Summit Classic Press

Elizabeth Kent

This premium quality large print volume includes the complete text of Elizabeth Kent's vintage mystery tale in a freshly edited and newly typeset edition. With a large 7.44"x9.69" page size, this Summit Classic Press edition is printed on heavyweight bright white paper with a fully laminated cover featuring an original full color design. By increasing the page size along with the font size we are able to reduce printing costs and make this complete, unabridged large print edition available at reasonable cost. The House Opposite... Seeking relief from the scorching heat of the New York summer of 1899, Dr. Charles Fortescue climbed to the roof of his office building with a rug and his pipe, and spent the wee hours of the morning unexpectedly watching a series of strange events through the windows of the swanky Rosemere apartment house across the street. A woman's scream in the dark, a man half-carrying a fair-haired woman from a sitting-room, a man in another apartment crawling on hands and knees, a raven-haired woman sobbing in despair at another window, and a man slipping furtively from the building's back door and down the street. Summoned to examine a body discovered in the Rosemere House the next morning, Dr. Fortescue is surprised to find that the man has been dead for at least twenty-four hours. Fortescue and New York's Detective Merritt are drawn into an investigation with no shortage of prospective suspects, but a distinct lack of evidence to work with, starting with the fact that the identity of the victim is as mysterious as the identity of the killer. In this variation of the classic "locked room puzzle," the question isn't how the murder could have been committed in the locked room, the question is how a dead body found its way into a locked and vacant apartment during the night ... and where it was hidden for the day between the victim's death and the discovery of the body. The answers to these questions will lead to the identity of the killer, and the rather unusual conclusion of this mystery.

A Mystery

The House Opposite

Frances Hodgson Burnett

This premium quality edition contains the complete and unabridged original classic version of The Secret Garden, printed on heavy, bright white paper in a large 6"x9" format, with page headers and a fully laminated full-color cover featuring an original design. Little Mary Lennox, raised in India by servants and left alone in the world after a cholera epidemic, is sent to live with an uncle she has never met in a nearly empty mansion on the edge of the Yorkshire moors. Spoiled and self-absorbed, Mary soon finds that the mansion is not so empty as it seems at first and gradually learns that world does not revolve around her, and is filled with wonderful living things and people who can become friends. Locked away behind a wall Mary discovers the Secret Garden, abandoned and neglected, and with the help of Dickon, a local boy as at home with the wildlife and plants of the moor as with the livestock and garden of his family's small farm, she begins to tend the garden. And as the garden begins to recover and bloom with the spring, so too does Mary, finding the meaning of friendship and the warmth of human companionship. The most remarkable transformation, though, is the change that comes over her cousin Colin, sickly and feeble, hidden away from the world in his private room and expecting death. First through the companionship, and later the friendship, of Mary, and then through the "magic" of the garden, Colin too learns that the world, and the people living in it, can be wondrous things. An inspirational and uplifting story, "The Secret Garden" is generally considered one the 100 best children's books, and imparts a message of the inherent power, and will, of all living things to thrive and the need for each individual to realize the importance and value of the natural world, and the people, around them.

The Secret Garden the Unabridged Original Classic Edition

Herbert George Wells

This premium quality large print volume includes H. G. Wells'' science fiction classic in a freshly edited and newly typeset edition with a 6"x9" page size, printed on heavyweight bright white paper with a fully laminated cover featuring an original full color design. Also includes an introductory biographical sketch discussing Wells'' life, work and continuing literary significance. In this 1896 science fiction classic, a shipwrecked Englishman named Edward Prendick is rescued from the sea and subsequently abandoned on a secluded island, which he soon finds is owned by a once-eminent British physiologist named Dr. Moreau. Shunned when his gruesome experiments with vivisection were exposed, Moreau continued his experiments on his island with horrific results, creating animals surgically altered to mimic human beings. Typical of Wells'' major science fiction works, The Island of Dr. Moreau reflects a degree of ambivalence about "scientific progress," and looks at the possible effects of science and technology applied without restraint. Much like "The Invisible Man," it can be viewed as a sort of cautionary tale, warning that science and technology, when pursued and applied outside a structure of societal norms and ethical restraints, can lead to disastrous consequences. In addition, it calls into question the unrestricted use of "vivisection," which then meant surgical experiments on live animals, often without anesthesia, and raises questions of cruelty, pain, man''s relationship with animals, and the nature of humanity itself. Herbert George Wells (1866-1946), was born to shopkeepers previously employed as domestic servants. When an injury ended his father''s income as a professional cricketer, Wells'' parents apprenticed him to a draper, but he was dismissed after a short time and subsequently became a "pupil-teacher" in a system where older students helped teach younger students. Despite having little formal education, Wells, a voracious reader, won a scholarship to the Normal School of Science in London where he completed courses in biology and physics, but left the school in 1887 after failing geology and losing his scholarship. Best known today for his science fiction works, Wells'' first published book was a biology textbook in 1893. With the publication of The Time Machine in 1895 Wells began a long and successful writing career. The next several years saw the publication of The War of the Worlds, The Invisible Man, The Island of Doctor Moreau, The First Men in the Moon and many other works ranging from humorous social commentary novels to non-fiction and political polemics. In 1920, he published his landmark Outline of History, which became the model for "outline" texts in a variety of disciplines. Over time Wells'' works became increasingly political, contentious and argumentative and only his early science fiction novels are widely read today. Those novels provide insights into the science and society of Wells'' day and are interesting for their prediction of future events and scientific developments. Wells'' science fiction tales are also very entertaining and easy to read. Many of his story elements, like time travel, hostile aliens, mutant creatures and space travel, became common themes in science fiction In literary circles, Wells'' comic novels, virtually unknown to readers of today, are considered outstanding examples of 20th century British literature, and Wells'' work is regarded as one of the best examples of pre-World War I liberal optimism. Yet Wells'' social optimism is tempered, particularly in his science fiction works, and he clearly voices a sense of dread of science and technology gone out-of-control that runs through post-Victorian British thought. Wells is often referred to as one of "The Fathers of Science Fiction," and "science fiction" today might look very different without Wells'' contributions.

The Complete & Unabridged Original Classic

The Island of Dr. Moreau

Arthur Conan Doyle, Sir

S. M. Sheley

This premium quality large print edition contains the complete and unabridged classic version of His Last Bow, including eight stories featuring Arthur Conan Doyle's "consulting detective", printed on heavy, bright white 60# paper in a large 7.44"x9.69" format, with page headers and a fully laminated full-color cover featuring an original design. Unfortunately, many ebook and recent reprint editions of His Last Bow have been assembled from a particular set of digital files which are commonly available and which contain numerous typographical errors introduced by the electronic scanning process, missing words and paragraphs, and attempts by unknown "editors" to "correct" or "update" the text based on their assumptions or personal judgments as to what the text "should be," introducing additional errors and distortions. This edition has been prepared by human editors working from an actual copy of the most widely-circulated classic 1917 version of the text, correcting only obvious typographical errors and faithfully maintaining the integrity and flavor of the original work so that the reader experiences the narratives as Arthur Conan Doyle wrote them, not as our editors think it "should be" updated. This volume contains these classic Sherlock Holmes adventures, first collected and published in book form in 1917: The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge; The Adventure of the Cardboard Box; The Adventure of the Red Circle; The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans; The Adventure of the Dying Detective; The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax; The Adventure of the Devil's Foot; His Last Bow; Additional material collected and presented for Conan Doyle fans, new or old, are a biographical sketch of the author and a detailed selected bibliography of his work. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930) is known the world over as the creator of the famous consulting detective, Sherlock Holmes. But Conan Doyle was a prolific writer who produced a large body of work ranging from non-fiction and full-length novels to a wide-ranging collection of short stories. Doyle's first major success as a writer came with the debut of Sherlock Holmes in the 1887 publication of A Study in Scarlet,. Holmes was a popular sensation, and more stories followed. By 1891, Sherlock Holmes was enough to provide Doyle a living, but Doyle came to resent Holmes, who kept him from what he considered "more important" work. In 1893 he "killed" Holmes, as the detective and his archenemy, Professor Moriarty, plunged to their deaths at Reichenbach Falls in "The Final Problem". It was no mere publicity stunt. Doyle considered himself finished with Mr. Sherlock Holmes. The public uproar in reaction to Holmes' "death" shocked Doyle, with even his own mother complaining, and as the clamor continued he was forced to bring the detective back in The Hound of the Baskervilles, published, to a vast public sigh of relief, in 1901. Ironically, the character Doyle resented as a "distraction" from serious work would ultimately appear in fifty-six short stories and four novels, together with countless adaptations to films, television, cartoons, and modern pastiches by an assortment of authors. In fact, the "world's first consulting detective" and Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan are widely regarded as the best-known fictional characters in the world.

The Complete & Classic Edition

His Last Bow

G. K. Chesterton

This premium quality large print edition contains the complete and unabridged original classic version of The Innocence of Father Brown, including twelve stories featuring G.K Chesterton's mystery-solving priest, printed on heavy, bright white 60# paper in a large 7.44"x9.69" format, with page headers and a fully laminated full-color cover featuring an original design. Mystery fans unfamiliar with Father Brown may find Chesterton's stories a bit different. Many of the stories don't quite fit either the standard ("Whodunit?") or inverted ("Howcatchem?") styles common to the mystery genre, and Father Brown is frequently less concerned with the apprehension of the wrongdoer than with getting him to understand, and admit, the error of his ways. With his powers of observation and attention to details, and a knowledge of crime and criminals derived in no small part from his years as a priest hearing confessions, Father Brown frequently finds the solution through a strictly rational reasoning process more concerned with psychological, spiritual and philosophic truths than with scientific investigation. This particular volume contains twelve of Chesterton's original Father Brown adventures, published as individual short stories in 1910 and 1911 and first collected and published in book form under the title The Innocence of Father Brown in 1911. G.K. Chesterton... Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936) was an English writer,lay theologian, poet, philosopher, dramatist, journalist, orator, literary critic, and biographer, best known today for his Father Brown mystery stories and such social commentary as "Heretics," "Orthodoxy," and "The Everlasting Man."

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