Alexander Spencer

A kind and well-respected doctor is transformed into a murderous madman by taking a secret drug of his own creation.

"First published 1897. Count Dracula, an 'undead' villain from Transylvania, uses his supernatural powers to lure and prey upon innocent victims from whom he gains the blood on which he lives. The novel is written chiefly in the form of journals kept by the principal characters -- Jonathan Harker, who contacts the vampire in his Transylvanian castle; Harker's fiancée (later his wife), Mina, adored by the Count; the well-meaning Dr. Seward; and Lucy...

This presents six stories of Wodehouse's comic mastery of English prose.

As assistant to his anatomy instructor, Doctor Fettes is given the job of receiving fresh cadavers for his class. Since the matter is such a delicate business, Fettes is told to simply pay the transporters and not ask any questions. But when Fettes recognizes one of the bodies as a young woman he knows to have been alive and well the day before, he begins to wonder just how these poor souls are meeting their end.

Eight exquisite mystery stories set in London, starring Dr. Samuel Johnson, one of the greatest minds of the eighteenth century. In 1775, as the British Empire is about to be cracked by the earthquake of the American Revolution, twenty English families join in the ghoulish bargain known as a tontine. Each puts £5,000 into a common fund to be held in trust for their children with the terrible stipulation that the money will go to the last child left...

In 1887, Robert Louis Stevenson and his wife, Fanny, left England and sailed for the United States. A year later, they moved on again, steaming from San Francisco to the blue waters and lush islands of the South Pacific. As he soaked up the exotic landscapes, Robert Louis Stevenson was fascinated by the mystery and lore of the islands. Seeking to capture the quality of the folk-tales he heard, Stevenson crafted short stories, filling them with the...

The immortal Sherlock Holmes solves eleven unforgettable mysteries These stories, originally published in the Strand Magazine, follow Holmes from the astonishing heights of his deductive powers to the bottom of a treacherous gorge in Switzerland. "Silver Blaze," a case that famously hinges on the "curious incident of the dog in the night-time," finds the detective employing his singular imagination to locate a missing racehorse. In "The Greek Interpreter,"...

In 1773, an unlikely pair-a dominant figure of English literature and a young lawyer-set out on horseback to follow roads and cattle-trails across the Highlands to the Western Islands of Scotland. Their conversation and accounts are filled with curious detail, flashing wit and fascinating encounters with the high and low of the country.