piece is fifteen minutes long, or less -- perfect for coffee breaks, commutes and work outs. Essays, prose, fiction, non-fiction, poetry -- who knows what gems will be uncovered? In this collection, we explore old age -- grandparents, retirement, wisdom, decline. It is an opportunity to reflect on mortality and depth of experience. - Summary by Lynne Thompson

A collection of twenty stories featuring ghoulies, ghosties, long-leggedy beasties and things that go bump in the night. Expect shivers up your spine, the stench of human flesh, and the occasional touch of wonder.

This small booklet was written in 1921 as a guide for Americans interested in investing in railroad securities. The majority of the book is devoted to recounting the history of railroad companies in the United States from the Civil War to 1921. It discusses the many shady dealings done by railroad companies and how the railroad companies were temporarily taken over by the federal government during WWI. The final part of the book also describes all the different types of railroad securities. (Summary by Elsie Selwyn)

A collection of short, sweet fairy tales from Brazil, including How the Tiger Got His Stripes, and Why The Bananas Belong to the Monkey. - Summary by Beth Thomas

In this, the last of the Three Musketeers novels, Dumas builds on the true story of a mysterious prisoner held incognito in the French penal system, forced to wear a mask when seen by any but his jailer or his valet. If you have skipped the novels between The Three Musketeers and this, a few notes will bring you into the story:On one side – Aramis, now a bishop and secretly the Captain-General of the Jesuit Order, who believes he has found a path to a higher honor – the papacy. Monsieur Fouquet, the vastly rich minister of finance, Aramis’ ally. Philippe, the identical twin of King Louis...

The Children of the New Forest is a children's novel published in 1847 by Frederick Marryat. It is set in the time of the English Civil War and the Commonwealth. The story follows the fortunes of the four Beverley children who are orphaned during the war, and hide from their Roundhead oppressors in the shelter of the New Forest where they learn to live off the land.The story begins in 1647 when King Charles I has been defeated in the civil war and has fled from London towards the New Forest. Parliamentary soldiers have been sent to search the forest and decide to burn Arnwood, the house of ...

Here's a Mark Twain story that's very unlike those he became famous for, but when I read it back in Catholic high school, it left a deep impression. It concerns the deeply religious residents of a small village in Austria during the late sixteenth century, and what happened to several of them when a strange man began to visit their insulated homeland. There's little of Twain's humor here; this is a horror story, a parable. . . and a warning.

The Valley of Fear is the fourth novel Arthur Conan Doyle wrote about private detective Sherlock Holmes. First published serially in The Strand Magazine between September 1914 and May 1915, this novel was published as a book three months before its serialization was complete. Doyle went on to write more Sherlock Holmes stories, but The Valley of Fear was his last novel about the character. This novel is the only one of the four in which criminal mastermind Professor Moriarty appears, and one of only two stories by Doyle in which Moriarty plays a direct role; despite the prominence that later ...

El ingeniero Banks, que ha inventado una máquina rodante de vapor con forma de elefante, invita a tres personas, el coronel Munro, el capitán Hood y el francés Maucler, a acompañarlo en un viaje por el norte de la India en su vehículo. Entre las muchas aventuras que corren juntos, el coronel Munro va descubriendo poco a poco sus planes para el viaje. - Summary by Tux

A baffling disappearance. A bedroom door locked from the inside. A housekeeper with something to hide. Will retired policeman turned private detective, Joseph Muller, be able to sort out the clues and solve this locked room mystery? Summary by J. M. Smallheer

The quiet Dutch community of Sleepy Hollow lay in the Adirondack mountains on the western shore of the mighty Hudson River in America’s colonial period. The solitude of the woods was breathtaking, and not even a schoolmaster was immune from the eerie miasma which everyone knew permeated the dense forest. Written in 1820, Washington Irving’s The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow has become a classic of American literature, and has been retold in many different ways. Here is the original, from Irving’s own hand. (Summary by Chip)

In this, the sixth in the Baseball Joe series, Baseball Joe Matson's St. Louis Cardinals contract is purchased by the New York Giants (today's San Francisco Giants). We follow the ups and downs, through the season, of Joe and of the Giants, and their attempt to win the pennant. When not immersed in baseball, Joe is saving babies and assisting Mabel's brother in recovering stolen securities.

Receiving a mysterious cypher message from a Fred Porlock, apparent agent of the infamous Professor Moriarty, Holmes and Watson set about deciphering the message, taking them into the mysterious murder of John Douglas. The connection between the murder and the message from Porlock creates the basis for this new Sherlock mystery, the last novel written by Doyle featuring the famous detective. - Summary by David Clarke

King Solomon’s Mines, first published in 1885, was a best-selling novel by the Victorian adventure writer H. Rider Haggard. It relates a journey into the heart of Africa by a group of adventurers led by Allan Quatermain in search of the legendary wealth said to be concealed in the mines of the novel’s title. It is significant as the first fictional adventure novel set in Africa, and is considered the genesis of the Lost World literary genre. - Haggard wrote over 50 books, among which were 14 novels starring Allan Quatermain.

In this light-hearted yet thought-provoking collection of articles, Bennett offers his thoughts on exercising the mind, organising your life, the advantages (and disadvantages) of marriage and other pocket philosophies.The book stands the test of time, and much is still relevant and amusing - perhaps even more so, with nearly 100 years of hindsight, than when it was originally written.The book "X" to which Bennett refers in Chapter 5 is An Essay on the Principle of Population by Thomas Malthus, of which there is also a Librivox recording.

After the war, Earth stored away its robot armies or sold them for scrap—because fighting machines were dangerous. But more deadly was— THE COSMIC JUNKMAN.

Theodore Wratislaw was a fin de siècle poet and a less famous Decadent author than some of his contemporaries.

A mysterious map, pirates, and pieces of eight! When young Jim Hawkins finds a map to pirates’ gold he starts on an adventure that takes him from his English village to a desert island with the murderous Black Dog, half-mad Ben Gunn, and (of course) Long John Silver. Arr Jim lad! R.L. Stevenson (1850-1894) was born in Scotland and travelled extensively in California and the south Pacific. (Summary by Adrian Praetzellis)