Nicholas Clifford (1930-2019)
Dangerous Days
Dangerous Days opens in a still neutral America, though within a year the country will have joined the European alliance against the Central…
Doctor Thorne
Doctor Thorne is the third of Trollope's Barsetshire novels, and unlike some of the others, has little to do with the politics and personali…
In the Mayor's Parlour
“Rotten borough” is a term that goes back to the 18th century, and it used to mean a parliamentary constituency in which a few property owne…
At the Villa Rose
Harry Wethermill, the brilliant young scientist, a graduate of Oxford and Munich, has made a fortune from his inventions, and is taking a va…
The Witness for the Defence
Part romance, part mystery, part courtroom and quasi-courtroom drama. Young love reignites itself after a hiatus of some years. Or does it? …
The Breaking Point
Mary Roberts Rinehart -- "America's Agatha Christie," as she used to be called -- set this story in a New York suburban town, shor…
Mr. Standfast
This is the third of Buchan's Richard Hannay novels, following The Thirty-nine Steps and Greenmantle. Set, like Greenmantle, during World Wa…
Ravensdene Court
Leonard Middlebrook, a young attorney with, among other things, a bibliographical interest, accepts an invitation to lonely Ravensdene Court…
The Vanishing Man
A young doctor, former student of the legal and medical expert Dr. John Thorndyke, finds himself almost accidentally drawn into a case in wh…
Running Water
Although A.E.W. Mason is best known for The Four Feathers, an adventure novel of 1902 set in Egypt and the Sudan (and filmed several times),…
The Aspern Papers
One of James’s favorite short novels, the Aspern Papers tells of the efforts of the nameless narrator to procure the papers of a famous, bu…
The American
One of James’s early novels, The American plunges right in to one of the writer’s most enduring subjects, that of the innocent, or at least …
Tales of Men and Ghosts
Tales of Men and Ghosts was published as a collection in 1910, though the first eight of the stories had earlier appeared in Scribner's and …
Why Frau Frohmann Raised Her Prices and Other Stories
In this engaging collection of five short stories, Anthony Trollope explores the intricacies of human relationships and societal expectation…
The Descent of Man and Other Stories
This collection of ten stories, first published in 1904, shows Edith Wharton dissecting some of the customs, habits and vagaries of courtshi…
On the Eve
On the Eve appeared in 1860, two years before Fathers and Sons, Turgenev's most famous novel. It is set in the prior decade (by the end of t…
Witching Hill
The adventures of two young men, which may or may not have to do with the supernatural. - Summary by Nicholas Clifford
Domestic Manners of the Americans
Next to de Alexis de Tocquville's almost contemporary Democracy in America, Frances Trollope's work may be the most famous (or at least noto…
The Portrait of a Lady (version 3)
Our central character is Isabel Archer of Albany, New York, a young woman of no great means, and no great beauty (that is, by her own estima…
The Problem of China
In 1920-21 Bertrand Russell lived and taught in Peking (Beijing), publishing this book on his return to England. In 1920 he had visited Bols…