Best of
Novels

1954

A Time to Love and a Time to Die


Erich Maria Remarque - 1954
    After two years at the Russian front, Ernst Graeber finally receives three weeks’ leave. But since leaves have been canceled before, he decides not to write his parents, fearing he would just raise their hopes. Then, when Graeber arrives home, he finds his house bombed to ruin and his parents nowhere in sight. Nobody knows if they are dead or alive. As his leave draws to a close, Graeber reaches out to Elisabeth, a childhood friend. Like him, she is imprisoned in a world she did not create. But in a time of war, love seems a world away. And sometimes, temporary comfort can lead to something unexpected and redeeming. “The world has a great writer in Erich Maria Remarque. He is a craftsman of unquestionably first rank, a man who can bend language to his will. Whether he writes of men or of inanimate nature, his touch is sensitive, firm, and sure.”—The New York Times Book Review

Prokleta avlija


Ivo Andrić - 1954
    Ćamil, a wealthy young man of Smyrna living in the last years of the Ottoman Empire, is fascinated by the story of Džem, ill-fated brother of the Sultan Bajazet, who ruled Turkey in the fifteenth century. Ćamil, in his isolation, comes to believe that he is Džem, and that he shares his evil destiny: he is born to be a victim of the State. Because of his stories about Džem’s ambitions to overthrow his brother, Ćamil is arrested under suspicion of plotting against the Sultan. He is taken to a prison in Istanbul, where he tells his story, to Petar, a monk.Out of these exotic materials, Andrić has constructed a book of great clarity, brevity and interest. No doubt it will be read by some as a political parable about the tyranny of the State, but also as a quite simply story about ill-fortune and human misunderstanding, fear and ignorance. Džem and Ćamil are doomed – and the certainty of their persecution is sometimes relieved, sometimes intensified by the stupidity and fright of the people who cross their ill-starred lives.Construction takes up most of the book’s space: the central story of Džem as related by Ćamil lasts only a chapter or two. For the rest of the time the reader strips layer off layer, as one narrator passes him on the next. There is an interesting passage that helps to explain this method, at the moment when Ćamil starts narrating Džem’s story in the first person. “I” is a word, we are told, which fixes the position of the speaker in such a way that the exercise of will is no longer possible, and the speaker strength is exceeded – strength, presumably, to break out of the identification that all his past actions and thoughts force upon him when he uses the word. “I” is both a confession and an imprisonment. The fact that the novel passes the reader on from one narrator to the next rather suggests that the author is taking constant evasive action, lest he betray himself or his reader into the kind of “personal confession” which seals the fate of Ćamil. What exactly this game of form flirting with meaning signifies, must be left to the individual reader.The movement is centripetal, towards Džem’s story, and then disperses. Details within the story are made to mimic this form. Thus when Peter receives the message telling him of his impending release:“Two younger prisoners...were chasing around using him as the centerpoint of ever narrowing circles. Annoyed, he tried to break away from these exuberant youths when one of them brushed against him and he felt a folded scrap of paper thrust into his hand. The youths continued their chase but now in widening circles...”The reader is led on just such a chase in the course of the novel. The effect of this is to make the plot seem more like a poetic image than an ordinary plot: capable, therefore, of as many meanings as are the images of an allusive poem. Yet the language is simple and direct, not at all “poetic”. The characters are remarkable alive, even in conversation. Karađoz, the governor of the goal, is a spidery authoritarian, who loves to torment the charges he loves. The prisoners “complained about the way one complains about one’s life and curses one’s destiny...it would have been hard for them to imagine life without him”.“The Devil’s Yard” is justified, as all symbolic and figurative novels must be, by the extent to which it touches the emotions. It is extremely moving. Fear, horror, despair, amusement at times – all these indicate that the threat of the meaning has been recognized.

The Long Ships


Frans G. Bengtsson - 1954
    The story portrays the political situation of Europe in the later Viking Age, Andalusia under Al-Mansur Ibn Abi Aamir, Denmark under Harold Bluetooth, followed by the struggle between Eric the Victorious & Sweyn Forkbeard of Denmark, Ireland under Brian Boru, England under Ethelred the Unready, the Battle of Maldon, all before the backdrop of the gradual Christianisation of Scandinavia, contrasting the pragmatic Norse pagan outlook with Islam & Christianity.

The Ring Sets Out


J.R.R. Tolkien - 1954
    Sauron, the Dark Lord, has gathered to him all the Rings of Power; the means by which he intends to rule Middle-earth. All he lacks in his plans for dominion is the One Ring -- the ring that rules them all -- which has fallen into the hands of the hobbit, Bilbo Baggins. In a sleepy village in the Shire, young Frodo Baggins finds himself faced with an immense task, as the Ring is entrusted to his care. He must leave his home and make a perilous journey across the realms of Middle-earth to the Crack of Doom, deep inside the territories of the Dark Lord. There he must destroy the Ring forever and foil the Dark Lord in his evil purpose. Discover the incredible epic journey of Frodo in a celebratory seven-volume boxed set of fantasy classic, The Lord of the Rings.

The Mandarins


Simone de Beauvoir - 1954
    Drawing on those who surrounded her -- Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, Arthur Koestler -- and her passionate love affair with Nelson Algren, Beauvoir dissects the emotional and philosophical currents of her time. At once an engrossing drama and an intriguing political tale, The Mandarins is the emotional odyssey of a woman torn between her inner desire and her public life.The Mandarins won France's highest literary prize, the Prix Goncourt.

The Dollmaker


Harriette Simpson Arnow - 1954
    Uprooted from her backwoods home, she and her family are thrust into the confusion and chaos of wartime Detroit. And in a pitiless world of unendurable poverty, Gertie will battle fiercely and relentlessly to protect those things she holds most dear -- her children, her heritage . . . and her triumphant ability to create beauty in the suffocating shadow of ugliness and despair.

The Spanish Ballad (Raquel, the Jewess of Toledo)


Lion Feuchtwanger - 1954
    The story focuses on the "Golden Age" of learning in medieval Spain, and also describes the affair of Alfonso VIII with the Jewish Raquel in Toledo.In Lion Feuchtwanger's prologue to the story, he mentions that the ballad was originally written by Alfonso X of Castile in regards of his Great-Grandfather (Alfonso VIII).

The Ring Goes East


J.R.R. Tolkien - 1954
    Bound in black covers with the distinctive Eye of Sauron design from the original jackets embossed in red and gold foil on each volume. Each book bears Tolkien's originally conceived title — The Ring Sets Out, The Ring Goes South, The Treason at Isengard, The Ring Goes East, The War of the Ring, The End of the Third Age — and has been specially typeset for this edition. With sales of over 50 million copies wordwide and acknowledged as the book of the century by book lovers all over the world, this commemorative edition is available for a strictly limited period and provides Tolkien lovers, fans, and collectors old and new with the perfect opportunity to own a piece of twentieth century literary history.Available as a boxed set only.

Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky


Fyodor Dostoevsky - 1954
    As in all Delphi Classics, the work is presented in a scholarly fashion, with all of the novels placed in chronological order, allowing readers to explore the author's gradual development in writing. The majority of texts are from Constance Garnett's celebrated translations, bringing the true spirit of Dostoyevsky's work to the English reader. Please note: we aim to provide the most comprehensive author collections available to Kindle readers. Sadly, it’s not always possible to guarantee an absolutely ‘complete’ works, due to copyright restrictions or the scarcity of minor works that have been translated into English. However, we do ensure our customers that every possible major text and a wealth of other material are included. We are dedicated to developing and enhancing our eBooks, which are available as free updates for customers who have already purchased them.CONTENTS:The NovelsPOOR FOLKTHE DOUBLENETOCHKA NEZVANOVAUNCLE’S DREAMTHE VILLAGE OF STEPANCHIKOVOTHE INSULTED AND HUMILIATEDTHE HOUSE OF THE DEADNOTES FROM UNDERGROUNDCRIME AND PUNISHMENTTHE GAMBLERTHE ETERNAL HUSBANDTHE IDIOTTHE POSSESSEDTHE RAW YOUTHTHE BROTHERS KARAMAZOVThe Short StoriesMR. PROHARTCHINTHE CHRISTMAS TREE AND THE WEDDINGTHE HEAVENLY CHRISTMAS TREETHE CROCODILEBOBOKA GENTLE SPIRITTHE DREAM OF A RIDICULOUS MANTHE PEASANT MAREYTHE LITTLE ORPHANA WEAK HEARTWHITE NIGHTSTHE MEEK GIRLPOLZUNKOVA LITTLE HEROTHE HONEST THIEFA NOVEL IN NINE LETTERSTHE LANDLADYAN UNPLEASANT PREDICAMENTANOTHER MAN'S WIFETHE GRAND INQUISITORThe Non-FictionDOSTOYEVSKY’S JOURNALTHE COMPLETE LETTERSThe CriticismON RUSSIAN NOVELISTS BY WILLIAM LYON PHELPSRUSSIAN ROMANCE BY EARL OF EVELYN BARING CROMERA SURVEY OF RUSSIAN LITERATURE BY ISABEL FLORENCE HAPGOODAN OUTLINE OF RUSSIAN LITERATURE BY MAURICE BARING

The Bad Seed


William March - 1954
    This paperback reissue includes a new P.S. section with author interviews, insights, features, suggested reading and more.What happens to ordinary families into whose midst a child serial killer is born? This is the question at the center of William March's classic thriller. After its initial publication in 1954, the book went on to become a million–copy bestseller, a wildly successful Broadway show, and a Warner Brothers film. The spine–tingling tale of little Rhoda Penmark had a tremendous impact on the thriller genre and generated a whole perdurable crop of creepy kids. Today, The Bad Seed remains a masterpiece of suspense that's as chilling, intelligent, and timely as ever before.

I'm Not Stiller


Max Frisch - 1954
    To prove he is who he claims to be, he confesses to three unsolved murders and recalls in great detail an adventuresome life in America and Mexico among cowboys and peasants, in back alleys and docks. He is consumed by "the morbid impulse to convince," but no one believes him. This is a harrowing account part Kafka, part Camus of the power of self-deception and the freedom that ultimately lies in self-acceptance. Simultaneously haunting and humorous, I'm Not Stiller has come to be recognized as "one of the major post-war works of fiction" and a masterpiece of German literature.

Beyond the Pawpaw Trees: The Story of Anna Lavinia


Palmer Brown - 1954
    It is a place to which you will want to return again and again, to read of Anna Lavinia’s adventures and to marvel over author and illustrator Palmer Brown’s intricate, sugar-spun drawings.   It all began on a lavender blue day. The kind of day, Anna Lavinia knows, when anything can happen. It was on such a day that Anna Lavinia’s father saw a double rainbow, and went chasing after it. And it is on such a day that she and her cat Strawberry set off on their journey beyond the walled garden where the Pawpaw trees grow, to a place where the buttercups bloom pink and the laws of gravity don’t always apply. Here she will test her mother’s advice, “Never believe what you see,” against her father’s wise words, “Believe only what you see.” And just maybe she will get to finally use her father’s mysterious silver key.

A Hell of a Woman


Jim Thompson - 1954
    Working door-to-door one day, trying to eke money out of folk with even less of it than he has, Dolly crosses paths with a beautiful young woman named Mona Farrell. Mona's being forced by her aunt to do things she doesn't like, with men she doesn't know -- she wants out, any way she can get it. And to a man who wants nothing of what he has, Mona sure looks like something he actually does. Soon Dolly and Mona find themselves involved in a scheme of robbery, murder and mayhem that makes Dolly's blood run cold. As Dolly's plans begin to unravel, his mind soon follows. In A Hell of a Woman, Jim Thompson offers another arresting portrait of a deviant mind, in an ambitious crime novel that ranks among his best work.

My Brother's Keeper


Marcia Davenport - 1954
    Based on the true story of the Collyer brothers.Inspired by the 1947 New York Times articles detailing items taken from the Collyer's brownstone after their deaths, Davenport constructs a tale of the Holt brothers, one a failing concert pianist and the other a naval architect, and the events that prompted them to become recluses in later life.

Contempt


Alberto Moravia - 1954
    All the qualities for which Alberto Moravia is justly famous ~~ his cool clarity of expression, his exacting attention to psychological complexity and social pretension, his still-striking openness about sex—are evident in this story of a failing marriage. Contempt (which was to inspire Jean-Luc Godard’s no-less-celebrated film) is an unflinching examination of desperation and self-deception in the emotional vacuum of modern consumer society.

Area of Suspicion


John D. MacDonald - 1954
    But now Ken is dead -- murdered by a thief, the police say -- and Gevan's presence is desperately needed to keep their company, Dean Products, from falling apart.Gevan soon sees there's more going on at Dean Products than a classic power struggle between old guard and new blood. But everywhere he turns, he finds only questions and confusion. He must struggle to keep his hands off the grieving widow, the beautiful seductress Niki, who is all too eager to pick up where they left off. He must grapple with the motives of Stanley Mottling, the new production chief. He must come to terms with the presence of a Colonel from the Pentagon, who supervises the company's new defense contracts.But Gevan Dean doesn't suspect the truth behind Ken's murder or what is really going on at Dean Products -- until the stakes get too high to ignore and the truth explodes violently in his face . . . .

John Thomas and Lady Jane: The Second Version of Lady Chatterley's Lover


D.H. Lawrence - 1954
    It is in many ways quite different from the first and last: both in the personalities of Parkin, the gamekeeper (later called Mellors) and Connie Chatterley, and in the development of the love story.

Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead


Barbara Comyns - 1954
    It begins mid-flood, ducks swimming in the drawing-room windows, “quacking their approval” as they sail around the room. “What about my rose beds?” demands Grandmother Willoweed. Her son shouts down her ear-trumpet that the garden is submerged, dead animals everywhere, she will be lucky to get a bunch. Then the miller drowns himself . . . then the butcher slits his throat . . . and a series of gruesome deaths plagues the villagers. The newspaper asks, “Who will be smitten by this fatal madness next?” Through it all, Comyns’ unique voice weaves a narrative as wonderful as it is horrible, as beautiful as it is cruel. Originally published in England in 1954, this “overlooked small masterpiece” is a twisted, tragicomic gem.

Tiger by the Tail


James Hadley Chase - 1954
    The sudden temptation to kick over the traces while his wife is away lands Holland up to his ears in a vortex of political intrigue and murder. Set against a background of gangster politicians, blackmailers, gunmen and hard-boiled characters, the action of this explosive thriller takes place over a period of only thirty hours!One night of midsummer madness... and Ken Holland, a respectable, married bank official, jeopardises his happiness and his future. The sudden temptation to kick over the traces while his wife is away lands Holland up to his ears in a vortex of political intrigue and murder. Set against a background of gangster politicians, blackmailers, gunmen and hard-boiled characters, the action of this explosive thriller takes place over a period of only thirty hours.But what hours they are !

फंस जाओ मेरे लिए (Tiger by the tail)


James Hadley Chase - 1954
    Many of his novels have been depicted as full fledged films. His novels are now included in the Diamond Publications. A series of such novels bubbling with sex, romance, suspense and sensation which make them almost 'unputdownable' once you start reading them! Chase's characters are generally globetrotten who mentally take along the readers with them in their movements in various continents! Suspense built in them is so overpowering that unless you learn the cause of the mystery you feel restless. Now the latest such Chase novel: 'Fans Jao Mere Liye' is in your hands to enjoy a thrilling reading.

The Wicked Pavilion


Dawn Powell - 1954
    Dennis Orphen, the writer from Dawn Powell’s Turn, Magic Wheel, makes an appearance here, as does Andy Callingham, Powell’s thinly disguised Ernest Hemingway. The climax of this mercilessly funny novel comes with a party which, remarked Gore Vidal, “resembles Proust’s last roundup,” and where one of the partygoers observes, “There are some people here who have been dead twenty years.”"For decades Dawn Powell was always just on the verge of ceasing to be a cult and becoming a major religion." -- Gore Vidal

Many Lives


Kukrit Pramoj - 1954
    A passenger boat from Ban Phaen to Bangkok, packed with people, pressed on through the current amidst the rising clamor of the rain and storm. . . ." The boat capsizes in the torrent, and washed up on the shore the next morning are the sodden bodies of the many passengers who lost their lives. Thus begins M. R. Kukrit Pramoj's classic novel set in the Thailand of the early 1950s and first published in 1954. The life of each passenger who perished is retraced from birth, revealing a complex web of experiences and emotions. M. R. Kukrit Pramoj (1911D1995) wasa writer of renown, politician, prime minister, intellectual, journalist, and classical dancer. He wrote more than 20 books, including the historical novel Four Reigns.

The Cuckoo in Spring


Elizabeth Cadell - 1954
    She had no doubts about that, and being engaged to Julian was delightful. Yet, somehow, as a husband, she felt he might prove less perfect—until she had taught him the little lesson he needed. Julian learnt it in Scotland, Yorkshire, Devon, London. His mystified family looked on.When Julian Hurst went into partnership in an art business instead of in the family firm of solicitors, his family was surprised that he made such a success of it. They would have been still more surprised if they had known what his business trip to Yorkshire to view some Clauval paintings was to lead to.His engagement to the delightful but mysterious Alexandra Bell, and her subsequent disappearance which led him such a dance through Scotland, Yorkshire, Devon, and London, provoked behavior which seemed odd, to say the least of it. *Note, these titles contain the original, unabridged, text exactly as the author first wrote it. Many later editions of Elizabeth Cadell's works were heavily abridged or changed. We hope you enjoy the re-issue of these timeless books. Watch for more to come in the near future!Cover Design by Nikita Garets

Messiah


Gore Vidal - 1954
    When a mortician appears on television to declare that death is infinitely preferable to life, he sparks a religious movement that quickly leaves Christianity and most of Islam in the dust.Gore Vidal’s deft and daring blend of satire and prophecy, first published in 1954, eerily anticipates the excesses of Jim Jones, David Koresh, and the Heaven’s Gate suicide cult.

He Who Rides a Tiger


Bhabani Bhattacharya - 1954
    

The World In The Evening


Christopher Isherwood - 1954
    After his second marriage suddenly ends, Stephen finds himself living with a relative in a small Pennsylvania Quaker town, haunted by memories of his prewar affair with a younger man during a visit to the Canary Islands. The world traveler comes to a gradual understanding of himself and of his newly adopted homeland. When first published in 1953, The World in the Evening was notable for its clear-eyed depiction of European and American mores, sexuality, and religion. Today, readers herald Christopher Isherwood’s frank portrayal of bisexuality and his early appreciation of low and high camp

The Blackboard Jungle


Evan Hunter - 1954
    A timeless rendering of youth culture set against the backdrop of 1950s New York City, "The Blackboard Jungle" speaks powerfully to the alarming epidemic of violence and security issues in today's schools.

The Magicians


J.B. Priestley - 1954
    In both capacities it shows its author's breadth of knowledge and interests, his humanity and insight. It is J. B. Priestley, mocking but wise, at his best.

The Tortoise and the Hare


Elizabeth Jenkins - 1954
    He has everything life could offer -- a gracious riverside house in Berkshire, a beautiful young wife, Imogen, who is devoted to him, and their 11-year-old son, a replica of his father.Their nearest neighbor is Blanche Silcox, a plain, tweed-wearing woman of 50 who rides, shoots, fishes, and drives a Rolls Royce -- in every way the opposite of the domestic, loving Imogen. Their world is conventional country life at its most idyllic: how can its gentle surfaces be disturbed?

Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man: The Early Years


Thomas Mann - 1954
    Krull is a man unhampered by moral precepts that govern the conduct of ordinary mortals, and this natural lack of scruple, coupled with his formidable mental and physical endowments, enables him to develop the arts of subterfuge and deception with astonishing success and to rise swiftly from poverty to affluence. Following Krull along the shady paths his nature has destined him to take, the reader moves through a world peopled by bizarre characters from the lowest to the highest reaches of European society. Chameleon-like, Krull readily adapts himself to the situation of the moment, and so adept in the practices of chicanery does he become that his victims almost seem to count themselves privileged. And so it is too with the women who encounter the irresistible Krull, for where Krull is, the normal laws of human behavior are in suspense.Originally the character of Felix Krull appeared in a short story Mann wrote in 1911. The story wasn't published until 1936, in the book Stories of Three Decades along with 23 other stories written from 1896 to 1929, the year in which he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Much later, he expanded the original story into a novel, managing to finish and publish Part 1, "The Early Years," of the Confessions of Felix Krull to great public success. Due to Mann's death in 1955 the saga of the morally flexible and irresistible con-man remains unfinished.

My Dearest Love


Emilie Loring - 1954
    The Bradford family were leaders of metropolitan society, a rich, powerful clan.Hardly had Beth taken her place in New York's busy social world than Chris told her that someone was trying to steal the million-dollar formula her father had given him. And then Beth discovered that more than the Gilbert formula was at stake. A human life was involved!

Of Whales and Men


Robert Blackwood Robertson - 1954
    Description of an eight month's whaling expedition to Antarctica on board a Norweigan whaler, written by the attending head physician of the ship.

The Dream of Heroes


Adolfo Bioy Casares - 1954
    The problem is that Gauna can only dimly remember what happened: he was out on the town with his raucous, reckless friends when a masked woman appeared. Several hours later, gasping and horrified, Gauna awoke at the edge of a lake. Three years later, he tries to solve the mystery the only way he knows: by re-creating the same situation and reliving it- despite the warnings of his secret protector, the Sorcerer.In The Dreams of Heroes, Adolfo Bioy Casares assembles magicians, prophetic and brave women, shamefully self-conscious men and Buenos Aires under the rubric of a sinister and mocking fate, and thrusts them forward into the dizzying realm of memory, doom and cyclical time. Written in 1954 and never before published in America, The Dream of Heroes stands as a predecessor of and model for a whole school of European and American novels that followed but never quite matched it.

High Water


Richard Pike Bissell - 1954
    

Stories of Five Decades


Hermann Hesse - 1954
    Francis of Assisi (1919)Inside and Outside (1920)Tragic (1923)Dream Journeys (1927)Harry, the Steppenwolf (1928)An Evening with Dr. Faust (1929)Edmund (1934)The Interrupted Class (1948)

The Flint Anchor


Sylvia Townsend Warner - 1954
    Though stern and aloof with his indolent, tippling wife and watchful children, he is undermined by helpless love for his pretty, cold-hearted daughter Mary. THE FLINT ANCHOR subverts the rules of the historical novel and shows how family history is made- which stories can be trusted, whose voices hold influence and whose are forgotten. Wit, charm and intelligence illuminate several decades of family life and the events of small town society in this tragi-comedy of manners, the last of the author's seven novels.

The Channel Shore


Charles Bruce - 1954
    

Sleep with the Devil


Day Keene - 1954
    He had the morals of a tomcat and the instincts of a rattlesnake. But Ferron was sitting pretty. In New York City he had Lydia —a gorgeous redhead who loved him to distraction. Upstate he had Amy—lovely, virginal and wealthy; she could hardly wait till they were married. In the trunk of his battered car he had one hundred thousand dollars.—And he had literally gotten away with murder! Ferron was very lucky. Then his world started to come apart at the seams with shattering suddenness ...

Flowers of Grass


Takehiko Fukunaga - 1954
    After the stubborn Shiomi insists on undergoing a dangerous surgical procedure and dies in the process, two notebooks turn up in his bed-sheets. Flowers of Grass unfolds as the narrator reads them, asking himself if Shiomi’s death was a sort of suicide, and learning the details of his late friend’s two great loves: for a brother and sister, both of whom reject him.Fukunaga himself spent seven years recuperating from tuberculosis following World War II, and drew on his own experiences to create a fully realized portrait of a young man of fastidious intelligence and great sorrow, and how it is possible, seeing reality from the side of death and despair, to still choose life.

Sin Pit


Paul S. Meskil - 1954
    and hungry and cheap and demanding. But it didn't matter. She was all those things, and I knew it, but she was much more, too. She was fire and ice and fury, and when she came up to me—that first time—her mouth making little squirming noises, I knew she was all I ever wanted. I was a cop. An honest one. Tough, but honest. And she was the wife of another man. Maybe she was a killer. Maybe she was a--a kind of person even tough cops don't talk about except in dirty whispers. But I didn't care. I had to have her.

Mr. Maugham Himself


W. Somerset Maugham - 1954
    Harrington's WashingThe Book BagEl GrecoThe Summing UpFrom A Writer's Notebook