Beasts and Super-Beasts - The Original Classic Edition

The Chronicles of Clovis is a collection of macabre short stories by Saki, many of them featuring the hero, Clovis Sangrail, who is a disenchanted upper class youth with a malicious streak.

Hector Hugh Munro (18 December 1870 – 13 November 1916), better known by the pen name Saki, and also frequently as H. H. Munro, was a British writer whose witty, mischievous and sometimes macabre stories satirised Edwardian society and culture. He is considered a master of the short story and often compared to O. Henry and Dorothy Parker. Influenced by Oscar Wilde, Lewis Carroll, and Kipling, he himself influenced A. A. Milne, Noël Coward, and P. G. Wodehouse.

This is a new and freshly published edition of this culturally important work by Saki, which is now, at last, again available to you.

Enjoy this classic work today. These selected paragraphs distill the contents and give you a quick look inside The Toys of Peace:

"When peace comes," wrote an officer of the 22nd Royal Fusiliers, the regiment in which Munro was a private and in which he rose to the rank of lance-sergeant, "Saki will give us the most wonderful of all the books about the war." 

... And it is because these tales, brilliant and elusive as butterflies, hide, rather than reveal, the character of the man who wrote them, give but a suggestion of his tenderness and simplicity, of his iron will, of his splendour in the grip of war, that it is my duty to write these pages about him, now that he lies in the kind earth of France. 

...I regret to say that the 'Siege of Adrianople' toy, that their Aunt Susan sent them, didn't need any explanation; they knew all the uniforms and flags, and even the names of the respective commanders, and when I heard them one day using what seemed to be the most objectionable language they said it was Bulgarian words of command; of course it may have been, but at any rate I took the toy away from them. 

..."There were, of course, some battles fought during his reign," said Harvey, "but I fancy the accounts of them were much exaggerated; news was very unreliable in those days, and there were practically no war correspondents, so generals and commanders could magnify every little skirmish they engaged in till they reached the proportions of decisive battles. 

Sir Henry Rider Haggard, KBE (22 June 1856 – 14 May 1925) was an English writer of adventure novels set in exotic locations, predominantly Africa, and a founder of the Lost World literary genre. He was also involved in agricultural reform around the British Empire. His stories, situated at the lighter end of Victorian literature, continue to be popular and influential. -wikipedia

Condemned by Victorian critics as immoral, but regarded today as a novel of outstanding social insight, No Name shows William Wilkie Collins at the height of his literary powers. It is the story of two sisters, Magdalen and Norah, who discover after the deaths of their dearly beloved parents that their parents were not married at the time of their births. Disinherited and ousted from their estate, they must fend for themselves and either resign themselves to their fate or determine to recover their wealth by whatever means.

Andrew Lang's Fairy Books — also known as Andrew Lang's "Coloured" Fairy Books or Andrew Lang's Fairy Books of Many Colors — are a series of twelve collections of fairy tales, published between 1889 and 1910. Each volume is distinguished by its own color. In all, 437 tales from a broad range of cultures and countries are presented.

Stories in this volume include : The Magician's Horse,The White Wolf,The Story of the Queen of the Flowery Isles and The Sunchild.

Andrew Lang (1844–1912) was a Scots poet, novelist, and literary critic. Although he did not collect the stories himself from the oral tradition, the extent of his sources, who had collected them originally — with the notable exception of Madame d'Aulnoy — made the collections immensely influential. Lang gave many of the tales their first appearance in English. As acknowledged in the prefaces, although Lang himself made most of the selections, his wife and other translators did a large portion of the translating and retelling of the actual stories.

Initially, Elsie does not live with her parents but with her paternal grandfather, his second wife (Elsie's stepgrandmother), and their six children: Adelaide, Lora, Louise, Arthur, Walter, and Enna. Elsie's mother died soon after giving birth to her leaving her in the care of her grandfather. Before her father comes back she becomes good friends with Rose Allison, with whom she studies the Bible. Her father was in Europe until she was almost eight years old as the first book begins.
The first Elsie books deal with a constant moral conflict between Christian principles and familial loyalty. Elsie's father is a strict disciplinarian who dictates inflexible rules by which his daughter must live. Any infraction is severely and often unjustly punished. In her father's absence Elsie has become a Christian and abides by Biblical law, especially the Ten Commandments. Her father regards this as ludicrous and in some cases as insolence. Elsie feels she must obey the Word of God before that of her father and can only obey her father when his orders do not conflict with Scripture. For example, her young uncle Arthur ruins her copybook and does other damage which he blames on Elsie. Because Elsie will not tell on him, her father is ready to punish her, until she is saved by last-minute testimony from another relative. He attempts to force her to break the Fourth Commandment several times, finally resulting in her having a complete nervous breakdown. In the original story of the second book, Elsie died, but this was rewritten as a near-death experience. Her father later marries Rose Allison and has two more children, Horace, Jr. and Rose, also called Rosie.

Frances Eliza Hodgson Burnett (24 November 1849 – 29 October 1924) was an English playwright and author. She is best known for her children's stories, in particular The Secret Garden (published in 1911), A Little Princess (published in 1905), and Little Lord Fauntleroy (published in 1885-6).-wikipedia

Surprise a young reader in your life with this collection of charming and insightful short stories from the pen of author Eleanor H. Porter, best known for the widely acclaimed novel Pollyanna. Touching on an array of engaging subjects and timeless themes, these stories showcase Porter's gift for crafting memorable characters that often find themselves in unusual or trying circumstances that test their mettle.