Michael Ward

Peek into the mesmerizing imagination of C.S. Lewis with the world's leading authority on the beloved author.

With more than 100 million copies printed in forty-seven languages, The Chronicles of Narnia is one of the bestselling book series ever. Its enduring success is no accident, but rather the result of C.S. Lewis's extraordinary imaginative skill.

Few understand the full cosmological and theological depths of Lewis's world. In Christology,

...

The shunned house of the title has long been an object of fascination for the narrator, a fascination he shares with his uncle, Dr. Elihu Whipple. The narrator summarises the strange lore the good doctor has collected about the house, lore filled with unexplained sicknesses and deaths, and follows this with his personal account of what happened when he and his uncle ventured inside the old house. (Goodreads)

In this supremely creepy story from horror master H.P. Lovecraft, an unspeakable horror is unleashed upon the quaint burg of Dunwich, Massachusetts in the form of a young boy named Wilbur Whateley, the son of a disfigured albino woman and a mysterious—and possibly demonic—father. Wilbur's birth ushers in a series of strange events in the town that only intensify as he grows older. Will the townspeople be able to contain this curse before

...

Arthur Conan Doyle's The Sign of Four is the second novel in the Sherlock Holmes series, following the enormously successful novel A Study In Scarlet. With the mysterious disappearance of a British Indian army officer, a one-legged hooligan, a stolen treasure, and a nefarious pact between four con-men, this novel of revenge and love is an exquisite classic of crime fiction. In the infamous opening of the novel, Dr. Watson finds Sherlock Holmes in...

HarperCollins is proud to present its range of best-loved, essential classics. 'From that hour we had no further occasion for the exercise of reason, or judgment, or skill, or contrivance. We were henceforth to be hurled along, the playthings of the fierce elements of the deep.' In Verne's science-fiction classic, Professor Lidenbrock chances upon an ancient manuscript and pledges to solve the mysterious coded message that lies within it. Eventually...

Sometimes the greatest horrors lurk in the most mundane places This collection features some of M. R. James's greatest tales of the supernatural world crossing over into our own. In "Number 13," an inn that previously belonged to an alchemist changes dimensions in the night. "The Mezzotint" features a painting of a house reenacting a gruesome scene from the house's history. In "The Treasure of Abbot Thomas," an antiquary who has discovered the location...

Kidnapped was published in 1886 amid one of the most productive periods of Robert Louis Stevenson's career. Although it was immediately met with popular success and critical acclaim, the novel was derided for decades as a story for children before being recognized as a major work of English literature. Set in the aftermath of the Jacobite uprising of 1745, and full of a rich blend of English and Scots, Kidnapped is a powerful work with strong Scottish...

"Around the World in Eighty Days is a classic adventure novel by the French writer Jules Verne, published in 1873. In the story, Phileas Fogg of London and his newly employed French valet Passepartout attempt to circumnavigate the world in 80 days on a £20,000 wager (roughly £1.6 million today) set by his friends at the Reform Club. It is one of Verne's most acclaimed works. The story starts in London on Tuesday, October 1, 1872. Fogg is a rich...

Twelve stories about animals, insects, and other subjects include "How the Whale Got His Throat," "The Elephant's Child," "How the Alphabet Was Made," and "The Butterfly that Stamped."