Best of
Fiction

1957

Palace Walk / Palace of Desire / Sugar Street


Naguib Mahfouz - 1957
    The Nobel Prize-winning writer's masterwork is the engrossing story of a Muslim family in Cairo during Britain's occupation of Egypt in the early decades of the twentieth century.The novels of The Cairo Trilogy trace three generations of the family of tyrannical patriarch Al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad, who rules his household with a strict hand while living a secret life of self-indulgence. Palace Walk introduces us to his gentle, oppressed wife, Amina, his cloistered daughters, Aisha and Khadija, and his three sons–the tragic and idealistic Fahmy, the dissolute hedonist Yasin, and the soul-searching intellectual Kamal. Al-Sayyid Ahmad’s rebellious children struggle to move beyond his domination in Palace of Desire, as the world around them opens to the currents of modernity and political and domestic turmoil brought by the 1920s. Sugar Street brings Mahfouz’s vivid tapestry of an evolving Egypt to a dramatic climax as the aging patriarch sees one grandson become a Communist, one a Muslim fundamentalist, and one the lover of a powerful politician.Throughout the trilogy, the family's trials mirror those of their turbulent country during the years spanning the two World Wars, as change comes to a society that has resisted it for centuries. Filled with compelling drama, earthy humor, and remarkable insight, The Cairo Trilogy is the achievement of a master storyteller.

The Doubtful Guest


Edward Gorey - 1957
    The staid, pale, Victorian inhabitants of the mansion alternately stare and glare at the doubtful guest as it tears out whole chapters from books, peels the soles of its white canvas shoes, and broods while lying on the floor ("inconveniently close to the drawing-room door"). Strangely, or rather, typically, as this is a Gorey book, the stymied occupants never ask the guest to leave--and in 17 years it has still "shown no intention of going away."

The Complete Short Stories of Mark Twain


Mark Twain - 1957
    This sparkling anthology covers the entire span of Twain’s inimitable yarn-spinning, from his early broad comedy to the biting satire of his later years.Every one of his sixty stories is here: ranging from the frontier humor of “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,” to the bitter vision of humankind in “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg,” to the delightful hilarity of “Is He Living or Is He Dead?” Surging with Twain’s ebullient wit and penetrating insight into the follies of human nature, this volume is a vibrant summation of the career of–in the words of H. L. Mencken–“the father of our national literature.”

Sonny's Blues


James Baldwin - 1957
    This collects "Sonny's Blues", "The Rockpile" and "Previous Condition", all taken from Going to Meet the Man (Penguin, 1991).

Atlas Shrugged, Part A


Ayn Rand - 1957
    Is he a destroyer or a liberator? Why does he fight his hardest battle not against his enemies, but against the woman he loves?

Black Gold


Marguerite Henry - 1957
    But Jaydee sees something special in his eyes. He knows Black Gold would be great if he was his rider! Finally, Jaydee gets his wish. And Black Gold grows strong and fast under his careful hands. Soon it would be time for the most important race in America. Did they really have what it takes to win? Black Gold's inspirational story proves that the power of love and dedication can make any dream come true. Set against the thrilling and colorful world of Thoroughbred horses, Black Gold is the true story of this legendary horse and his determined young jockey.

The Overcoat and Other Tales of Good and Evil


Nikolai Gogol - 1957
    The compassion, simplicity, and gentle humor with which he treats the poignant quest of a hapless civil servant for the return of his stolen overcoat—and the fantastic yet realistic manner in which he takes revenge on his nemesis, the Very Important Person—mark "The Overcoat" as one of the greatest achievements of Gogol's genius.The five other "Tales of Good and Evil" in this superb collection demonstrate the broad range of Gogol's literary palette in his short fiction: the fantastic, supernaturally tinged "The Terrible Vengeance," the comic portraiture of "Ivan Fydorovich Shponka and His Aunt," the tragic moral realism of "The Portrait" and "Nevsky Avenue," and the rampaging satire and absurdism of his send-up of Russian upper-class stupidity, "The Nose." The stories offer the reader the perfect introduction to the imaginative genius of Gogol, which was to flower so triumphantly in his masterpiece, 'Deal Souls'.

Follow My Leader


James B. Garfield - 1957
    With the help of a determined therapist, he learns to read Braille and to use a cane. Then he's given the chance to have a guide dog. Learning to work with Leader is not easy, but Jimmy tries harder than he ever has before.

The Fur Person


May Sarton - 1957
    Prior to making the author’s acquaintance, he is a fiercelyindependent, nameless Cat About Town. Growing tired ofhis vagabond lifestyle, however, he concludes that theremight be some appeal in giving up his freedom for a home.Finally, a house materializes that does seem acceptable andso do the voices that inhabit it. It is here that he begins histransformation into a genuine Fur Person. Sarton’s book isone of the most beloved stories ever written about the joysand tribulations inherent in sharing one’s life with a cat. It isnow reissued in a gorgeous edition featuring David Canright’sbeautiful illustrations.

The Guns of Navarone


Alistair MacLean - 1957
    Full-scale attacks had been driven back. Now they were sending in just five men, each one a specialist in dealing death.

The Dog Who Wouldn't Be


Farley Mowat - 1957
    Mutt's pedigree was uncertain, but his madness was indisputable. He climbed trees and ladders, rode passenger in an open car wearing goggles and displaying hunting skills that bordered on sheer genius. He was a marvelous dog, worthy of an unusual boy growing up in a raw, untamed wilderness.

Gone-Away Lake


Elizabeth Enright - 1957
    But though the lake is long gone and the resort faded away, the houses still hold a secret life: two people who have never left Gone-Away...and who can tell the story of what happened there.

The Birds


Tarjei Vesaas - 1957
    Their routine, isolated existence is interrupted when a lumberjack arrives at their lakeside cottage and falls in love with Hege, leaving Mattis fearful that he will lose his sister. The careful translation from the Norwegian underscores Vesaas's rare sensitivity in recording Mattis's often insightful view of his world. With a limited understanding of the unpredictable power of nature, Mattis nonetheless turns to the elements to discover the answers—with unsettling results.

The Secret of Roan Inish


Rosalie K. Fry - 1957
    But city life doesn’t suit Fiona so at age ten she is sent back to her beloved isles to live with her grandparents. There she learns more about her mother’s strange ways with the seals and seabirds; she hears stories of the selkies, mythological creatures that are half seal and half human; and she wonders about her baby brother, Jamie, who disappeared during the island evacuation but whom fishermen claim to have seen. Fiona determines to find Jamie and strikes up a friendship with her older cousin Rory to enlist his help. When her grandparents are suddenly threatened with eviction, Fiona and Rory put their plans into action.Secret of the Ron Mor Skerry is a magical story of the power of place and family history, interwoven with Scottish folklore. Rosalie K. Fry’s novel was the basis for John Sayles’s classic 1994 film The Secret of Roan Inish.

David and the Phoenix


Edward Ormondroyd - 1957
    David's legs slipped from the bird's back, and he dangled over the abyss. Thus ends the near-disaster of their first flight together. But don't underestimate the Phoenix! Failure only makes David's new-found friend determinded to get into shape so that David's education for Life can proceed. And get into shape the fabulous bird does just as they conclude their first successful (and very scary) adventure, the Scientist appears. Don't underestimate the Scientist, either. He is just as stubborn as the Phoenix, and is driven by one obsession: to become famous by capturing the mythic bird. And if his traps don't work, he is fully prepared to shoot the Phoenix...

The Green Hills of Earth / The Menace from Earth


Robert A. Heinlein - 1957
    Two of the Grand Master's finest: The saga of the opening of the space frontier as courageous men and women risked their lives to build the first space station and colonize the Moon and Venus, while praying for one last landing on the globe that gave them birth, to return to The Green Hills of Earth.From a mysterious region on Earth, where a more advanced lifeform may be studying the interesting creatures called "humans," to the first moon colony, where a young girl's relationship with her boyfriend is endangered by the beautiful Menace from Earth.Classic Heinlein, in a new Omni-trade format package.

The Tall Stranger


D.E. Stevenson - 1957
    Charming, spirited, debonair, he is the ideal companion. Everyone, especially Edward, assumes they will marry one day. But Barbie is uneasy. Edward sometimes behaves very oddly. There are his sudden, huge winnings on the race course and the strange affair of Aunt Amalie’s emerald ring. And last, but not least, Barbie is puzzled by his reaction to the handsome stranger she meets at a wedding; for suddenly easy-going Edward becomes hostile and unfriendly… In The Tall Stranger, can Barbie discover the truth, and marry the man she loves? Praise for The Tall Stranger: 'Those who enjoy light novels full of good humour and kindliness will like this one very much indeed' - Scotsman D. E. Stevenson was born in Edinburgh. Her father was a first cousin of Robert Louis Stevenson. She was educated privately and travelled widely in France and Italy with her parents. She married a major in the Highland Light Infantry and moved with the regiment from place to place gaining valuable experience of life and people.

Dandelion Wine


Ray Bradbury - 1957
    A summer of green apple trees, mowed lawns, and new sneakers. Of half-burnt firecrackers, of gathering dandelions, of Grandma's belly-busting dinner. It was a summer of sorrows and marvels and gold-fuzzed bees. A magical, timeless summer in the life of a twelve-year-old boy named Douglas Spaulding—remembered forever by the incomparable Ray Bradbury.Woven into the novel are the following short stories: Illumination, Dandelion Wine, Summer in the Air, Season of Sitting, The Happiness Machine, The Night, The Lawns of Summer, Season of Disbelief, The Last--the Very Last, The Green Machine, The Trolley, Statues, The Window, The Swan, The Whole Town's Sleeping, Goodbye Grandma, The Tarot Witch, Hotter Than Summer, Dinner at Dawn, The Magical Kitchen, Green Wine for Dreaming.

Cape Fear


John D. MacDonald - 1957
    He lived only for the day he would be free—free to track down and destroy the man who had put him behind bars.Murder was merciful compared to what Cady had in mind—and what Cady had in mind was Bowden's innocent and lovely teenaged daughter...."A powerful and frightening story." —The New York Times

The Book of Imaginary Beings


Jorge Luis Borges - 1957
    G. Wells' The Time Machine. A lavish feast of exotica brought vividly to life with art commissioned specifically for this volume, The Book of Imaginary Beings will delight readers of classic fantasy as well as Borges' many admirers.

Thomasina


Paul Gallico - 1957
    Mary refuses to speak to her father, and then she herself contracts a life-threatening disease. In the meantime, however, Thomasina has been rescued—by the mysterious Lori, the Red Witch of the glen. Thomasina is now Tabitha, the descendant of an Egyptian goddess, and she is coming back to seek revenge! Thomasina, like Jenny of The Abandoned, Gallico’s other great feline heroine (Jenny is Thomasina’s great-aunt), tells her own story in her own way, witty, charming, divine, and sometimes as sharp as an unsheathed claw. Thomasina is a cat for the ages. Thomasina is a sheer delight.

The Best Short Stories of William Somerset Maugham


W. Somerset Maugham - 1957
    Harrington's washing --Red --Mr. Know-all --The alien corn --The book-bag --The round dozen --The voice of the turtle --The facts of life --Lord Mountdrago --The colonel's lady --The treasure --Rain --P. & O.

Don Camillo And The Devil


Giovannino Guareschi - 1957
    

The Children on Troublemaker Street


Astrid Lindgren - 1957
    Look out -- here comes trouble! Jonas, Maria, and Lotta Nyman don't mean to make trouble, but because their idea of fun is to stick salami on the windows, keep the water running from the kitchen faucet until the sink overflows, and lower meatballs down through the chimney, trouble just seems to follow them....With the Nyman kids around, anything can happen!

Novels and Other Writings : The Dream Life of Balso Snell / Miss Lonelyhearts / A Cool Million / The Day of the Locust / Letters


Nathanael West - 1957
    Along with the four novels for which he is famous, this authoritative collection gathers his work in other genres, including stories, poetry, essays and plays, film scripts and treatments, and letters.When West died in a California highway accident in 1940 at the age of thirty-seven, his originality and brilliance were little known outside an intensely admiring circle of fellow writers: William Carlos Williams, Edmund Wilson, S. J. Perelman, and others. Not until West’s four novels were reissued in the late 1950s was he acknowledged as one of the most gifted writers of his generation. His masterpieces Miss Lonelyhearts and The Day of the Locust, with their blending of manic farce and despairing compassion, and their vision of an America awash in its own mass-produced fantasies, read like a prophecy of much that was to come in American literature and life.Each of West’s novels is distinct in style and theme. In the Dada-inspired The Dream Life of Balso Snell (1931), he freely mixes high-flown literary and religious allusions with erotic and scatological humor. Miss Lonelyhearts (1933) presents, in a series of grotesque, starkly etched episodes, the spiritual breakdown of a newspaper columnist overwhelmed by his readers’ suffering. By contrast, A Cool Million (1934) reduces the eternal optimism of Horatio Alger’s novels to a brutal, cartoonish farce. In his last work, The Day of the Locust (1939), West renders with hallucinatory precision the reverse side of the Hollywood dream, as he choreographs a cast of failures, has-beens, and deluded glamour-seekers in what becomes an apocalyptic dance of death.Also included is a generous sampling of West’s other surviving work, ranging from freewheeling improvisations and grotesque comic tales to more mainstream work written with Hollywood or Broadway in mind, and including his anti-war satire Good Hunting and his adaptation of Francis Ile’s famous crime novel Before the Fact. The uncollected West shows him as a writer who embodied the contradictions and crazy-quilt exuberance of American culture—and raises the question of how he might have developed had his career not been cut short. Selected correspondence with William Carlos Williams, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Malcolm Cowley, Bennett Cerf, and others rounds out the volume and sets West’s literary life in fuller context.

Wasp


Eric Frank Russell - 1957
    That's where James Mowry comes in. Intensively trained, his appearance surgically altered, Mowry secretly lands on one of the Empire's planets. His mission: to sap morale, cause mayhem, tie up resources, and wage a one-man war on a planet of 80 million--in short, to be like the wasp buzzing around a car to distract the driver...and causing him to crash.

Earth Is Room Enough


Isaac Asimov - 1957
    Contents:· The Dead Past · nv Astounding Apr ’56 · The Foundation of Science Fiction Success · pm F&SF Oct ’54 · Franchise · ss If Aug ’55 · Gimmicks Three [“The Brazen Locked Room”] · ss F&SF Nov ’56 · Kid Stuff · ss Beyond Fantasy Fiction Sep ’53 · The Watery Place · ss Satellite Oct ’56 · Living Space · ss Science Fiction Stories May ’56 · The Message · vi F&SF Feb ’56 · Satisfaction Guaranteed [Susan Calvin (Robot)] · ss Amazing Apr ’51 · Hell-Fire · vi Fantastic Universe May ’56 · The Last Trump · ss Fantastic Universe Jun ’55 · The Fun They Had · ss The Boys and Girls Page Dec 1 ’51; F&SF Feb ’54 · Jokester · ss Infinity Science Fiction Dec ’56 · The Immortal Bard · vi Universe May ’54 · Someday · ss Infinity Science Fiction Aug ’56 · The Author’s Ordeal · pm Science Fiction Quarterly May ’57 · Dreaming Is a Private Thing · ss F&SF Dec ’55

Jenny Goes to Sea


Esther Averill - 1957
    Once on board, they meet the adventurous ship's cat, Jack Tar.Leaving New York's harbor, the friends travel to Africa and Asia, and return through the Panama Canal. At each port they meet a colorful local cat who shows them around. Jenny and her pals have their fortunes told by an Abyssinian cat in Zanzibar; dance the sailor's hornpipe with Bobo the Burmese, another ship's cat who was left behind, in Singapore; and float with Siamese cat Dara in a sampan boat on a Bangkok river—a truly exotic adventure.Ages 6 & up

Hidden Rainbow


Christmas Carol Kauffman - 1957
    John and Anna Olesh, through a simple act of kindness, faced undreamed-of turmoil and hardships. They and their family learned that when God moves, no government, no organized religion, can stand in His way.

Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch


Henry Miller - 1957
    and of the extraordinary people Miller knew there: writers (and writers who didn't write), mystics seeking truth in meditation (and the not-so-saintly looking for sex-cults or celebrity), sophisticated children and adult innocents; geniuses, cranks and the unclassifiable.Henry Miller writes with a buoyancy and brimming energy that are infectious. He has a fine touch for comedy. But this is also a serious book the testament of a free spirit who has broken through the restraints and cliches of modern life to find within himself his own kind of paradise.

Two Women


Alberto Moravia - 1957
    The two women are Cesira, a widowed Roman shopkeeper, and her daughter Rosetta, a naive teenager of haunting beauty and devout faith. When the German occupation of Rome becomes imminent, Cesira packs a few provisions, sews her life savings into the seams of her dress, and flees with Rosetta to her native province of Ciociara, a poor, mountainous region south of Rome.Cesira's currency soon loses its value, and a vicious barter economy, fraught with shifty traffickers and thieves, emerges among the mountain peasants and refugees. Mother and daughter endure nine months of hunger, cold, and filth as they await the arrival of the Allied forces. Cesira scarcely cares who wins the war, so long as victory comes soon and brings with it a return to her quiet shopkeeper's life.Instead, the Liberation brings tragedy. While heading back to Rome the pair are attacked by a group of Allied Moroccan soldiers, who rape Rosetta and beat Cesira unconscious. This act of violence and its resulting loss of innocence so embitters Rosetta that she falls numbly into a life of prostitution. Throughout these hardships Moravia offers up an intimate portrayal of the anguish wrought by the devastation of war, both on the battlefield and upon those far from the fray.

Doctor Zhivago


Boris Pasternak - 1957
    One of the results of its publication in the West was Pasternak's complete rejection by Soviet authorities; when he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1958 he was compelled to decline it. The book quickly became an international best-seller.Dr. Yury Zhivago, Pasternak's alter ego, is a poet, philosopher, and physician whose life is disrupted by the war and by his love for Lara, the wife of a revolutionary. His artistic nature makes him vulnerable to the brutality and harshness of the Bolsheviks. The poems he writes constitute some of the most beautiful writing featured in the novel.

Last Tales


Isak Dinesen - 1957
    They include seven tales from Albondocani, a projected novel that was never completed; "The Caryatids," an unfinished Gothic tale of a couple bedeviled by an old letter and a gypsy's spell; and three tales of winter, including "Converse at Night in Copenhagen," a drunken, all-night conversation between a boy-king, a prostitute, and a poor young poet.

Below the Salt


Thomas B. Costain - 1957
    Time was strangely rolled back 700 years so that he was hearing an account of those stirring, violent events in England and Europe that led to Magna Charta and thus contributed so much to the liberties of future generations: with a story, most of it straight from history, of a lost princess and the recovery of a lost charter.

Sitka


Louis L'Amour - 1957
    Now, Jean LaFarge finds himself swept up in an epic battle in the wilds of Alaska, where a tyranical Russian has seized control of the fur trade-and the land. But Jean has never backed down from a fight, even one as bold and dangerous as this-a battle that will shape the future of America.

Death Trap


John D. MacDonald - 1957
    When they found a suspect, everyone relaxed except Hugh MacReedy. Maybe he should have stayed out of it, but MacReedy owed a big debt to the patsy they were sending to the electric chair in a week. And he would have stayed out of it, if he'd known what his chances were of coming out alive . . .

The Empty Trap


John D. MacDonald - 1957
    When he’s hired to build and run the Green Oasis resort, he doesn’t know too much about the pedigree of its owner—and he doesn’t want to. He won’t ask any questions. Just as long as the place is legit and he can run it clean as a whistle. But when trouble checks in, skimming from the casino’s tills is the least of Lloyd’s concerns. The quiet elegance of the hotel lobby turns out to be crawling with contract guns. And after one look from a beautiful woman, Lloyd realizes that he’s about to get some hard answers to the questions he never asked.

Something Fishy


P.G. Wodehouse - 1957
    When Keggs was a butler he eavesdropped on a meeting between his employer, J.J. Bunyan, and a covey of tycoons--J.J. and his associates each agreed to put up fifty-thousand dollars, the total to go to whichever of their sons was the last to marry. Thirty years later, Keggs wants to cash in on what he knows.

Citizen of the Galaxy


Robert A. Heinlein - 1957
    But his new owner, Baslim, is not the disabled beggar he appears to be: adopting Thorby as his son, he fights relentlessly as an abolitionist spy. When the authorities close in on Baslim, Thorby must ride with the Free Traders — a league of merchant princes — throughout the many worlds of a hostile galaxy, finding the courage to live by his wits and fight his way from society's lowest rung. But Thorby's destiny will be forever changed when he discovers the truth about his own identity...

Angels on Horseback


Norman Thelwell - 1957
    This edition contains Thelwell's invaluable advice to aspiring equestrians on how to get into the saddle and stay there; each item illustrated with inimitable and deadly clarity

A Hero Born


Jin Yong - 1957
    Half its territory and its historic capital lie in enemy hands; the peasants toil under the burden of the annual tribute demanded by the victors. Meanwhile, on the Mongolian steppe, a disparate nation of great warriors is about to be united by a warlord whose name will endure for eternity: Genghis Khan.Guo Jing, son of a murdered Song patriot, grew up with Genghis Khan's army. He is humble, loyal, perhaps not altogether wise, and is fated from birth to one day confront an opponent who is the opposite of him in every way: privileged, cunning and flawlessly trained in the martial arts.Guided by his faithful shifus, The Seven Heroes of the South, Guo Jing must return to China - to the Garden of the Drunken Immortals in Jiaxing - to fulfil his destiny. But in a divided land riven by war and betrayal, his courage and his loyalties will be tested at every turn.

Pilgrimage to Earth


Robert Sheckley - 1957
    It was first published in October 1957 by Bantam Books (catalogue number A1672) and already reprinted a month later. It includes the following stories (magazines in which the stories originally appeared given in parentheses):"Pilgrimage to Earth" (Playboy 1956/9; also known as "Love, Incorporated")"All the Things You Are" (Galaxy 1956/7)"Trap" (Galaxy 1956/2)"The Body" (Galaxy 1956/1)"Early Model" (Galaxy 1956/8)"Disposal Service" (Bluebook 1955/1)"Human Man's Burden" (Galaxy 1956/9)"Fear in the Night" (Today's Woman 1952)"Bad Medicine" (Galaxy 1956/7)"Protection" (Galaxy 1956/4)"Earth, Air, Fire and Water" (Astounding 1955/7)"Deadhead" (Galaxy 1955/7)"The Academy" (If 1954/8)"Milk Run" (Galaxy 1954/9)"The Lifeboat Mutiny" (Galaxy 1955/4)

A Brother Beloved


Francena H. Arnold - 1957
    Much to Joyce's dismay, however, a year in military service behind the iron curtain seems to have completely changed his personality. This haunting drama includes Joyce's cry for help and God's faithful answer.

The Eliots of Damerosehay: The Bird in the Tree / Pilgrim's Inn / The Heart of the Family


Elizabeth Goudge - 1957
    Here is the complete saga of Lucille, her children and grandchildren, in the charming setting of Damerosehay and the old Hampshire inn of "The Herb of Grace" nearby."Triumphantly accomplishes its aim of leaving the reader with a warm glow in the emotions... only Miss Goudge could have written it." The Times Literary Supplement

My Name Is Kozha


Berdibek Sokpakbayev - 1957
    The head teacher tells him that, unfortunately, he is not like his father who died at war. Kozha makes promises, but he forgets them as soon as he leaves the head teacher’s office … "Working on a film with children should be like a game so that the shooting does not weight heavily on them. All children are by nature actors and story tellers. They simply express this penchant in more or less obvious ways.

The Scapegoat


Daphne du Maurier - 1957
    Their resemblance to each other is uncanny, and they spend the next few hours talking and drinking - until at last John falls into a drunken stupor. It's to be his last carefree moment, for when he wakes, Jean has stolen his identity and disappeared. So the Englishman steps into the Frenchman's shoes, and faces a variety of perplexing roles - as owner of a chateau, director of a failing business, head of a fractious family, and master of nothing.Gripping and complex, The Scapegoat is a masterful exploration of doubling and identity, and of the dark side of the self.

Green Kingdom


Rachel Maddux - 1957
    The story is at once the age-old tale of utopia and dystopia and the saga of Americans at mid-century, with a history of economic depression, the midwestern dust bowl, and two world wars. First published in 1957, The Green Kingdom was Rachel Maddux's first novel, an ambitious undertaking that had occupied nearly twenty years of her life. Central to the novel is the act of creation - from naming the plants and animals of the kingdom to bearing children. Both Justin Magnus and Erma Herrick discover the wellsprings of their creative energy as they discover the kingdom and, finally, each other in a story that is by turns mystical and realistic, the product of a vivid imagination and keen powers of observation. The Green Kingdom itself is a metaphor for whatever circumstances can make a person feel some control over fate. To live in the Green Kingdom is to inhabit what Maddux calls "the climate of potentiality," and to read The Green Kingdom is an intense experience in which we imagine our own responses to this land that Maddux so carefully delineates.

Owls Do Cry


Janet Frame - 1957
    When one of Daphne's sisters dies, a crisis is provoked that leads Daphne to a mental asylum where she receives shock treatment. Her voice from "the Dead Room" haunts the novel with its poetic insights.

Color of Darkness


James Purdy - 1957
    Purdy sent copies of these first two books to writers he thought highly of, including the English poet Dame Edith Sitwell. She enthusiastically recommended Purdy's work to an English publisher, Gollancz, who published and distributed Purdy's books in England. Purdy's works were launched in the United States in 1957 in one volume, Color of Darkness: Eleven Stories and a Novella which also includes two new stories as the first offerings in the book. Contents include 1) Color of Darkness 2) You May Safely Gaze 3) Don't Call Me By My Right Name 4) Eventide 5) Why Can't They Tell You Why 6) Man and Wife 7) You Reach For Your Hat 8) A Good Woman 9) Plan Now To Attend 10) Sound of Talking 11) Cutting Edge 12) 63: Dream Palace.

Jephtha and his Daughter


Lion Feuchtwanger - 1957
    

Houseboat Girl


Lois Lenski - 1957
    She'll miss her house and friends, and she's sure the trip downriver will be boring. Gradually, she and her brother and sisters get used to their new life. Patsy grows to love the ever-changing river, where she even learns to swim. But she can't help longing for a real house--on land. "Houseboat Girl" is based on the experiences of real families living on the Mississippi River in the summer of 1954. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Lois Lenski including rare images and never-before-seen documents from the author's estate.

Shadows on the Hudson


Isaac Bashevis Singer - 1957
    Nobel Prize-winning author Isaac Bashevis Singer has created a vibrant, resonant, and provocative cast of characters in search of answers to life's greatest dilemmas, challenges, and ironies.

Percival Keene


Frederick Marryat - 1957
    Young Keene endures baffles both great and small, a stint on board a pirate ship, a stormy romance, and near-execution at the hands of Napoleon himself, all told with Marryat's trademark panache. A page-turning nautical yarn with brilliant historical re-creations of life and war at sea.

Alarms and Diversions


James Thurber - 1957
    Thurber," "Get Thee to a Monastery" and "The Moribundant Life, or Grow Old Along with Whom?""His writings will be a document of the age they belong to." --T.S. Eliot

Mazya Bapachi Pend (Marathi)


D.M. Mirasdar - 1957
    Grief, longing, being away from near and dear…….. Colours not seen before, each story has a unique shade. Each reveals different pain. The story of the king titled perfectly as to Once Upon A Time…….. is the best example of this. The comedian in the Courts of the king helps him to win the heart of the most wise and beautiful damsel in the town. He uses all his wit so as to bring the beautiful maiden in the king’s palace. At the end, when he realizes that it is the wittiness that the lady was fallen for and not name or fame of the king, he pities himself. It could have been he himself who could have become the partner of the lady. She was not impressed with the king’s wealth neither craved for bravery. What she wished was a mind equivalent to her talents………. Alas……….

Rooney


Catherine Cookson - 1957
    But it all went flying out of the window when he moved into Ma Howlett's place, where the rug of his comfortable old habits were yanked from under him, and life became complicated.

Comanche of the Seventh


Margaret Leighton - 1957
    Story of a horse named Comanche who survives the battle at Little Big Horn.

The Sound of Thunder


Taylor Caldwell - 1957
    The searing novel of a man enslaved by passion and cursed by his own success.

The Hunger, and Other Stories


Charles Beaumont - 1957
    Although he is best known today for his scripts for television and film, including several classic episodes of The Twilight Zone, Beaumont is being rediscovered as a master of weird tales, and this, his first published collection, contains some of his best. Ranging in tone from the chilling Gothic horror of "Miss Gentilbelle," where an insane mother dresses her son up as a girl and slaughters his pets, to deliciously dark humor in tales like "Open House" and "The Infernal Bouillabaisse," where murderers' plans go disastrously awry, these seventeen stories demonstrate Beaumont's remarkable talent and versatility. This new edition of The Hunger and Other Stories, the first in more than fifty years, includes a new introduction by Dr. Bernice M. Murphy, who argues for reevaluation of Beaumont alongside the other greats of the genre, including Shirley Jackson, Ray Bradbury, and Richard Matheson.Contents:Miss Gentilbelle • (1957) The Vanishing American • (1955)A Point of Honor • (1955) Fair Lady • (1957) Free Dirt • (1955) Open House • (1957)The Train • (1957) The Dark Music • (1956) The Customers • (1957)Last Night in the Rain • (1956)The Crooked Man • (1955) Nursery Rhyme • (1957) The Murderers • (1955) The Hunger • (1955) Tears of the Madonna • (1957) The Infernal Bouillabaisse • (1957)Black Country • (1954)

I wish, I wish


Lisl Weil - 1957
    She loved visiting the "Gallerias" and her one wish was to have a small painting of her very own. A strange cat with a locket around her neck entered her life, and not one-- but two wishes came true!

The Most Dangerous Game And Other Stories of Adventure


Richard Connell - 1957
    In THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME a professional hunter finds out what it feels like to be hunted as a wild animal- for he is the prey? In TO BUILD A FIRE a trapper fights desperately against stark fear in the cruel Arctic night... In LEININGEN VERSUS THE ANTS a settler battles for his very life against a teeming horde of millions of deadly ants...These are only a few of the thrilling stories you'll read in this fascinating book.

The Heart Divided


Mumtaz Shah Nawaz - 1957
    

Wildlife Cameraman


Jim Kjelgaard - 1957
    To find out whether or not he had real ability, he spent a summer in the wilderness with his dog and his cameras. His dog is an Airedale Terrier.

The Arabian Nights


Amabel Williams-Ellis - 1957
    

The Christmas That Almost Wasn't


Ogden Nash - 1957
    

Jeeves Comes to America


P.G. Wodehouse - 1957
    Unabridged

The divine and the decay


Bill Hopkins - 1957
    

Home Before Dark


Eileen Bassing - 1957
    She leaves the Maraneck State Hospital after a year to resume her life at home with her emotionally repressed professor husband. Making her life even more difficult, they share their home with Charlotte’s attractive step-sister Joan and Joan’s mother, as well as a Jewish philosophy professor boarder and a servant.With her marriage floundering, and suspecting her husband of being overly interested in Joan, Charlotte looks to be headed for another breakdown when she attends a faculty dinner dressed and made up to look like Joan. Her husband finally reveals his true feelings.

Franny and Zooey


J.D. Salinger - 1957
    But just so tiny and meaningless and—sad-making. And the worst part is, if you go bohemian or something crazy like that, you’re conforming just as much only in a different way.’First published in The New Yorker as two sequential stories, ‘Franny’ and ‘Zooey’ offer a dual portrait of the two youngest members of J. D. Salinger’s fictional Glass family.Franny Glass is a pretty, effervescent college student on a date with her intellectually confident boyfriend, Lane. They appear to be the perfect couple, but as they struggle to communicate with each other about the things they really care about, slowly their true feelings come to the surface. The second story in this book, ‘Zooey’, plunges us into the world of her ethereal, sophisticated family. When Franny’s emotional and spiritual doubts reach new heights, her older brother Zooey, a misanthropic former child genius, offers her consolation and brotherly advice.Written in Salinger’s typically irreverent style, these two stories offer a touching snapshot of the distraught mindset of early adulthood and are full of the insightful emotional observations and witty turns of phrase that have helped make Salinger’s reputation what it is today.

Village in the Sun


Dane Chandos - 1957
    

The Finest Stories of Sean O'Faolain


Seán O'Faoláin - 1957
    The stories in this volume run the gamut of his thirty years of writing, from his earlier romantic pieces to his later more satiric ones. At the heart of his writing is O'Faolain's great love for Ireland, its people and traditions seen in both their tragic and comic aspects. Yet, written with an enormous compassion and incisive humor, the stories of Sean O'Faolain speak not only for the Irish, but for all humanity through all time.

The Wild Swan


Margaret Kennedy - 1957
    It is the task of Roy Collins to turn the play into an equally popular film. Dorothea's descendents have only weak objections to the misuse of their relation's private past - they need money more than dignity. But Roy has misgivings, and when a set of revealing letters are discovered, he begins to feel that the truth might be more important than the story.

Fowlers End


Gerald Kersh - 1957
    Thanks to his horrifying physiognomy, which conceals the softest of hearts, he wins a job as manager of a movie house. It is a flea pit, a vile retreat for predatory children, a place where thugs relax between felonies. Its owner, Sam Yudenow, is a sort of philosopher. At first Laverock is dazzled by Sam, by his splendidly garbled speech, his flawless depravity, his complete emancipation from decent instincts. But not for long. Soon he is leading a group seeking to overthrow the vicious tyrant. Fowlers End is a black comic masterpiece filled with exuberant language and outrageous characters.

Calico Captive


Elizabeth George Speare - 1957
    Young Miriam Willard, on a day that had promised new happiness, finds herself instead a captive on a forest trail, caught up in the ebb and flow of the French and Indian War. It is a harrowing march north. Miriam can only force herself to the next stopping place, the next small portion of food, the next icy stream to be crossed. At the end of the trail waits a life of hard work and, perhaps, even a life of slavery. Mingled with her thoughts of Phineas Whitney, her sweetheart on his way to Harvard, is the crying of her sister’s baby, Captive, born on the trail. Miriam and her companions finally reach Montreal, a city of shifting loyalties filled with the intrigue of war, and here, by a sudden twist of fortune, Miriam meets the prominent Du Quesne family, who introduce her to a life she has never imagined. Based on an actual narrative diary published in 1807, Calico Captive skillfully reenacts an absorbing facet of history.

Never So Few: A Novel


Tom T. Chamales - 1957
    American soldiers and native Kachin troops battle Japanese forces behind enemy lines in the Burmese jungles. But during the brutal campaign to gain territory in the unforgiving tropical landscape, Captain Reynolds and his band of special operations soldiers and guerrilla fighters struggle to find self-awareness, and even love, in the midst of the trials of combat.   One of the youngest officers to serve in Merrill’s Marauders and OSS Detachment 101—precursors to the Green Berets and Central Intelligence Agency—author Tom T. Chamales brings an unparalleled level of authentic detail and raw intensity to this work of fiction based on his real-life experience in the jungles of Southeast Asia. Never So Few is “an extraordinary and powerful book,” unflinching in its portrayal of wartime sacrifice and violence (Kirkus Reviews, starred).   The basis for the movie starring Frank Sinatra and Steve McQueen, it offers “dramatic, exciting, and concretely detailed accounts of battle action,” and joins the ranks of other classic war novels such as From Here to Eternity and The Naked and the Dead in bringing later generations to the frontlines and into the inner lives of the brave men who served (The New York Times).

A John Dickson Carr Trio


John Dickson Carr - 1957
    The detective in each of the novels is Dr. Gideon Fell.

The Bound Girl


Nan Watson Denker - 1957
    Hannah Todd disapproves of her French dress and even of her French accent, and decides to call her Felicity. The local tax collector, Stoneman, resents her and makes her life difficult. But through the months and years Felicity does not lose her gaiety and manages to share it with the Todds and their children. In turn the formative ideals of the new country become part of her and when the chance comes to return to her former life of wealth, as the daughter of a Paris designer, she turns it down for marriage to the Todds' son, Nathan, and a rightful place in the young years of America.

Spinsters Under The Skin


Anne Piper - 1957
     It should be the happiest week of her life and, on the day itself, the happiest day too. And yet… Despite being the eldest daughter, at age twenty-nine Laura still compares herself to her younger sister. Julia. The forthcoming one, the prettier one, the worldly sister who fought to get away from their dreary corner of England to pursue acting in London... All the while Laura stayed home with her parents, trained as a librarian and dreamt of a man to sweep her off into a quiet, suburban life. Even as children, their differences were marked. Laura was always the one with her nose buried in a book, meek and eager to please everyone, naïve and lost in daydreams… It was always Laura wondering where Julia had run off to. So whilst all the last minute wedding arrangements are under way, Laura is left imagining her happy future. After all, she does whole-heartedly love her fiancé, David. And their honeymoon to Italy will be as every bit as glamorous and exciting as Julia’s stories. But then, Julia shows up out of the blue. At first, it seems it was just a surprise for the wedding, but with Julia, nothing is straightforward. Julia needs money. It seems her career hasn’t been as successful in recent months as she let on. As well as for other reasons… Julia is pregnant – and no one will hire her with child. Julia needs the money for an abortion. Laura is shocked, and even more aghast that her sister seems to have no interest in marrying the father. After all, surely that’s what her sister wants deep down? For once in her life, Laura is determined to achieve her daydreams. But to what lengths? And at what cost? Published in the 1950s as contemporary women’s fiction, Spinsters Under The Skin offers a glimpse into the attitudes and psychology of two very different women. Praise for Anne Piper ‘Miss Piper has a great future.’ — Good Housekeeping ‘She was admired for her intellect, knowledge of education and forceful personality’ – The Guardian Anne Piper was born in Cardiff and met David Piper in Cambridge, just prior to the second world war. They married in 1945 and shortly after, begun the writing of the first of nine novels. Yes, Giorgio (1961) was made into a film. Other novels include Cuckoo and Early to Bed. Anne Piper died at the age of 96 after following an energetic and full life. She is survived by her four children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

The World of John McNulty


John McNulty - 1957
    His perspicacious observation of bartenders, cab drivers, children, guys at ball games, and even strangers in the street has delighted readers for many years. This volume includes most of the stories in his three previously published collections: Third Avenue, New York, A Man Gets Around and My Son Johnny as well as twenty additional stories.McNulty had an ear for the uncommon nuances in common speech--the single phrase that lifted a character above the crowd--an eye for the precise detail which told more in a few words than lesser writers could convey in pages. Most of all, he had a delight in living and a love of humanity which made him one of the warmest, wittiest writers of our day. This is a wonderful collection of his best works.

My Animal Friend


Gyo Fujikawa - 1957
    

The Glorious Folly: A Novel of the Days of St. Paul


Louis de Wohl - 1957
    

The Friendly Bear


Robert Bright - 1957
    When Matt got there he found that Grandpa wasn't home, but the Friendly Bear was there. Do you know what happened?

A Cage for the Nightingale


Phyllis Paul - 1957
    Its exciting, closely woven plot would make it a "thriller", were it not lifted far above that genre by this writer's unusual and sombre power: its subtle portrayal of char­acter, and its disturbing suggestions of evil in a person or a place, make it reminiscent of Henry James's eerie masterpiece, The Turn of the Screw.Rachel Greenwood, the sensible, cheer­ful girl against whom all else in the book is skilfully contrasted, takes the post of companion to Victoria M, a young woman who lives in the country at Ashbank House—or Cannel Farm, as the place was called years before, when Victoria was accused of murdering the daughter of Dr. Constantine. After the girl had spent some years in a mental institution, the doctor had taken her back to Cannel Farm and pro­vided a number of people to look after her and amuse her in that secluded place. Rachel, unfavourably impressed by the psychiatrist's glib charm, soon concludes that Victoria is not nearly as unbalanced as she is made out to be.But who can help Rachel to follow the carefully obscured path back to that distant September day? Not Pat Anderson, whose irresponsibility reflects her silly devotion to the doctor. Not the young chauffeur Maurice, with his eye to the main chance. Nor the doctor's two precocious illegitimate children. Henry Festing and his mother might help; but Henry, for some reason of his own, is afraid of Dr. Constantine.In an atmosphere charged like the air before a storm, A Cage for the Nightingale mounts to its dark climax.

Thirty Stories


Kay Boyle - 1957
    

Over the Edge


Harlan Ellison - 1957
    But to those who may have escaped the pull of his imagination, here are some examples of the singular Ellison talent. Stories and essays in which:the terrifying specter of Jack the Ripper walks again, in a tale so relentlessly uncompromising in its examination of the nature of evil, you will not soon be able to shake off its spell.a stranger who may have come from Hell strips the veil of hypocrisy from a town's placid existence, exposing, with awful consequences, the evil underneath.gods for today--the rock god ad the machine god--are described in terms even the most devout will find compelling and strangely disturbing.

The Gallant Mrs. Stonewall: A Novel Based on the Lives of General and Mrs. Stonewall Jackson


Harnett T. Kane - 1957
    Anna and Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson met by accident, were able to marry only through the intervention of a tragedy and were separated through the tragic, accidental shooting of Jackson by his own Confederate troops at Chancellorsville, Virginia.

Outlaw Breed


Max Brand - 1957
    Outlaw Breed

Another Man's Murder


Mignon G. Eberhart - 1957
    Cayce Clary returns home to Florida to confront his uncle about neglected orange groves only to confront the possibility of being charged with murder after his uncle is shot to death following their quarrel, his only recourse is to find the killer himself

Jexium Island


Madeleine Grattan - 1957
    The heroes, a young castaway and the French Navy, crack a ring of kidnappers who capture children to work on a North Atlantic island of jexium deposits.

Galaxy Science Fiction Magazine, July 1969 (Volume 28, No. 5)


Ejler JakobssonWilly Ley - 1957
    Bertram Chandler]; SHORT STORIES: A Brief History of the Revolution [David Lunde & James Sallis]; Full Commitment [Robert S. Martin]; ARTICLES: SF In the Sun [Frederik Pohl]; Eugen Sanger and the Rocket-propelled Airplane [Willy Ley]

Shares in Murder


Judah Waten - 1957
    Based on actual cases, the three main characters investigating the murder of a young woman in a fashionable Melbourne suburb disclose the relationship between organised crime and respectability.

Say, Darling: A new Novel


Richard Pike Bissell - 1957
    the story deals with Jack trying to work in a New York life style from a smal Midwest town background. Noel Coward witty.

The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby- Volume 1


Charles Dickens - 1957
    Quality assurance was conducted on each of these books in an attempt to remove books with imperfections introduced by the digitization process. Though we have made best efforts - the books may have occasional errors that do not impede the reading experience. We believe this work is culturally important and have elected to bring the book back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide.

Sing Out the Glory


Gladys Hasty Carroll - 1957
    

The Strangers That Came to Town


Ambrose Flack - 1957
    Narrated by a young boy named Andy, the story follows the Duvitch family, Croatian immigrants whose physical appearance the narrator immediately marks as both "foreign" and poor. Though sicknesses typical of the period (typhoid, whooping cough, measles) and dire poverty afflict the family, they remain kind, optimistic, and surprisingly generous.The townspeople, however, have trouble looking beyond appearances. They harangue the Duvitch siblings, taunting them for everything from "the leaf, lard and black bread sandwiches they ate for lunch" to the "rag pickers’ clothes" they wear to school.After the narrator Andy and his brother Tom poison some fish the Duvitches have caught, making them inedible, their father forces the boys to confess and administers punishment, part of which is facing their victims and owning up to their crime. "Father" goes a step further that ultimately eases the tension around the entire community. "It is high time," Tom and I heard Father say calmly, sanely, to Mother around noon next day when we woke up, "for this senseless feeling against the Duvitches to stop and I'm willing to do still more to stop it. Tonight we are having supper with them."In time, the townspeople gradually accept the new arrivals, and the story ends on a note of unexpected generosity."On a cold snowy afternoon in winter Mr. Duvitch stopped at our house and presented Father (who had enormous hands, much bigger than any of the Duvitches') with a handsome pair of leather mittens, lined with fur, which had a slightly acrid ashy odor. 'No doubt one of the boys resurrected them from a heap of ashes in the dump,' remarked Father, drawing on the mittens, which fitted perfectly. 'Why should I value them any the less? Who would have dreamed that the Duvitches would have so much more to offer us than we have to offer them?'"The story was so popular, it was dramatized in a 1959 television episode of the Loretta Young Show.

The Kean Land


Jack Schaefer - 1957
    

One small boy: a novel


Bill Naughton - 1957
    

A Face in the Crowd


Budd Schulberg - 1957
    This book is the screenplay of the Elia Kazan film "A Face in the Crowd," written by Budd Schulberg and based on Schulberg's short story "Your Arkansas Traveler" from the collection "Some Faces in the Crowd" (1953).

Call Of The White Fox


Willis Lindquist - 1957
    

Larousse Encyclopedia of Prehistoric & Ancient Art


René Huyghe - 1957
    It thus constitutes and essential work of reference as well as a volume which, in the freshness of its approach, out-dates all other books on the fascinating story of art.