Sebastian Blackwood

This frighteningly prophetic tale from the progenitor of modern science fiction remains as powerful today as when it was written-more than a century ago. Firebrand activist Graham falls into a drug-induced sleep in 1897 London-and is stunned to wake in the year 2100 to a world he does not know. But the world knows him. When word spreads that the "Sleeper" has awakened, it rocks the foundations of what the planet has become: a dystopian existence...

The Longest Journey (1907) is a novel by English author E.M. Forster. Despite its critical success, the novel was a commercial failure for Forster, but has since grown in reputation and readership to help cement his reception as one of twentieth century England's most talented writers. Rickie Elliot enters Cambridge as a young man, exploring his interests in poetry and art and joining a circle of intellectuals centered around, a philosopher named...

Thomas Paine wrote the American Crisis in an effort to justify the American Revolution and to bolster the moral of the Continental Army. These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the...

Thomas Paine, a seminal figure in American History, was an Englishman by birth who immigrated to America in 1774, where he quickly took up the cause of the independence of the American colonies from England. His famous work "Common Sense", published in 1776, helped to gain public support for the American Revolution and established him as a central figure among the founding fathers. Later, while living in France during the French Revolution, Paine...

"A Hero of Our Time" by Mikhail Lermontov, translated by Marr Murray and J. H. Wisdom, is a timeless classic of Russian literature that delves into the complexities of human nature, love, and the pursuit of meaning in a world marked by moral ambiguity and existential angst. Set against the stunning backdrop of the Caucasus Mountains, the novel follows the life of Pechorin, a young Russian officer whose enigmatic personality and reckless behavior...

Typee is the first book by American writer Herman Melville, published in the early part of 1846, when Melville was 26 years old. Considered a classic in travel and adventure literature, the narrative is based on the author's actual experiences on the island Nuku Hiva in the South Pacific Marquesas Islands in 1842, supplemented with imaginative reconstruction and research from other books. The title comes from the valley of Taipivai, once known as...

In Tales of Men and Ghosts‚ Edith Wharton spins ten tales with a certain thermometrical‚ quality. That is the ability to send a cold shiver down one's spine. This is a collection of stories originally published in Scribner's and Century magazines before 1910. The tales explore psychological, as well as moral or social themes, as when Andrew Culwin realizes to his horror that "The Eyes" that haunt him are his own. In "Afterward," when Ned Boyne...

Many teachers of Nature Cure, Hygiene and Health cults have stumbled accidentally upon some of the natural laws and true methods of healing, but have failed to grasp and to formulate the broad underlying principles. For this reason they are often partly right and partly wrong and very apt to overdo certain methods to the neglect of others just as effective and essential, or even more so. I shall endeavor in these volumes to formulate and elucidate...

On the day after his thirtieth birthday, Josef K, a bank teller, is arrested by two mysterious agents of an unspecified organization. Confused and shocked, Josef inquires about the crime he is being accused of, but the agents will not answer, leaving Josef to decide what he feels most guilty for. Though he is not imprisoned, Josef is told to await further instructions. Tortured by the unknown, Josef returns to his home and tries to guess what he could...

The youngish-looking man who so vigorously swung off the train at Restview, wore a pair of intensely dark blue eyes which immediately photographed everything within their range of vision-flat green country, shaded farm-houses, encircling wooded hills and all-weighed it and sorted it and filed it away for future reference; and his clothes clung on him with almost that enviable fit found only in advertisements. Immediately he threw his luggage into...