In this classic and timeless novel, we encounter the rise and fall of the once mighty Vathek. The story chronicles the fall from power of the Caliph Vathek (a fictionalized version of the historical Al-Wathiq), who engages with his mother, Carathis, in a series of licentious and deplorable activities designed to gain him supernatural powers. Perverse and grotesque comedy alternates with scenes of magnificence and beauty in the story of the ruthless Caliph Vathek’s journey to damnation. In his attempts to reach the unreachable, Vathek, instead of attaining mighty powers, descends into a hell ruled by the demon Eblis. Unable to escape from the deeps of the earth, Vathek is doomed to wander endlessly.
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In this classic and timeless novel, adventurer Richard Hannay has just returned to London from Rhodesia in order to begin a new life, when a freelance spy called Franklin P. Scudder calls on him to ask for help. Scudder reveals to Hannay that he has uncovered a German plot to murder the Greek Premier and steal British plans for the outbreak of war. Scudder claims to be following a ring of German spies called the Black Stone. A few days later, Hannay returns to his flat to find Scudder murdered. If Hannay goes to the police, he will be arrested for Scudder’s murder. So Hannay decides to continue Scudder’s work and his adventure begins. He escapes from the German spies watching the house and makes his way to Scotland, pursued both by the spies and by the police. But what is the secret behind the mysterious Thirty-Nine Steps and will Hannay resolve the mystery before disaster strikes?
“Under the willows at the edge of the pool a young girl sat daydreaming, though the day was nearly done. All in the valley was wrapped in shadow, though the cliffs and turrets across the stream were resplendent in a radiance of slanting sunshine. Not a cloud tempered the fierce glare of the arching heavens or softened the sharp outline of neighboring peak or distant mountain chain . . . . There is something about a night alarm of fire at a military post that borders on the thrilling. In the days whereof we write the buildings were not the substantial creations of brick and stone to be seen to-day, and those of the scattered ‘camps’ and stations in that arid, sun-scorched land of Arizona were tinder boxes of the flimsiest and most inflammable kind.”