Books with author Cloud Cover Classics

The Prisoner of Zenda by Anthony Hope, 1894. Anthony Hope (1863 - 1933) was an English novelist and playwright. He was a prolific writer, especially of adventure novels but he is remembered predominantly for two books: The Prisoner of Zenda (1894) and its sequel Rupert of Hentzau (1898). These works, "minor classics" of English literature, are set in the contemporaneous fictional country of Ruritania and spawned the genre known as Ruritanian romance. Zenda has inspired many adaptations, most notably the 1937 Hollywood movie of the same name.

The Man Who Knew Too Much by G. K. Chesterton, 1922. Gilbert Keith Chesterton(1874 - 1936), was an English literary and social critic, historian, playwright, novelist, Catholic Christian theologian, debater and mystery writer. Chesterton is often referred to as the "prince of paradox". Time magazine has observed of his writing style: "Whenever possible Chesterton made his points with popular sayings, proverbs, allegories - first carefully turning them inside out."

The Odd Women by George Gissing, 1892. George Robert Gissing (1857 - 1903) was a prolific English novelist who also worked as a teacher and tutor throughout his life. He published his first novel, Workers in the Dawn, in 1880. His best known novels, which are published in modern editions, include The Nether World (1889), New Grub Street (1891), and The Odd Women (1893).

The Green Eyes of Bâst by Sax Rohmer, 1920. Arthur Henry Sarsfield Ward (1883 - 1959), better known as Sax Rohmer, was a prolific English novelist, best remembered for his series of novels featuring the master criminal Dr. Fu Manchu. Born in Birmingham to a working-class family, Arthur Ward initially pursued a career as a civil servant. He worked as a poet, songwriter and comedy sketch writer for music hall performers before creating the Sax Rohmer persona and pursuing a career writing weird fiction.

Starr, of the Desert by B.M. Bower, 1917. Bertha Muzzy Sinclair or Sinclair-Cowan (1871 - 1940) chose to publish under the name Bower. Bower moved with her family to a dryland homestead near Great Falls, Montana, in 1889. That fall, she began teaching school in nearby Milligan Valley. The school was a small, hastily converted log outbuilding, and she taught twelve pupils. Her experiences as a teacher informed the characters of schoolma'ams who appear frequently in her in the writings, notably in The North Wind Do Blow (1937), in which a young, eastern-born schoolma’am teaches her first term in central Montana. Bower moved to Big Sandy, Montana in 1898. Her experiences there gave her intimate knowledge of cowboy life on the open range.

The Man of the Forest by Zane Grey, 1920. Pearl Zane Grey (1872 - 1939) was an American dentist and author best known for his popular adventure novels and stories associated with the Western genre in literature and the arts; he idealized the American frontier. Riders of the Purple Sage (1912) was his best-selling book. In addition to the commercial success of his printed works, they had second lives and continuing influence when adapted as films and television productions. His novels and short stories have been adapted into 112 films, two television episodes, and a television series, Dick Powell’s Zane Grey Theater.

Crome Yellow by Aldous Huxley, 1921. Aldous Leonard Huxley (1894 - 1963) was an English writer, novelist, philosopher. The author of nearly fifty books, he was best known for his novels including Brave New World, set in a dystopian future; for non-fiction works, such as The Doors of Perception, which recalls experiences when taking a psychedelic drug; and a wide-ranging output of essays. Huxley was a humanist, pacifist, and satirist. He later became interested in spiritual subjects such as parapsychology and philosophical mysticism, in particular universalism. By the end of his life, Huxley was widely acknowledged as one of the pre-eminent intellectuals of his time. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in seven different years.

Before Adam by Jack London, 1907. Jack London (1876 - 1916) was an American author, journalist, and social activist. As a pioneer in the world of commercial magazine fiction, he was one of the first fiction writers to obtain worldwide celebrity and a large fortune from his fiction alone. He is best remembered as the author of White Fang and Call of the Wild, set in the Klondike Gold Rush, as well as the short stories "To Build a Fire", "An Odyssey of the North", and "Love of Life". He also wrote of the South Pacific in such stories as "The Pearls of Parlay" and "The Heathen", and The Sea Wolf, of the San Francisco Bay area. London was a passionate advocate of unionization, socialism, and the rights of workers.