Central Skagit Library District

"Nostromo, A Tale of the Seaboard" is set in the South American country of Costaguana, and more specifically in that country's Occidental Province and its port city of Sulaco. Though Costaguana is a fictional nation, its geography as described in the book resembles real-life Colombia. Costaguana has a long history of tyranny, revolution and warfare, but has recently experienced a period of stability under the dictator Ribiera. Charles Gould is a native...

A cowboy is unable to prevent three wandering travellers from being unjustly lynched for murder.

An apparent English dandy rescues noble Frenchmen from the guillotine under the name of the Scarlet Pimpernel.

Introduction by China Miéville
Long acknowledged as a master of nightmarish visions, H. P. Lovecraft established the genuineness and dignity of his own pioneering fiction in 1931 with his quintessential work of supernatural horror, At the Mountains of Madness. The deliberately told and increasingly chilling recollection of an Antarctic expedition’s uncanny discoveries–and their encounter with untold menace in the ruins of a...

This unique collection of Twain’s essential short stories and semiautobiographical narratives is a testament to the author’s vast imagination. Featuring popular tales such as “Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog” and “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg,” as well as some delightful excerpts from The Diaries of Adam and Eve, this compilation also includes darker works written in the author’s twilight years....

The final, unfinished novel of Charles Dickens that is in many ways his most intriguing—a gripping, haunting masterpiece that foreshadows the detective stories of Conan Doyle and the nightmarish novels of Kafka.

The Mystery of Edwin Drood is a highly atmospheric tale of murder. Central to the plot is John Jasper: in public he is a man of integrity and benevolence; in private he is an opium addict....

First published in 1915, "Travels in Alaska" is a collection of essays and recollections by John Muir of his time spent in Alaska. Muir is often referred to as the "Father of the National Parks" and "John of the Mountains" and is most famous for his tireless work to preserve, study, and appreciate the natural world. Muir devoted many years of his life to the protection of the forests and mountains of the Western United States and advocated for making...

The second volume in the Complete Novels of Jane Austen, this volume contains the classics Emma, Northanger Abbey, and Persuasion.
EMMA
“Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her.” So begins Jane Austen’s...