The Secret Sharer contains many of Conrad's favorite motifs.

A Swedish family migrate to Nebraska at the turn of the 20th century.

My Antonia, first published 1918, is one of Willa Cather's greatest works.

Agnes Grey is the daughter of a minister who faces financial ruin.

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge opens with the story's hero, Peyton Farquhar, hanging bound from a bridge, awaiting hanging.

You, my love, will be poor, so as to be more like all other women. In order for us to live together I shall work all day and so be your servant.

Walter Scott's novel Rob Roy follows a young Englishman, Frank Osbaldistone, to Scotland, where he travels to retrieve a debt.

The young orphan Pollyanna is sent to live with her stern Aunt in a dour New England town.

Lady Audley's Secret was one of the first and most successful sensation novels of the late 19th century. A young gentleman of leisure, Robert Audley, is spurred into action when his friend Geroge Talboys goes missing from Audley Court.

Published in 1901, M. P. Shiel's The Purple Cloud is an early last man science fiction novel.

According to the great horror writer H.P. Lovecraft The Ghost Pirates . . . is a powerful account of a doomed and haunted ship on its last voyage, and of the terrible sea-devils.

Darwin consolidated a lifetime of work in On the Origin of Species, compiling his discoveries from the voyage of the Beagle, his experiments, research and correspondence.

Charles Darwin is the English naturalist whose work laid the foundation for evolutionary biology and theory.

In a Glass Darkly collects together five short stories from gothic horror and mystery writer Sheridan Le Fanu.

Doctor Dolittle takes on an apprentice, Tommy Stubbins, as they set out to find Long Arrow, the world's greatest naturalist.

Liza of Lambeth (1897) narrates Liza's last four months alive.

The Moon and Sixpence is a fictional novel heavily influenced by the life of French painter Paul Gauguin.

The Professor was the first novel Charlotte Bronte wrote, but was only published posthumously.

First published in 1909, A Thief in the Night is the first novel detailing the exploits and intrigues of gentleman thief A. J. Raffles in late Victorian England.

First published in 1899, The Amateur Cracksman was the first collection of stories detailing the exploits and intrigues of gentleman thief A. J. Raffles in late Victorian England.