Allan Quatermain by H.R. Haggard.

Free US/UK Kindle Classic

Allan Quatermain, is an 1887 novel by H.R. Haggard. (US Edition)  (UK Edition)  Those who have read King Soloman’s Mines will recognize the name of the novel’s colorful hero.  He was featured in a number of books and stories by Haggard.

Sometimes I think the reading public may be divided into those who will immediately download this book after reading the following excerpt and those who will stop reading this blog at that point.

What I have to propose is this. That we go to Lamu and thence make our way about 250 miles inland to Mt Kenia; from Mt Kenia on inland to Mt Lekakisera, another 200 miles, or thereabouts, beyond which no white man has to the best of my belief ever been; and then, if we get so far, right on into the unknown interior. 

Either way I could quit now.  But I will still offer a bit more as chances are I do not know the readings public as well as I think!

. . . but the appearance of the third and last nearly made me jump out of my skin. He was a very tall, broad man, quite six foot three, I should say, but gaunt, with lean, wiry-looking limbs. My first glance at him told me that he was no Wakwafi: he was a pure bred Zulu. He came out with his thin aristocratic-looking hand placed before his face to hide a yawn, so I could only see that he was a 'Keshla' or ringed man, and that he had a great three-cornered hole in his forehead. In another second he removed his hand, revealing a powerful-looking Zulu face, with a humorous mouth, a short woolly beard, tinged with grey, and a pair of brown eyes keen as a hawk's. I knew my man at once, although I had not seen him for twelve years. 'How do you do, Umslopogaas?' I said quietly in Zulu.

Haggard is well known as an adventure writer whose work has always been popular.

The book has a couple dozen end short end notes, which are unlinked.

This blog is a guide to the best free and inexpensive classic literature for the US & UK Kindle. If you enjoy my suggestions, please tell your friends who read to give my blog a try. 

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For a nominal fee of 99 cents/pence, you can subscribe to this blog and have it download on your Kindle. This gives you the convenience of being able to download the books directly to your Kindle, instead of downloading them to your computer and then transferring them to your Kindle. It also helps support my blog.

UK readers, go to this Amazon link to subscribe.  (Slightly more than half my readers are from the UK)

US readers, go to this Amazon link

Thank to all my readers, whether you subscribe on your Kindle or whether you read it online.  I love to get good reviews!  Who wouldn't?  Should you care to leave a review, follow these links for UK readers or US readers.

The Beautiful and the Damned - by F. Scott Fitzgerald

US/UK Kindle Classic

The Beautiful and the Damned is a 1922 novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald; the famous American Chronicler of the “Lost Generation,” those whose youth was stolen by WWI.  (US Edition)  (£0.77 UK Edition)  

At eleven he had a horror of death. Within six impressionable years his parents had died and his grandmother had faded off almost imperceptibly, until, for the first time since her marriage, her person held for one day an unquestioned supremacy over her own drawing room. So to Anthony life was a struggle against death, that waited at every corner. It was as a concession to his hypochondriacal imagination that he formed the habit of reading in bed--it soothed him. He read until he was tired and often fell asleep with the lights still on.

He sounds like Proust . . .

Here is a harrowing description of his grandfather:

The span of his seventy-five years had acted as a magic bellows--the first quarter-century had blown him full with life, and the last had sucked it all back. It had sucked in the cheeks and the chest and the girth of arm and leg. It had tyrannously demanded his teeth, one by one, suspended his small eyes in dark-bluish sacks, tweeked out his hairs, changed him from gray to white in some places, from pink to yellow in others--callously transposing his colors like a child trying over a paintbox. Then through his body and his soul it had attacked his brain. It had sent him night-sweats and tears and unfounded dreads. It had split his intense normality into credulity and suspicion. Out of the coarse material of his enthusiasm it had cut dozens of meek but petulant obsessions; his energy was shrunk to the bad temper of a spoiled child, and for his will to power was substituted a fatuous puerile desire for a land of harps and canticles on earth.

You cannot say that Fitzgerald is neglected.  The Great Gatsby will always be part of any discussion of the American novel; but this novel initially was a bigger success.

So find out why!

And here is something timeless if you still need convincing.

But as winter wore away--the short, snowless winter marked by damp nights and cool, rainy days--he marvelled at how quickly the system had grasped him. He was a soldier--all who were not soldiers were civilians. The world was divided primarily into those two classifications.

P.S.  This is my 150th blog.  That is a lot of books, so there is something for every taste - if your inclination runs to classic literature. 

Among the many older titles I have blogged are The Virginian by Owen Wister, TheThree Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas, and TheIndiscreet Letter by Eleanor Hallowell Abbot.  My eclectic range of recommendations have run from literary classics by Tolstoy, Conrad, and Proust to books by ZaneGrey and GraceLivingston Hill.  

The blog also highlights non-fiction.  And I like to keep up with current events!  A recent “timely” blog highlighted Titanic by Filson Young, a book that was rushed into print 100 years ago shortly after the sinking.  

I look forward to the next 150 classics!  Thank you for reading.

This blog is a guide to the best free and inexpensive classic literature for the US & UK Kindle. If you enjoy my suggestions, please tell your friends who read to give my blog a try. 

Join me on Twitter, FaceBook, or Pinterest.

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For a nominal fee of 99 cents/pence, you can subscribe to this blog and have it download on your Kindle. This gives you the convenience of being able to download the books directly to your Kindle, instead of downloading them to your computer and then transferring them to your Kindle. It also helps support my blog.

UK readers, go to this Amazon link to subscribe.  (Slightly more than half my readers are from the UK)

US readers, go to this Amazon link

Thank to all my readers, whether you subscribe on your Kindle or whether you read it online.  I love to get good reviews!  Who wouldn't?  Should you care to leave a review, follow these links for UK readers or US readers.

McTeague - by Frank Norris.

Free Kindle Classic

McTeague is an 1899 novel by Frank Norris. (US Edition)  (UK Edition)  Film buffs will know the novel was adapted as the famous silent film, “Greed.”  And this writer saw a wonderful adaptation at Lyric Opera in Chicago.  Needless to say, this book is timeless.  It is a gritty story set in San Francisco.

On his way back to his office, one block above, he stopped at Joe Frenna's saloon and bought a pitcher of steam beer. It was his habit to leave the pitcher there on his way to dinner.

They still drink steam beer in San Francisco! Anchor Steam brews it and per their website, the name “steam” likely relates to the original practice of fermenting the beer on San Francisco’s rooftops in a cool climate. In lieu of ice, the foggy night air naturally cooled the fermenting beer, creating steam off the warm open pans.”  See what you can learn here!

McTeague is a dentist . . . in love . . .

Little by little, by gradual, almost imperceptible degrees, the thought of Trina Sieppe occupied his mind from day to day, from hour to hour. He found himself thinking of her constantly; at every instant he saw her round, pale face; her narrow, milk-blue eyes; her little out-thrust chin; her heavy, huge tiara of black hair. At night he lay awake for hours under the thick blankets of the bed-lounge, staring upward into the darkness, tormented with the idea of her, exasperated at the delicate, subtle mesh in which he found himself entangled. During the forenoons, while he went about his work, he thought of her. As he made his plaster-of-paris moulds at the washstand in the corner behind the screen he turned over in his mind all that had happened, all that had been said at the previous sitting. Her little tooth that he had extracted he kept wrapped in a bit of newspaper in his vest pocket.

Ahh, love! But love meets reality . . .

The very act of submission that bound the woman to him forever had made her seem less desirable in his eyes. Their undoing had already begun. Yet neither of them was to blame. From the first they had not sought each other. Chance had brought them face to face, and mysterious instincts as ungovernable as the winds of heaven were at work knitting their lives together. 

"In my beginning is my end.”  Enjoy.

This blog is a guide to the best free and inexpensive classic literature for the US & UK Kindle. If you enjoy my suggestions, please tell your friends who read to give my blog a try. 

Join me on Twitter, FaceBook, or Pinterest.

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For a nominal fee of 99 cents/pence, you can subscribe to this blog and have it download on your Kindle. This gives you the convenience of being able to download the books directly to your Kindle, instead of downloading them to your computer and then transferring them to your Kindle. It also helps support my blog.

UK readers, go to this Amazon link to subscribe.  (Slightly more than half my readers are from the UK)

US readers, go to this Amazon link

Thank to all my readers, whether you subscribe on your Kindle or whether you read it online.  I love to get good reviews!  Who wouldn't?  Should you care to leave a review, follow these links for UK readers or US readers.

Lady Audley's Secret - by M. E. Braddon

Free US/UK Kindle Classic

Lady Audley's Secret is an 1862 “sensational” novel by M. E. Braddon. (US Edition)  (UK Edition)   Have you noticed how many women writers used initials in these pre-copyright era books?  Mary Elizabeth was a very popular novelist and I doubt anyone was in suspense as to M. E. Braddon’s gender.

I like this brief, evocative, description:

At the end of this avenue there was an old arch and a clock tower, with a stupid, bewildering clock, which had only one hand—and which jumped straight from one hour to the
next—and was therefore always in extremes. Through this arch you walked straight into the gardens of Audley Court.

And there is foreboding aplenty!

The baronet lifted her in his arms and kissed her once upon the forehead, then quietly bidding her good-night, he walked straight out of the house. He walked straight out of the house, this foolish old man, because there was some strong emotion at work in his breast—neither joy nor triumph, but something almost akin to disappointment—some stifled and unsatisfied longing which lay heavy and dull at his heart, as if he had carried a corpse in his bosom.

Read it and find out why this book has never been out of print.

This blog is a guide to the best free and inexpensive classic literature for the US & UK Kindle. If you enjoy my suggestions, please tell your friends who read to give my blog a try. 

Join me on Twitter, FaceBook, or Pinterest.

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For a nominal fee of 99 cents/pence, you can subscribe to this blog and have it download on your Kindle. This gives you the convenience of being able to download the books directly to your Kindle, instead of downloading them to your computer and then transferring them to your Kindle. It also helps support my blog.

UK readers, go to this Amazon link to subscribe.  (Slightly more than half my readers are from the UK)

US readers, go to this Amazon link

Thank to all my readers, whether you subscribe on your Kindle or whether you read it online.  I love to get good reviews!  Who wouldn't?  Should you care to leave a review, follow these links for UK readers or US readers.

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse - by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez

US/UK Kindle Classic

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse is 1917 bestselling novel by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez.  (US Edition)  (£1.54 UK Edition)  Unfortunately, the Kindle edition is not free in the UK, but I think it is an appealing title.  Students of film will know the movie version of this book made Valentino a star. 

It is a real problem finding free titles for the UK Kindle – so you are lucky I usually do that work for you! 

The story moves across continents and from the late 1800’s through WWI. (Note to Americans, this is not a book about Notre Dame football!)  

I liked this Amazon reader review:

"This book depicts in great detail a way of life that is so changed from the present that it might as well be science fiction. The story begins in South America and moves to France and both places are described in loving detail. The father had first left Europe to avoid serving in the military and he returns, unknowingly, in time for his son to become involved in World War I. The description of the changing opinions and moods in Paris were fascinating. How many times have people thought a war would be over in a matter of weeks? The insight into pre World War I Germany was very educational. Many of the characteristics that I had assumed arose with the Nazis prior to WWII were clearly present much earlier. This book should not be missed by anyone interested in history or human nature."

So, let's take a look at this novel: 

When Desnoyers [our young Argentinean hero] entered into the smoking room in order to take the seat which Bertha had reserved for him, her husband and his wealthy hangers-on had their pack of cards lying idle upon the green felt. Herr Rath was continuing his discourse and his listeners, taking their cigars from their mouths, were emitting grunts of approbation. The arrival of Julio provoked a general smile of amiability. Here was France coming to fraternize with them. They knew that his father was French, and that fact made him as welcome as though he came in direct line from the palace of the Quai d'Orsay, representing the highest diplomacy of the Republic. The craze for proselyting made them all promptly concede to him unlimited importance.

"We," continued the Counsellor looking fixedly at Desnoyers as if he were expecting a solemn declaration from him, "we wish to live on good terms with France."

During the sea voyage, you will learn a lot about the politics of the time.  I trust it will be painless and an enjoyable voyage!  We know what it foreshadows.

"No, there will not be war," he repeated as he continued pacing up and down the garden. "These people are beside themselves. How could a war possibly break out in these days?" . . .

This blog is a guide to the best free and inexpensive classic literature for the US & UK Kindle. If you enjoy my suggestions, please tell your friends who read to give my blog a try. 

Join me on Twitter, FaceBook, or Pinterest.

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For a nominal fee of 99 cents/pence, you can subscribe to this blog and have it automatically download on your Kindle. This gives you the convenience of being able to download the books directly to your Kindle, instead of downloading them to your computer and then transferring them to your Kindle. It also helps support my blog.

UK readers, go to this Amazon link to subscribe.  (Slightly more than half my readers are from the UK)

US readers, go to this Amazon link

Thank to all my readers, whether you subscribe on your Kindle or whether you read it online.  I love to get good reviews!  Who wouldn't?  Should you care to leave a review, follow these links for UK readers or US readers.

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

Free US/UK Kindle Classic

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, published after his death in 1790,  is one of the most popular and famous autobiographies. (US Edition)  (UK Edition)  Long before memoirs were fashionable, there was the autobiography – which is a more formal personal narrative.  However, I think we can find some informality in Mr. Franklin’s account:

“ . . .one day, Keimer [Franklin’s boss] and I being at work together near the window, we saw the governor and another gentleman (which proved to be Colonel French, of Newcastle), finely dress'd, come directly across the street to our house, and heard them at the door.

Keimer ran down immediately, thinking it a visit to him; but the governor inquir'd for me, came up, and with a condescension of politeness I had been quite unus'd to, made me many compliments, desired to be acquainted with me, blam'd me kindly for not having made myself known to him when I first came to the place, and would have me away with him to the tavern, where he was going with Colonel French to taste, as he said, some excellent Madeira. I was not a little surprised, and Keimer star'd like a pig poison'd."    

Ahh, that’s fun!  But more of the book is on Franklin’s quest for self-improvement:

"If you wish information and improvement from the knowledge of others, and yet at the same time express yourself as firmly fix'd in your present opinions, modest, sensible men, who do not love disputation, will probably leave you undisturbed in the possession of your error." 

I could not agree more.

Per Dale Carnegie – founding father of all self-help books:  'If you want some excellent suggestions about dealing with people and managing yourself and improving your personality, read Benjamin Franklin's autobiography-one of the most fascinating life stories ever written, one of the classics of American literature.”

If that is not impressive, look to what one of the intrepid Amazon reader reviewers says:

"This is just a great book. All I knew about Ben Franklin before reading it was he flew a kite in a storm. Reading it gave me a great insight into what America and indeed what the world was like in the 18th Century."

Isn’t that why we read?

This blog is a guide to the best free and inexpensive classic literature for the US & UK Kindle. If you enjoy my suggestions, please tell your friends who read to give my blog a try. 

Join me on Twitter, FaceBook, or Pinterest.

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For a nominal fee of 99 cents/pence, you can subscribe to this blog and have it automatically download on your Kindle. This gives you the convenience of being able to download the books directly to your Kindle, instead of downloading them to your computer and then transferring them to your Kindle. It also helps support my blog.

UK readers, go to this Amazon link to subscribe.  (Slightly more than half my readers are from the UK)

US readers, go to this Amazon link

Thank to all my readers, whether you subscribe on your Kindle or whether you read it online.  I love to get good reviews!  Who wouldn't?  Should you care to leave a review, follow these links for UK readers or US readers.

Sons and Lovers - by D.H. Lawrence

Free US/UK Kindle Classic

Sons and Lovers
by D.H. Lawrence

Sons and Lovers is a 1913 novel by D.H. Lawrence.  It is among the top ten novels of the 20^th century, – according to Modern Library – whose compact editions were so prized before the advent of the Kindle! 

(US Edition)  (UK Edition) 

And those Modern Library edtions will be among the few volumes I keep in the event of a power outage.  My collection of DTB's (Dead Tree Books), keeps shrinking as I realize I just want to read books on the Kindle.  This is due to my eyesight problems.  I love the uniform background and the easy to read e-ink with scalable type at the push of a button.  I just don't want to read any other format.

The official Amazon review said . . . “Never was a son more indentured to his mother's love and full of hatred for his father than Paul Morel, D.H. Lawrence's young protagonist. Never, that is, except perhaps Lawrence himself.” 

So, this is an autobiographical novel.  More to the point, an Amazon reader review states: “There is a quality to this work that you do not find in contemporary novels. The characters are developed to an incredible depth and with great skill and precision. You find after reading this book that you feel you know some of the characters better than your neighbors.”

Now that sounds like a good book!  Let’s take a look.  The bride, Gertrude Morel finds her new husband is a cheat, but not perhaps the sort you think:

"And how much has he sunk in his houses?" she asked.

 "His houses--which houses?" 

Gertrude Morel went white to the lips. He had told her the house he lived in, and the next one, was his own. 

"I thought the house we live in--" she began. 

"They're my houses, those two," said the mother-in-law. "And not clear either. It's as much as I can do to keep the mortgage interest paid." 

Gertrude sat white and silent.

Quite a blow to discover that you are a renter, not the owner – but nothing compared to discovering you were lied to.  And of course there is never just one lie:

He began to be rather late in coming home [from the mine].

"They're working very late now, aren't they?" she said to her washer-woman.

"No later than they allers do, I don't think. But they stop to have their pint at Ellen's, an' they get talkin', an' there you are! Dinner stone cold--an' it serves 'em right."

"But Mr. Morel does not take any drink."

The woman dropped the clothes, looked at Mrs. Morel, then went on with her work, saying nothing.

It is bad when you can’t tell your husband is drinking . . .but rather common I think, at least years ago.  (I speak from personal family history.)

This blog is a guide to the best free and inexpensive classic literature for the US & UK Kindle. If you enjoy my suggestions, please tell your friends who read to give my blog a try. 

Join me on Twitter, FaceBook, or Pinterest.

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For a nominal fee of 99 cents/pence, you can subscribe to this blog on your Kindle. This gives you the convenience of being able to download the books directly through your Kindle, instead of downloading them to your computer and then transferring them to your Kindle. It also helps support my blog, as I get 33 cents a month for each subscription.

You may get a two week free trial membership which you can cancel if it does not suit your needs.

UK readers, go to this Amazon link to subscribe.  (Slightly more than half my readers are from the UK)

US readers, go to this Amazon link

Thank to all my readers, whether you subscribe on your Kindle or whether you read it online.  I love to get good reviews!  Who wouldn't?  Should you care to leave a review, follow this links for UK readers or US readers.

Thank you!  Enjoy a good book this week!  I am caught up in the French Revolution with Madame Dafarge.

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - by Robert Louis Stevenson

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is an 1885 novel by Robert Louis Stevenson.  (US Edition)  (£0.77 UK Edition)  Everyone knows what Jekyll and Hyde is about.  The phrase, “Jekyll and Hyde personality,” is a part of our culture.  But have you ever read the book?  Sometimes something so familiar is not what we expect it to be .  . .

All at once, I saw two figures: one a little man who was stumping along eastward at a good walk, and the other a girl of maybe eight or ten who was running as hard as she was able down a cross street. Well, sir, the two ran into one another naturally enough at the corner; and then came the horrible part of the thing; for the man trampled calmly over the child's body and left her screaming on the ground. It sounds nothing to hear, but it was hellish to see.

“It sounds like nothing to hear?”  It is harrowing!

"But it is more than ten years since Henry Jekyll became too fanciful for me. He began to go wrong, wrong in mind; and though of course I continue to take an interest in him for old sake's sake, as they say, I see and I have seen devilish little of the man.

I thought it was Mr. Hyde who was the bad guy?

The story of how the book is written belongs with those books written in a haze as well as those books produced by a dream.  The book was written very quickly while Stevenson was ill or maybe on drugs.  For good measure he claimed to have burned the original manuscript and then rewrote it from memory.  Strange provenance or not, it is a strange book!

"Well, sir," returned the clerk, "there's a rather singular resemblance; the two hands are in many points identical: only differently sloped."

Check it out!

This blog is a guide to the best free and inexpensive classic literature for the US & UK Kindle. If you enjoy my suggestions, please tell your friends who read to give my blog a try. 

Join me on Twitter, FaceBook, or Pinterest.

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For a nominal fee of 99 cents/pence, you can subscribe to this blog and have it automatically download on your Kindle. This gives you the convenience of being able to download the books directly to your Kindle, instead of downloading them to your computer and then transferring them to your Kindle. It also helps support my blog.

UK readers, go to this Amazon link to subscribe.  (Slightly more than half my readers are from the UK)

US readers, go to this Amazon link

Thank to all my readers, whether you subscribe on your Kindle or whether you read it online.  I love to get good reviews!  Who wouldn't?  Should you care to leave a review, follow these links for UK readers or US readers.