Although P.G. Wodehouse's woebegone protagonists are usually young men, in Jill the Reckless the master of British humor turns his attention to the fairer sex. Jill Mariner's young adulthood is beset by an array of mishaps and misfortunes -- but will she work her way out of the wreckage and find true love? If you're already a Wodehouse fan, you can probably guess the correct answer, but dip into Jill the Reckless to hear the tale told as only he can tell it.

Examines the reasons why wrong information has been provided in American history textbooks.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain (his real name was Samuel Langhorne Clemens) is one of the first descriptions of a time travelling that was published before Herbert Wells. An ordinary Yankee from Connecticut during a drunken fight was hit on the head so hard that he came to consciousness and found himself in the court of the King Arthur in the sixth century. A young adventurous man starts to reorganise a medieval legendary kingdom Logress, he "Americanizes" it to the maximum up to the industrial XIXth century. Even a worshipping solitaire rotates a sewing machine which produces cheap "saint" shirts. But many people are not happy with this situation, so the Yankees declare the war... We are delighted to publish this classic book as part of our extensive Classic Library collection. Many of the books in our collection have been out of print for decades, and therefore have not been accessible to the general public. The aim of our publishing program is to facilitate rapid access to this vast reservoir of literature, and our view is that this is a significant literary work, which deserves to be brought back into print after many decades. The contents of the vast majority of titles in the Classic Library have been scanned from the original works. To ensure a high quality product, each title has been meticulously hand curated by our staff. Our philosophy has been guided by a desire to provide the reader with a book that is as close as possible to ownership of the original work. We hope that you will enjoy this wonderful classic work, and that for you it becomes an enriching experience.

Dead Souls is a novel by Nikolai Gogol, first published in 1842, and widely regarded as an exemplar of 19th-century Russian literature. Gogol himself saw it as an "epic poem in prose", and within the book as a "novel in verse". Despite supposedly completing the trilogy's second part, Gogol destroyed it shortly before his death. Although the novel ends in mid-sentence (like Sterne's Sentimental Journey), it is usually regarded as complete in the extant form.

The first and best compendium of facts weirder than fiction, of intriguing information and must-talk-about trivia has spawned many imitators – but none as addictive or successful. For nearly three decades the editors researched curious facts, unusual statistics and the incredible stories behind them. The most entertaining and informative of these have been brought together in this edition.

No body speaks in strictly formal address anymore. Not even in China, where the common expressions tossed around in the newly metropolitan cities are far from text book China. This all-new, totally-up-to-date book fills the gap between how people really talk in China and what Chinese language students are taught.

If we could only put aside our civil pose and say what we really thought, the world would be a lot like the one alluded to in The Unabridged Devil’s Dictionary. There, a bore is "a person who talks when you wish him to listen," and happiness is "an agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another." This is the most comprehensive, authoritative edition ever of Ambrose Bierce’s satiric masterpiece. It renders obsolete all other versions that have appeared in the book’s ninety-year history. A virtual onslaught of acerbic, confrontational wordplay, The Unabridged Devil’s Dictionary offers some 1,600 wickedly clever definitions to the vocabulary of everyday life. Little is sacred and few are safe, for Bierce targets just about any pursuit, from matrimony to immortality, that allows our willful failings and excesses to shine forth. This new edition is based on David E. Schultz and S. T. Joshi’s exhaustive investigation into the book’s writing and publishing history. All of Bierce’s known satiric definitions are here, including previously uncollected, unpublished, and alternative entries. Definitions dropped from previous editions have been restored while nearly two hundred wrongly attributed to Bierce have been excised. For dedicated Bierce readers, an introduction and notes are also included. Ambrose Bierce’s Devil’s Dictionary is a classic that stands alongside the best work of satirists such as Twain, Mencken, and Thurber. This unabridged edition will be celebrated by humor fans and word lovers everywhere.

"I am going to hold a pistol to the head of the Modern Man. But I shall not use it to kill him – only to bring him to life." Innocent Smith, an "allegorical practical joker", turns everything upside down with his arrival at Beacon House, a London Boarding establishment. His passion and liveliness brightens up the place immediately, but at the height of the enjoyment, everyone is shocked when Smith tries to murder one of them. But in ‘Manalive’ (1912), Chesterton’s perhaps most joyful novel, nothing is as it appears, and the tenants will soon see life a whole new way. Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) was one of the most prolific English writers of all time. He wrote poems, plays, essays, newspaper columns, and is especially known for his fictional priest detective Father Brown. His "frenemy", the author of Pygmalion, George Bernard Shaw, famously called him "a man of colossal genius" and the two of them would often engage in friendly public discussions with people like H.G. Wells and Clarence Darrow. Chesterton died in his home, and his last known words were a greeting to his wife, author Frances Blogg.

Exploring exactly what hidden demons lurk within other people’s psyches, Nasty Astrology reveals all the unspoken truths about people’s star signs. Aren’t you bored with all the astrology books that tell you what a nice person everyone is? Don’t you know, deep down, that there are some very unpleasant aspects to all our characters? Wouldn’t you like to know the truth about the other signs? What makes them tick? What their dark little secrets are? In this wonderfully nasty book you learn the truth about the personalities of your friends, lovers, boss, colleagues, and even the dark secrets about yourself. Lifting the lid on real astrology, you can know what everybody around you really thinks and feels, about their secrets and motivations, and how to push people’s buttons. With humour and wit, and no holds barred (no, really), Richard MacDonald, unveils saucy secrets, motivations and the unspeakable traits of the zodiac.

A collection of all-new urban legends - those bizarre but believable stories about batter-fried rats, spiders in hairdos, Cabbage Patch dolls that get funerals, and the like that pass by word of mouth as being the gospel truth.