England in 1647: King Charles is in prison, and Cromwell's men are fighting the King's men. These are dangerous times for everybody. The four Beverley children have no parents; their mother is dead and their father died while fighting for the King. Now Cromwell's soldiers have come to burn...

The Canterville Ghost

The Otises are a practical American family. They don't believe in “The Canterville Ghost”. They don't believe in ghosts ... until they move to Canterville Chase, an old English country estate inhabited by the ghost of Sir Simon de Canterville. The family is amused by Sir Simon's failed attempts...
Tom Sawyer does not like school. He does not like work, and he never wants to get out of bed in the morning. But he likes swimming and fishing, and having adventures with his friends. And he has a lot of adventures. One night, he and his friend Huck...

New Yorkers

A housewife, a tramp, a lawyer, a waitress, an actress - ordinary people living ordinary lives in New York at the beginning of the twentieth century. The city has changed greatly since that time, but its people are much the same. Some are rich, some are poor, some are...

Ned Kelly

When he was a boy, he was poor and hungry. When he was a young man, he was still poor and still hungry. He learnt how to steal horses, he learnt how to fight, he learnt how to live - outside the law. Australia in the 1870s was a...

Mr Midshipman Hornblower

'Hornblower fired. There was a small cloud of smoke, but no bang. This is death, he thought. My pistol was the unloaded one.' But Horatio Hornblower does not die. He survives the duel with Simpson, learns to overcome his seasickness, and goes on to risk his life many times...

Matty Doolin

"Matty Doolin" is fifteen and is leaving school in a few weeks' time, He wants to work with animals and get a job on a farm. His parents say he's too young to leave home. They also say they can't go on a camping holiday with his friends...

I, Robot. Short Stories

A human being is a soft, weak creature. It needs constant supplies of air, water, and food; it has to spend a third of its life asleep, and it can't work if the temperature is too hot or too cold. But a “Robot” is made of strong metal. It...
Who wants to live in a house, wear clean clothes, be good, and go to school every day? Not young “Huckleberry Finn”, that’s for sure. So Huck runs away, and is soon floating down the great Mississippi River on a raft. With him is Jim, a black slave who...

Goldfish

The Leander pearls were stolen nineteen years ago. The thief was caught, but the pearls were never found, and there is still a $25,000 reward for anyone who finds them. Then somebody comes to private detective Carmady with a story about a guy who knows where the pearls are...