Black Cat (B1.2)

Robert Louis Stevenson investigates into the nature of good and evil in this novel set in the Scotland of 1745. This was the year many in Scotland fought to put a Scottish king on the British throne. Two brothers, James and Henry Durie, become involved in this historical event. But The Master of Ballantrae is a also worldwide novel. Readers will travel from Scotland to New York, to India… Along the way, they will meet soldiers, hunters and pirates.

Dossiers:
Double Trouble – Doubles and Alter Egos in Fiction and Popular Culture
The War that Made America

In Dickens’s first novel, Samuel Pickwick and three other members of the Pickwick Club decide to spend six months travelling around England observing the manners and habits of everyone they meet. Follow them on their hilarious adventures as they get involved in a duel, an election campaign and as one of them even ends up in prison…

Dossier:
England in the Early Nineteenth Century

Have you ever made a bet - a big bet?
In the 1850s, a young American finds himself in London by chance. He is penniless, and yet he leads the lixurious life of a millionaire. How can he do this?
It's all thanks to a bizarre bet made by two eccentric gentlemen.

Dossiers:
San Francisco in the 1850s
Sailing Ships
Sailing on San Francisco Bay
The English and Betting
Londinium
How did People Dress in the 1850s?
Money and its Origins
London Today
The Origins of Banking

D’Artagnan travels to Paris hoping to join the Musketeers, a group of adventurers who serve Louis XIII. A series of misadventures brings him to a duel with none other than three of his heroes — the Musketeers Porthos, Athos, and Aramis. The three men ask D'Artagnan to join them in their struggle to protect Queen Anne against the plots of power-hungry Cardinal Richelieu.

Dossier:
France in the 17th century
Costumes in the 17th century
Dumas beyond the page

Adventure

Four true, breathtaking stories of adventure and courage which take us across the ocean, the ice of the Antarctic, the sky and the desert.
‘Lost at Sea’ tells the adventures of a family sailing round the world and their battle to survive in the ocean after a shipwreck.
In ‘The Impossible Journey’ we follow Sir Ernest Shackleton as he and his men make their way on foot towards the South Pole.
The brave young woman in ‘Amy Johnson, Woman Pioneer’ attempts a heroic solo flight from England to Australia.
In ‘David Livingstone’s Last African Expedition’ we meet the great explorer on his last expedition to find the source of Africa’s longest river, the Nile.

D

Four chilling tales take you into a world where anything can happen. Charles Dickens adds extra horror to his famous tale of a haunted railwayman. In Edgar Allan Poe’s classic story, ‘Ligeia’, the ghost of a beautiful woman returns and defeats death. E. Nesbit shows us how there really is a good reason to be scared of the dark. And F. M. Crawford tells of a ship’s passenger who encounters a horrible ‘thing’ in his cabin.