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The Maltese Falcon
by Dashiell HammettOne of the most influential mystery novels ever written, and the only one to star the legendary and iconic Sam Spade. When Spade's partner is killed on what appears to be a routine case, Spade is drawn into the search for a mysterious, valuable object known as the Maltese Falcon, and must contend with the eclectic criminals looking for it, any of which would happily kill Spade (or each other), or use him for their own ends. It has been adapted for film three times, most famously starring Humphrey Bogart. Penguin Random House Canada is proud to bring you classic works of literature in e-book form, with the highest quality production values. Find more today and rediscover books you never knew you loved.
The Magician
by W. Somerset MaughamArthur Burdon is a man of science – a gifted surgeon, a saver of lives. But on a trip to Paris to visit his fiancé Margaret, an art student, his horizons are expanded when he meets Oliver Haddo. Haddo claims to be a magician – and displays gifts that seems to prove it. At first Arthur and his friends are blown away by Haddo’s astounding feats, but things take a turn for the worse when Haddo steals away Margaret. Oliver and his friends must rescue Margaret from the magician, lest she be sacrificed to fuel his dark arts…
Madame de Treymes
by Edith WhartonFanny de Malrive, an American living in Paris, is trapped in a loveless marriage. She wants nothing more than to divorce her estranged husband and marry her childhood friend John Durham. But even if her husband could overcome his conservative, religious family and culture to acquiesce, she fears losing custody of their son. In hopes of finding a solution, Durham meets with Fanny's sister-in-law, the enigmatic Madame de Treymes, who suggests that she might be willing to appeal to her brother on his behalf--if, that is, he will help settle her illicit lover's gambling debts. Such a proposition surely won't have a catch...
Madame Bovary
by Gustave FlaubertOne of the greatest novels ever written, in a classic translation from Karl Marx's daughter. Emma, a farmer's daughter, marries Chris Bovary, an earnest young doctor, hoping that he will be the gateway to the world of passion and wealth that she has read about in her novels, but when the married provincial life proves bland compared to her fantasies, Madame Bovary turns to adultery and excess indulgence. Will her new life fulfill her, or will it destroy her first? The novel has been filmed numerous times, with the most recent adaptation starring Mia Wasikowska and Paul Giammati. Penguin Random House Canada is proud to bring you classic works of literature in e-book form, with the highest quality production values. Find more today and rediscover books you never knew you loved.
Lucia's Progress
by E. F. BensonThe fifth volume of E.F. Benson's wildly satirical take on the Edwardian English upper class. The books were recently adapted by the BBC into a mini-series starring Sherlock's Mark Gatiss. Published in America as The Worshipful Lucia. Continuing to live in the village of Tilling, the novel chronicles her continued clashes with Miss Mapp as the two vie for control over the local social scene. Penguin Random House Canada is proud to bring you classic works of literature in e-book form, with the highest quality production values. Find more today and rediscover books you never knew you loved.
Lucia in London
by E. F. BensonThe third volume of E.F. Benson's wildly satirical take on the Edwardian English upper class. The books were recently adapted by the BBC into a mini-series starring Sherlock's Mark Gatiss. The little town of Riseholme is too small to contain the ambitions of determined social climber Lucia, and she sets her sights on her greatest challenge yet - the fashionable world of London. Penguin Random House Canada is proud to bring you classic works of literature in e-book form, with the highest quality production values. Find more today and rediscover books you never knew you loved.
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
by T. S. EliotOne of T.S. Eliot's earliest, and most significant works. A great achievement of modernist literature, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock takes the form of the complex musings of the titular Prufrock as he considers life and his role in it. The poem draws heavily on allusion to classical works, including Dante's Divine Comedy and Shakespeare's Hamlet. Penguin Random House Canada is proud to bring you classic works of literature in e-book form, with the highest quality production values. Find more today and rediscover books you never knew you loved.
The Loved One
by Evelyn WaughAmerica and Britain swirl together in this delightful satire. Dennis Barlow came to America as a poet, hired to write a screenplay for a movie studio. But that ended badly, and so he has taken a job at a pet cemetery, a choice that has left other members of the British expat community in Hollywood quite taken aback, though they are quickly distracted by the suicide of one of their own. Barlow is tasked with the funeral arrangements, during which process he meets the beautiful Aimée Thanatogenos. Can he keep himself in the good graces of his countrymen, and Ms. Thanatogenos – especially after the passing of other poets’ works as his own?
Love Among the Ruins
by Evelyn WaughEvelyn Waugh dips his toes into the world of science fiction. In a future, dystopian Britain, Miles Plastic is in prison for arson. Which isn’t so bad, really – the prisons are actually quite nice. When he is released, he finds himself a nice, wholesome job at a state-run euthanasia clinic trying to control the crushing volume of voluntary applicants. At the clinic he meets Clara, a beautiful, bearded woman, and falls in love. But, as it turns out, love formed at a euthanasia clinic is fraught with its own unique challenges.
The Lottery and Other Stories
by Shirley JacksonThe first short story collection by Shirley Jackson, featuring one of her most celebrated works. The only collection of Jackson's short fiction to be published in her lifetime, it contains 25 stories, of which "The Lottery" is the most famous. When it was published in The New Yorker, it elicited an unprecedented stream of interest, both positive and negative, from its readers. It is a haunting take of the darker side of small town America, and one of Jackson's crowning achievements.Penguin Random House Canada is proud to bring you classic works of literature in e-book form, with the highest quality production values. Find more today and rediscover books you never knew you loved.
Lord Peter Views the Body
by Dorothy L. SayersThe first collection of Lord Peter Wimsey short stories. In this collection brilliant amateur detective Lord Peter Wimsey tackles a variety of confounding cases, covering everything from crossword puzzles to a spectral carriage.
The Long Goodbye
by Raymond ChandlerOne of the best and most personal novel’s by one of the greatest mystery writers of all time. When a friend of private investigator Philip Marlowe’s shows up at his house begging the detective to drive him to Tijuana airport, he agrees. Both his friend and his friend’s wife turn up dead, and when another case of Marlowe’s turns out to have connections to his friend’s death, he is determined to uncover what actually happened. Robert Gould played Marlowe in the 1973 film adaptation.
The Little House on the Prairie
by Laura WilderThe adventures of Laura Ingalls Wilder and her family continue in Little House on the Prairie as they leave their house in the Big Woods and set out for Kansas, travelling for many days in their covered wagon to find the best location to build their new house on the prairies. Once they do, they get to work, building, farming, hunting, and gathering food—and face more difficulty and danger than they have before. Just as they’re feeling settled, the Ingalls family is caught in a conflict. Will they have to move again? Penguin Random House Canada is proud to bring you classic works of literature in e-book form, with the highest quality production values. Find more today and rediscover books you never knew you loved.
The Little House in the Big Woods
by Laura WilderBased on the real-life adventures of Laura Ingalls Wilder, Little House in the Big Woods is the first book in the classic Little House series. Four-year-old Laura lives in a log cabin on the edge of the Big Woods of Wisconsin, which she shares with her Pa, her Ma, her sisters Mary and Carrie, and their dog, Jack. Though pioneer life isn’t easy for the Ingalls family, they make the best out of every tough situation. They catch, hunt, and grow their own food; take trips to town; celebrate Christmas with homemade treats; and work together to complete the chores needed for survival and livelihood. Told over a year in their life, this book sets the tone for the rest of the series through its themes of hardship and family. Penguin Random House Canada is proud to bring you classic works of literature in e-book form, with the highest quality production values. Find more today and rediscover books you never knew you loved.
Literary Lapses
by Stephen LeacockStephen Leacock is one of Canada's most celebrated humourists and was, for a period in the early 20th century, the most-widely read English language author the world over. His success comes in no small part due to Literary Lapses, his first collection of fiction. Penguin Random House Canada is proud to bring you classic works of literature in e-book form, with the highest quality production values. Find more today and rediscover books you never knew you loved.
Light in August
by William FaulknerLight in August, a novel about hopeful perseverance in the face of mortality, features some of Faulkner’s most memorable characters: guileless, dauntless Lena Grove, in search of the father of her unborn child; Reverend Gail Hightower, who is plagued by visions of Confederate horsemen; and Joe Christmas, a desperate, enigmatic drifter consumed by his mixed ancestry.Penguin Random House Canada is proud to bring you classic works of literature in e-book form, with the highest quality production values. Find more today and rediscover books you never knew you loved.
Life in the Backwoods
by Susanna MoodieLife in the Backwoods in Susanna Moodie's follow-up to her first memoir, Roughing It in the Bush. She and her family leave the home they've carved out in the bush for new opportunities in Canada's frontier. Once again she chronicles their struggles, sorrows, and joys as they try to build a life for themselves in a place that can be equal parts bounteous and unforgiving. Penguin Random House Canada is proud to bring you classic works of literature in e-book form, with the highest quality production values. Find more today and rediscover books you never knew you loved.
The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby
by Charles DickensWhen Nicholas's father dies, he, his mother and sister, Kate, are left penniless. To earn his keep, Nicholas becomes a tutor at Dotheboys Hall but soon discovers that the headmaster, Wackford Squeers, is a one-eyed tyrant who insists on a harsh regime. Nicholas embarks on an adventure that takes him from loathsome boarding schools to the London stage. Dickens confronts issues of neglect and cruelty in this blackly comic masterpiece.Penguin Random House Canada is proud to bring you classic works of literature in e-book form, with the highest quality production values. Find more today and rediscover books you never knew you loved.
The Letters of William Cullen Bryant
by William Cullen BryantDuring the years covered in this volume, Bryant traveled more often and widely than at any comparable period during his life. The visits to Great Britain and Europe, a tour of the Near East and the Holy Land, and excursions in Cuba, Spain, and North Africa, as well as two trips to Illinois, he described in frequent letters to the Evening Post. Reprinted widely, and later published in two volumes, these met much critical acclaim, one notice praising the "quiet charm of these letters, written mostly from out-of-the-way places, giving charming pictures of nature and people, with the most delicate choice of words, and yet in the perfect simplicity of the true epistolary style."His absence during nearly one-fifth of this nine-year period reflected the growing prosperity of Bryant's newspaper, and his confidence in his editorial partner John Bigelow and correspondents such as William S. Thayer, as well as in the financial acumen of his business partner Isaac Henderson. These were crucial years in domestic politics, however, and Bryant's guidance of Evening Post policies was evident in editorials treating major issues such as the Compromise of 1850, the Fugitive Slave Law, the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, the rise of the Republican Party, and the Dred Scott Decision, as well as in his correspondence with such statesmen as Salmon P. Chase, Hamilton Fish, William L. Marcy, Edwin D. Morgan, and Charles Sumner. His travel letters and journalistic writings reflected as well his acute interest in a Europe in turmoil. In France and Germany he saw the struggles between revolution and repression; in Spain he talked with journalists, parliamentary leaders, and the future president of the first Spanish republic; in New York he greeted Louis Kossuth and Giuseppe Garibaldi.Bryant's close association with the arts continued. He sat for portraits to a dozen painters, among them Henry P. Gray, Daniel Huntington, Asher Durand, Charles L. Elliott, and Samuel Laurence. The landscapists continued to be inspired by his poetic themes. Sculptor Horatio Greenough asked of Bryant a critical reading of his pioneering essays on functionalism. His old friend, the tragedian Edwin Forrest, sought his mediation in what would become the most sensational divorce case of the century, with Bryant and his family as witnesses. His long advocacy of a great central park in New York was consummated by the legislature. And in 1852, his eulogy on the life of James Fenimore Cooper became the first of several such orations which would establish him as the memorialist of his literary contemporaries in New York.
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Stories
by Washington IrvingOriginally published under a pseudonym as The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent., The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Stories stands as Washington Irving’s best known literary collection, starring staple characters in American fiction: Ichabod Crane, the Headless Horseman, and Rip Van Winkle. Experience Gothic horror at its best, written by the “Father of the American short story,” in these classic larger-than-life tales sure to chill the faint of heart and thrill the brave-hearted. Penguin Random House Canada is proud to bring you classic works of literature in e-book form, with the highest quality production values. Find more today and rediscover books you never knew you loved.
The Lady in the Lake
by Raymond ChandlerIn his fourth novel appearance, private investigator Philip Marlowe is hired to find a businessman’s estranged wife, but instead finds a series of dead bodies and crooked cops. Although Chandler himself adapted the novel into a screenplay, it has never been used. The novel was filmed by Robert Montgomery, using a different, shorter script.
Lady Chatterley's Lover
by D. H. LawrenceE. L. James has nothing on D. H. Lawrence. The upper class Constance Chatterley is trapped in a marriage with a paraplegic and emotionally distant husband. She finds a release in a torrid affair with her gardener, through which she is able to discover the physical joy that is a necessary compliment to mental fulfillment. Because of the graphic nature of the content, the book was highly controversial and could not legally be published in England until 32 years after it was written, when it was the subject of an obscenity trial. It was also banned in several countries. Penguin Random House Canada is proud to bring you classic works of literature in e-book form, with the highest quality production values. Find more today and rediscover books you never knew you loved.
Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye
by Horace McCoyA classic hard-boiled noir, taking the reader on a whirlwind ride from the heights of American society to its seediest depths and back again. Ralph Cotter is an Ivy League graduate, which means he’s smart enough to get himself into prison – and out again. He’s on the run, in a city where he knows no one and no one knows him. With nothing to lose, he might as well shoot for the moon. But he didn’t expect to meet Margaret Dobson, a wealth heiress who sees right through him.
King Conan
by Robert E. HowardThe fourth volume of the adventures of the legendary Conan the Barbarian, one of the most iconic fantasy characters in history, on a rarified list next to Gandalf and Harry Potter. Contains "Jewels of Gwahlur," "Beyond the Black River," "The Black Stranger," "The Phoenix on the Sword," and "The Scarlet Citadel." Penguin Random House Canada is proud to bring you classic works of literature in e-book form, with the highest quality production values. Find more today and rediscover books you never knew you loved.