15-year-old Mary Peveril and her widowed clergyman father seem to be everything to each other - until he rather suddenly decides to marry a young woman in her twenties. Mary is all at once pushed into the shade, and jealously watches the other Mary take her place in her father's heart. Even Mary's first experience in love is complicated by the nearness of the other Mary. As originally serialised in four parts, the first two parts deal with the relationship...

This collection of literature attempts to compile many of the classic works that have stood the test of time and offer them at a reduced, affordable price, in an attractive volume so that everyone can enjoy them.

Colonel and Mrs. Kingsward have been travelling in Germany with their three eldest children, for the health of Mrs. Kingsward. Just after the Colonel returns to London, their daughter Bee becomes engaged to Aubrey Leigh, a young man of independent means. But a vindictive "lady" writes to Colonel Kingsward, enclosing a note on which she has forged a date, claiming Aubrey is under a moral obligation to marry her. Thus Colonel Kingsward forbids Bee's...

Kate Courtney, fifteen, is an heiress with a house in the country - and a rather inflated idea of what her position entails. But she has no one who cares anything about her. She believes she has found happiness when she goes to live with her aunt Mrs. Anderson and her cousin Ombra (whose name means Shadow) in a cottage on the Isle of Wight. But Ombra does not feel the same fondness - she had been the center of attention in her little world before...

John Brownlow is a highly respected attorney; and he is the executor for Mrs. Thomson's will, which left £50,000 to her daughter Phoebe. But he is also the beneficiary of that will, if Phoebe is not found within 25 years. As the years pass and Phoebe cannot be found, he begins to think of the money (now greatly increased) as his own. He buys a lovely country estate and raises his children Jack and Sara to associate with the neighbouring gentry. This...

A woman tells delightful accounts of her neighbours and friends from the village of Dinglefield Green. A book of excellent character studies of people in the Victorian era, much of which is still relatable today.

There stands in one of the northern counties of Scotland, in the midst of a wild and wooded landscape, with the background of a fine range of hills, and in the vicinity of a noble trout-stream, a great palace, uninhabited and unfinished. It is of the French-Scottish style of architecture, but more French than Scotch - a little Louvre planted in the midst of a great park and fine woods, by which, could a traveller pass, as in the days of Mr. G.P.R....

For reasons never explained to him, Edgar Arden was raised and educated on the Continent, away from his father and sister Clare. Now after the death of his father Edgar returns as squire of Arden Hall. The only shadows in his path are the enmity of the next heir, his cousin Arthur Arden, and vague rumours that Edgar is not the legitimate heir. But meanwhile he settles into his new role, and finds himself attracted to a neighbourhood family of lively...

Two narrators each tell their own story in segments, and eventually their stories will merge. First is Milly Langham, née Mortimer, who tells of her orphaned childhood and how she came to marry Lieutenant Harry Langham. The second narrator is Millicent Mortimer, who resides with her sister at their large estate in Cheshire. The sisters are looking for a long-lost cousin to be their heir. Meanwhile the elder of the sisters, Sarah, is disturbed after...

She was very old, and therefore it was very hard for her to make up her mind to die. I am aware that this is not at all the general view, but that it is believed, as old age must be near death, that it prepares the soul for that inevitable event. It is not so, however, in many cases. In youth we are still so near the unseen out of which we came, that death is rather pathetic than tragic,-a thing that touches all hearts, but to which, in many cases,...