Ocean State Libraries

"Between the high Sierras south from Yosemite -- east and south over a very great assemblage of broken ranges beyond Death Valley, and on illimitably into the Mojave Desert" is the territory that Mary Austin calls the Land of Little Rain. In this classic collection of meditations on the wonders of this region, Austin generously shares "such news of the land, of its trails and what is astir in them, as one lover of it can give to another." Her vivid...

H.G. Wells' terrifying classic tale of science run amok Edward Prendick is shipwrecked and finds himself stranded on an island in the Pacific. Here he meets the sinister Dr. Moreau, a vivisectionist driven out of Britain in disgrace. Strange events soon cause Prendick to uncover the full horror of Dr Moreau's activities on the island. This science fiction classic mixes discussion on the divide between humans and the animal kingdom and chilling macabre...

"On a ship from London to South Africa, a young woman gets wrapped up in a deadly scheme, in this classic novel by the master of mystery. New to London, Anne Beddingfeld is hungry for adventure, when she witnesses a shocking accident. At the Hyde Park tube station, a man named L.B. Carton falls onto the tracks, dying instantly. An address for Mill House is found on Carton's person, but only Anne notices the slip of paper he dropped?with the name of...

When In Our Time was published in 1925, it was praised by Ford Madox Ford, John Dos Passos, and F. Scott Fitzgerald for its simple and precise use of language to convey a wide range of complex emotions, and it earned Hemingway a place beside Sherwood Anderson and Gertrude Stein among the most promising American writers of that period. In Our Time contains several early Hemingway classics, including the famous Nick Adams stories "Indian Camp," "The...

A grim portrait of World War I army life that set the standard for Hemingway, Mailer, and other acclaimed chroniclers of warfare.
They come to the army from different Americas: Fuselli, a San Francisco store clerk bucking for promotion; Chrisfield, a laid-back Indiana farm boy; and Andrews, a Harvard graduate and promising New York City musician. In basic training, they are told it doesn’t matter where a man is born or what he wants...

This Edwardian social comedy explores love and prim propriety among an eccentric cast of characters assembled in an Italian pensione and in a corner of Surrey, England. A charming young English woman, Lucy Honeychurch, faints into the arms of a fellow Britisher when she witnesses a murder in a Florentine piazza. Attracted to this man, George Emerson -- who is entirely unsuitable and whose father just may be a Socialist -- Lucy is soon at war with...

“West with the Night” is a memoir by British-born author, aviator, and equestrian, Beryl Markham. Friend and fellow author Ernest Hemingway once wrote to his editor Maxwell Perkins asking: "Did you read Beryl Markham's book, West with the Night?... bloody wonderful work." Markham was one of, if not the first, female bush pilots in Africa, and her memoir details adventures in Kenya with a unique perspective both from the ground and the sky. Markham...

WILDE'S ROMANTIC COMEDY ABOUT POLITICAL AMBITION AND SEXUAL INTRIGUE.