The Essential Collection series
People sometimes complain about the price of e-books. Oh sure, you can get e-books for free, but it can be a lot of work to find the ones you want and download them one at a time…and how do you know which ones are good?
Well, another alternative is to get low-priced collections of classic works. You get a bunch of books with 1-click, and they are works which have stood the test of time.
One such series is the “Essential Collection” books in the Kindle store. It’s unclear to me if they are actually published by Amazon…they don’t list any other publisher, but that happens quite often with publishers using Kindle Direct Publishing.
I’m going to list a few of these. I’ve seen that at least some of them are illustrated, and I downloaded a sample of one that had an Active Table of Contents (meaning that you can click on an entry to jump there). I did see reviews that said others didn’t have that, though.
I’m going to give you an overall search first that finds them…although it does find other things as well:
The Essential Ernest Thompson Seton Collection
Animal Heroes
The Arctic Prairies
The Biography of a Grizzly
Johnny Bear
Lobo, Rag and Vixen
Rolf In The Woods
Two Little Savages
Wild Animals at Home
Wild Animals I Have Known
Woodland Tales
Seton is known for writing fiction about animals, and that’s the focus of this collection. Seton was also a naturalist and an early shaper of the Boy Scouts.
The Essential H. Rider Haggard Collection (50 books)
Allan and the Holy Flower
Allan Quatermain
Allan’s Wife
The Ancient Allan
Ayesha
Beatrice
Benita, An African Romance
Black Heart and White Heart
The Brethren
Cetywayo and his White Neighbours
Child of Storm
Cleopatra
Colonel Quaritch, V.C.
Dawn
Doctor Therne
Elissa
Eric Brighteyes
Fair Margaret
Finished
The Ghost Kings
The Ivory Child
Jess
King Solomon’s Mines
The Lady Of Blossholme
Love Eternal
Lysbeth
The Mahatma and the Hare
Maiwa’s Revenge
Marie, An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain
Montezuma’s Daughter
Moon of Israel
Morning Star
Mr. Meeson’s Will
Nada the Lily
Pearl-Maiden
The People Of The Mist
Queen Sheba’s Ring
Red Eve
Regeneration
She
She and Allan
Smith and the Pharaohs, and Other Tales
Stella Fregelius
Swallow
The Virgin of the Sun
The Wanderer’s Necklace
When the World Shook
The Wizard
The World’s Desire
The Yellow God
Allan Quartermain…and She Who Must By Obeyed. We would never have had Indiana Jones without Allan Quartermain.
The Essential Moliere Collection (21 works)
Amphitryon
The Blunderer
The Bores
The Countess of Escarbagnas
Don Garcia of Navarre
The Flying Doctor
The Imaginary Invalid
The Impostures of Scapin
The Jealousy of le Barbouillé
The Learned Women
The Love-Tiff
The Magnificent Lovers
The Middle Class Gentleman
The Miser
Monsieur de Pourceaugnac
The Pretentious Young Ladies
Psyche
The School for Husbands
Sganarelle
The Shopkeeper Turned Gentleman
Tartuffe
You may not be used to reading scripts, but you may want to make an exception for Moliere. The writing was scandalous at the time…satirical, especially of the upper class and the establishment (including the church).
The Essential Elinor Glyn Collection
Beyond The Rocks
The Damsel and the Sage
Elizabeth Visits America
Halcyone
His Hour
Man and Maid
The Man and the Moment
The Point of View
The Price of Things
The Reason Why
Red Hair
The Reflections of Ambrosine
Three Things
Three Weeks
The Visits of Elizabeth
You’ve probably heard of someone referred to as an “It girl”, but not of Elinor Glyn. There was a time when Glyn was a huge cultural phenomenon, writing about sexual attraction…but not just sexual, what can be called “personal magnetism”. There was a time when you could reference Glyn to refer to frankly thinking about…sex appeal isn’t quite right. Unfortunately, the book It isn’t included, but it may still be under copyright protection.
The Essential Charlotte M. Yonge Collection (27 books)
Abbeychurch
The Armourer’s Prentices
Beechcroft at Rockstone
A Book of Golden Deeds
The Caged Lion
The Carbonels
Chantry House
The Chaplet of Pearls
The Chosen People
Clever Woman of the Family
Countess Kate
The Dove in the Eagle’s Nest
Friarswood Post Office
Grisly Grisell
Heartsease
The Heir of Redclyffe
Henrietta’s Wish
The Herd Boy and His Hermit
Lady Hester
The Lances of Lynwood
Modern Broods
A Modern Telemachus
More Bywords
The Pigeon Pie
The Prince and the Page
Scenes and Characters
Two Penniless Princesses
Another cultural phenomenon of the past, Yonge had over 150 books published. In this case, what is probably the best known one is included: The Heir of Redclyffe.
The Essential Howard R. Garis Collection (17 books)
Buddy And Brighteyes Pigg
Bully and Bawly No-Tail
Curly and Floppy Twistytail
The Curlytops and Their Pets
The Curlytops and Their Playmates
The Curlytops at Uncle Frank’s Ranch
The Curlytops on Star Island
Daddy Takes Us to the Garden
Dick Hamilton’s Airship
Larry Dexter’s Great Search
Lulu, Alice and Jimmie Wibblewobble
Sammie and Susie Littletail
Umboo, the Elephant
Uncle Wiggily and Old Mother Hubbard
Uncle Wiggily in the Woods
Uncle Wiggily’s Adventures
Uncle Wiggily’s Travels
Did you have the Uncle Wiggily board game? That comes from Garis’ work. While this is only a tiny bit of what Garis wrote, its good to see a collection of kids’ stories. There’s probably a better chance that you’ve read something under one of Garis’ pseudonyms…Tom Swift written as Victor Appleton or some of the Bobbsey Twins books, written as Laura Lee Hope.
The Essential Henry James Collection (40 works)
The Turn of the Screw
The Altar of the Dead
The Ambassadors
The American
The Aspern Papers
The Author of Beltraffio
The Awkward Age
The Beast in the Jungle
The Beldonald Holbein
A Bundle of Letters
The Chaperon
Confidence
The Coxon Fund
Daisy Miller
The Death of the Lion
The Diary of a Man of Fifty
Embarrassments
Eugene Pickering
The Europeans
The Figure in the Carpet
The Finer Grain
Four Meetings
Georgina’s Reasons
Glasses
The Golden Bowl
Greville Fane
An International Episode
In the Cage
Italian Hours
A Little Tour In France
A London Life and Others
The Outcry
The Portrait of a Lady, Vol. I
The Portrait of a Lady, Vol. II
The Reverberator
Roderick Hudson
A Small Boy and Others
The Tragic Muse
Washington Square
What Maisie Knew
It’s no exaggeration to say that James redefined literature. Not only in James’ own works (including the classic horror novel The Turn of the Screw and the very different Daisy Miller), but in thinking and writing about…writing. By the way, as with many of these books, if you get the sample, you’ll get at least one full book…and in this case, the first book is The Turn of the Screw).
The Essential Algernon Blackwood Collection
The Centaur
The Damned
The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories
The Extra Day
Four Weird Tales
The Garden of Survival
The Human Chord
The Man Whom the Trees Loved
A Prisoner in Fairyland
Three John Silence Stories
Three More John Silence Stories
The Wendigo
The Willows
Blackwood is known for short ghost stories, but I recommend A Prisoner in Fairyland, personally.
The Essential Mary Roberts Rinehart Collection (21 books)
The After House
The Amazing Interlude
Bab: A Sub-Deb
The Bat
The Breaking Point
The Case of Jennie Brice
The Circular Staircase
The Confession
Dangerous Days
K
Kings, Queens And Pawns
Long Live the King
Love Stories
The Man in Lower Ten
More Tish
A Poor Wise Man
Sight Unseen
The Street of Seven Stars
Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions
When a Man Marries
Where There’s A Will
The Bat became one of the longest running Broadway plays, and Rinehart is credited with creating a whole new school of mysteries. Don’t read her for this reason, but The Bat Whispers was a cited inspiration for Batman…
The Essential Edward Bulwer Lytton Collection (32 books) [Illustrated]
Alice, or The Mysteries
Athens: Its Rise and Fall
Calderon The Courtier
The Caxtons
The Coming Race
Devereux
The Disowned
Ernest Maltravers
Eugene Aram
Falkland
The Fallen Star
Godolphin
Harold, The Last Of The Saxon Kings
Haunted and the Haunters
Kenelm Chillingly
The Lady of Lyons
The Last Days of Pompeii
The Last Of The Barons
Leila
Lucretia
My Novel
Night and Morning
The Parisians
Paul Clifford
Pausanias, the Spartan
Pelham
The Pilgrims Of The Rhine
Rienzi
A Strange Story
What Will He Do With It
Zanoni
Zicci
“It was a dark and stormy night…” Yes, this is that Bulwer-Lytton, perhaps best known for a bad writing contest inspired by that line (which was also used by Charlie Brown’s dog, Snoopy). I think that’s a bit of a bad rap, although the writing can certainly be melodramatic. I’m glad I read The Coming Race, though, which is science fiction with a sort of snarky commentary on society.
I think this quotation from that book is particularly appropriate to our world today:
“”Our public libraries contain all the books of the past which time has preserved; those books, for the reasons above stated, are infinitely better than any can write nowadays, and they are open to all to read without cost. We are not such fools as to pay for reading inferior books, when we can read superior books for nothing.”"
In this post, I’ve given you some books you can get for free…but which you might find worth the money.
This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog.
