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It began with odd atmospheric disturbances taking place on Mars, followed by the arrival of Martians just outside of London. At first the Martians seemed laughable, hardly able to move in Earth's comparatively heavy gravity -- even enough to raise themselves out of the pit created when their spaceship landed. But soon death machines 100-feet tall rise up from the pit and begin laying waste to the surrounding land. As England's military suffers defeat after defeat, London is evacuated and all hope seems lost as it becomes clear that the Martians are not conquering humans, but corralling them as food.

Meet a man who can travel through time. All the way to the year 802, 701! What will he find in the future? Amazing adventures? Strange people? Or danger? Come along with the Time Traveler in THE TIME MACHINE!

Once an ancient book is opened by Professor Lidenbrock, his life is changed forever. An old piece of paper has tumbled from the book, a parchment that will lead them on the expedition to end all expeditions. So begins a voyage thousands of feet under the sea, as the pair embark on a terrifying journey to find what lies at the centre of the earth.

Part One of Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Mars-Series. Easy, swank, pulp read about an omnipotent gentleman teleported to Mars, finding an outlandish society of ape-, tree- and lizardmen, red-, white-, yellowmen, brains on legs, strange bastions and curious apparatuses, where the strongest survives and women are needy beauties to be saved. How can something be so platitudinous and at the same time so imaginative and enthralling?

When a secretive man enters the village of Iping, strange things begin to occur. Furniture moves on its own, money and food is stolen, and noises are heard in the night. Could it be the Invisible Man?

The story chronicles the adventures of a young farm girl named Dorothy in the magical Land of Oz, after she and her pet dog Toto are swept away from their Kansas home by a cyclone.[nb 1] The book is one of the best-known stories in American literature and has been widely translated. The Library of Congress has declared it "America's greatest and best-loved homegrown fairytale." Its groundbreaking success and the success of the Broadway musical adapted from the novel led Baum to write thirteen additional Oz books that serve as official sequels to the first story.

'Gulliver's Travels' describes the shipwrecked Gulliver's encounters with the inhabitants of four extraordinary places: Lilliput, Brobdingnag, Laputa, and the country of the Houyhnhnms.

This is the tale of the experiences of an ordinary innocent young soldier on the battlefields of the American Civil War.

Written in the 6th century BC, Sun Tzu's The Art of War is still used as a book of military strategy today. Napoleon, Mae Zedong, General Vo Nguyen Giap and General Douglas MacArthur all claimed to have drawn inspiration from it. And beyond the world of war, business and management gurus have also applied Sun Tzu's ideas to office politics and corporate strategy. Using a new translation by James Trapp and including editorial notes, this edition of The Art of War is printed on high quality paper and bound by traditional Chinese book-making techniques. It contains the full 13 chapters on such topics as laying plans, attacking by stratagem, weaponry, terrain and the use of spies. Sun Tzu addresses different campaign situations, marching, energy and how to exploit your enemy's weaknesses. Of immense influence to great leaders across millennia.

After surviving a terrible shipwreck, Robinson Crusoe discovers he is the only human on an island far from any shipping routes or rescue. At first he is devastated, but slowly, with patience and imagination, he transforms his island into a tropical paradise. For twenty-four years he lives with no human companionship - until one fateful day, when he discovers he is not alone... Puffin Classics edition has been specially abridged. %%%After surviving a terrible shipwreck, Robinson Crusoe discovers he is the only human on an island far from any shipping routes or rescue. At first he is devastated, but slowly, with patience and imagination, he transforms his island into a tropical paradise. For twenty-four years he lives with no human companionship - until one fateful day, when he discovers he is not alone...

Moby Dick is widely regarded as one of the greatest novels in the English language. It is the epic story of Captain Ahab, the vengeful whaler, and his pursuit of Moby Dick, the elusive white whale who destroyed his boat and left Ahab a crippled and obsessive monomaniac.

In Missouri, during the 1840s, young Huck Finn fearful of his drunkard father and yearning for adventure, leaves his foster family and joins with runaway slave Jim in a voyage down the Mississippi River toward slavery free states.

Swept off course by a raging storm, a Swiss pastor, his wife, and their four young sons are shipwrecked on an uncharted tropical island. Thus begins the classic story of survival and adventure that has fired the imaginations of readers since it first appeared in 1812. With optimism and boundless enthusiasm, the Robinson family undertakes the extraordinary task of constructing a home for themselves and exploring the primitive island filled with strange and beautiful creatures and exotic fruits and plants. Rich in action and suspense, The Swiss Family Robinson is an exhilarating novel takes us to a faraway place of danger and beauty, where the courageous Robinson family embarks on a thrilling new life of adventure and discovery.

The discovery of a treasure map in Captain Flint's sea chest plunges Jim into a series of adventures as sudden and unexpected as the Captain's arrival at the Admiral Benbow Inn. For Jim, life will never be quite the same again.

The moving story of a proud dog who escapes captivity to become the leader of a wolf pack. Buck is a dog born to luxury, but betrayed and sold to be a sledge dog in the harsh and frozen Yukon. This is the remarkable story of how Buck rises above his enemies to become one of the most feared and admired dogs in the north.

Black Beauty is Anna Sewell’s first and only novel. The story is told in the “first person” (or first horse) as an autobiographical memoir of a highbred horse named Black Beauty, from his carefree days as a foal on an English farm, to his difficult life pulling cabs in London, to his happy retirement in the country. Along the way, he meets with many hardships and recounts many tales of cruelty and kindness. Each short chapter recounts an incident in Black Beauty’s life containing a lesson or moral typically related to the kindness, sympathy, and understanding treatment of horses.

he Jungle Book (1894) is a collection of stories by the English author Rudyard Kipling. Most of the characters are animals such as Shere Khan the tiger and Baloo the bear, though a principal character is the boy or "man-cub" Mowgli, who is raised in the jungle by wolves. The stories are set in a forest in India; one place mentioned repeatedly is "Seonee" (Seoni), in the central state of Madhya Pradesh.

Based on true events, Beautiful Joe tells the story of a dog that is rescued from the hands of a cruel master who removes his ears and tail in a fit of anger. The Morris family comes to his aid and carefully nurses the dog back to health, giving him the name, Beautiful Joe. Originally published in 1894, it is told from the perspective of Joe himself, who quickly finds that he is in the company of many other animals that the Morrises have saved from harm. They firmly believe that every creature has the right a to full and happy life. Despite his horrible, early experiences he falls in love with his adopted family and becomes a loyal and trustworthy companion.

Seen through the eyes of White Fang -- who is half dog, half wolf -- the story follows the creature as he is forced to endure a series of harsh environments that turn him from his youthful innocence to mad-dog cruelty. That is, until a young man comes along and offers kindness and friendship. But friendship is something that White Fang doesn't understand... yet. White Fang is more than great storytelling. It is a careful study of the effects of our environments in forming who we are. With fascinating details of the Klondike gold rush and North American Indian life, it is also a remarkable snapshot of its time.

When Sir Charles Baskerville is found dead on the moors, a heart attack seems to be the likely cause. However, a certain Dr. Mortimer thinks there is more to it than that. Although it seems impossible, he believes that a supernatuaral hound is haunting the area. His theory suggests that this beast has been on the rampage for years, killing generations of male Baskervilles.

Sherlock Holmes is not only the most famous character in crime fiction, but arguably the most famous character in all fiction. In sixty adventures that pit his extraordinary wits and courage against foreign spies, blackmailers, cultists, petty thieves, murderers, swindlers, policemen (both stupid and clever), and his arch-nemesis Moriarty, Sherlock Holmes, together with his faithful sidekick Doctor John H. Watson, proves himself to be not only the quintessential detective but also the most engaging and entertaining company any reader could ask for.

The story of the notorious vampire Count Dracula, lord of the undead, who rises from his coffin at night to suck the blood of the living is, undoubtedly, the stuff of nightmares. A lunatic asylum, a bleak Transylvanian castle, an ancient cemetery ... these are the dark backgrounds to the even darker deeds portrayed in this most bloodcurdling of tales.

'I thus drew steadily nearer to that truth, by whose partial discovery I have been doomed to such a dreadful shipwreck: that man is not truly one, but truly two.' A London lawyer is drawn into a series of strange occurrences concerning his old friend Henry Jekyll and the despicable stranger Edward Hyde, a man who seems to epitomise the very meaning of evil. What is Hyde's mysterious hold over Jekyll, and what is the reason behind Jekyll's increasingly odd behaviour? The investigations will lead into the dark heart of Victorian London, and of human nature itself, as the shocking truth about Hyde's true identity is finally revealed. Published in 1886 to critical acclaim, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is a thrilling exploration of the interplay of good and evil and the terrifying duality that lies within us all.

The tale begins with letters from Captain Walton as he journeys Northward to undiscovered lands. There, in the frozen wastelands of the North, Walton encounters Victor Frankenstein and there hears the strange sequence of events that lead the poor Doctor Frankenstein to those remote reaches of the earth. The Doctor’s tale is strange indeed, and explores the limitations of human knowledge while showing, through Frankenstein’s Monster, the way in which evil is created and how knowledge we’re unprepared for can destroy us.

A very young woman's first job: governess for two weirdly beautiful, strangely distant, oddly silent children, Miles and Flora, at a forlorn estate...An estate haunted by a beckoning evil.
Half-seen figures who glare from dark towers and dusty windows- silent, foul phantoms who, day by day, night by night, come closer, ever closer. With growing horror, the helpless governess realizes the fiendish creatures want the children, seeking to corrupt their bodies, possess their minds, own their souls...
But worse-much worse- the governess discovers that Miles and Flora have no terror of the lurking evil. For they want the walking dead as badly as the dead want them.

Conger, the protagonist, is given a chance to get out of jail if he agrees to travel back in time and kill a man. Conger's target appeared in 1960 in a small town and spawned a new religious movement which radically changed the world over the next few hundred years. Conger is given a skull from which he can identify the man, and is sent back in time in a capsule. As Conger prepares for the man's arrival, he discovers that the skull is his own, and he is the man who will change the world, as people around town begin to take interest in the time traveler. Due to the use of time travel, Conger realizes that even though he will die, another version of himself will reappear in a few months, as if resurrected.

One bleak December at midnight, a raven with fiery eyes visits the scholar and perches above his chamber door. Struggling to understand the meaning of the word his winged visitant repeats - Nevermore! - the narrator descends by stages into madness.

Ambrose Bierce's 'Chickamauga' depicts the encounter of a lost boy with a battalion of wounded and retreating soldiers. Bierce blends the boy's fantasy with the gruesome realities of combat to create a chilling effect.

Peyton Farquhar, a confederate sympathizer, stands to be hanged for his role in a plot to demolish Owl Creek Bridge. As he awaits death, Farquhar considers the possibility of escape—the chances of slipping his bonds, swimming to safety, and returning to his family. “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” recounts the final moments before Farquhar is hanged, exploring the feelings of a man facing his death, and the close relationship between life and death.

This short story by Orwell follows an English policeman in Burma who is called upon to shoot an elephant. The strain of imperialism is represented through the officer's anguish while watching the majestic creature suffer and slowly die.

A trained sniper doing his job during the Irish Civil War faces a shocking turn of events, after killing an enemy.

In Bradbury's "A Sound of Thunder," a hunter named Eckels pays $10,000 to travel with Time Safari, a time machine company that takes hunters back to the time of dinosaurs and allows them to hunt Tyrannosaurus Rex. The company guarantees nothing - neither your safety nor your return, and there are strict instructions and expectations for how the hunters should behave once they travel back in time.