John Kendrick Bangs: 130 books

What would happen if master detective Sherlock Holmes sired a son with the daughter of one of his archenemies? That's the supposition at the center of R. Holmes & Co., which pits criminal mastermind Raffles against Holmes and goes on to tell the story of how Holmes fell for Raffles' daughter Marjorie, with whom he later had a child, the Raffles Holmes of the book's title.

It is a strange fact, for which I do not expect ever satisfactorily to account, and which will receive little credence even among those who know that I am not given to romancing— it is a strange fact, I say, that the substance of the following pages has evolved itself during a period of six months,...

It was a blistering night in August. All day long the mercury in the thermometer had been flirting with the figures at the top of the tube, and the promised shower at night which a mendacious Weather Bureau had been prophesying as a slight mitigation of our sufferings was conspicuous wholly by its absence....

Having recently passed into what my great-grandson Shem calls my Anecdotage, it has occurred to me that perhaps some of the recollections of a more or less extended existence upon this globular[1] mass of dust and water that we are pleased to call the earth, may prove of interest to posterity, and...

The book begins with Charon, ferryman of the Styx startled--and annoyed--by the arrival of a house boat on his mystical river. At first afraid that the boat will put him out of business, he later finds out that he is to be appointed the boat's janitor. What follows are eleven stories set on the house...

Humorous and horrifying collection of short stories.

Excerpt: ““Mollie and the Unwiseman Abroad” …The second, well he was a rubber-doll, who talked through a whistling hat. His speech ran over with folderol, but his jokes they were never at. He squeaked and creaked with his heart care-free, such things as this tale will tell, but whether asleep or at work was he The little maid loved him well….”

"Jimmieboy" has added two years to his age since his adventures with the Tiddledywinks, and is consequently a much brighter boy than he was at that time. His adventures in the camp of the Tin Soldiers are most amusing, and the book promises to be a very general favorite with thelittle people.

"While travelling through the classic realms of Greece some years ago, sincerely desirous of discovering the lurking-place of a certain war which the newspapers of my own country were describing with some vividness, I chanced upon the base of the far-famed Mount Olympus..." By the American author and satirist, and the creator of modern Bangsian fantasy.

Excerpt:" Mollie had been romping in the hay all the afternoon. With her were Flaxilocks, the French doll, and young Whistlebinkie, the rubber boy, who had got his name from the fact that he had a whistle set in the top of his beaver hat. Flaxilocks and Whistlebinkie could stand a great deal...

An extravaganza that ranges all the way from dry Stocktonian humor to roaring farce. The central idea is that of the exchange of souls between bodies, and we may easily imagine the opportunities it offers a writer intent only upon the possible humorous complications. The "client" is an exiled spirit...

Charon, the Ferryman of renown, was cruising slowly along the Styx one pleasant Friday morning not long ago, and as he paddled idly on he chuckled mildly to himself as he thought of the monopoly in ferriage which in the course of years he had managed to build up.

The trouble with Harrowby Hall was that it was haunted. What was worse, the ghost did not merely appear at the bedside of the person who saw it, but insisted on staying there for one hour before it would disappear. There she would stand until everything about her was thoroughly drenched. It never...

Prolific novelist Stuart Harley has published many books, but wealth and popular acclaim have continued to elude him. In an attempt to help him secure his fortune, Harley's publisher recommends that he write stories with more appeal to female audiences. Harley agrees and begins to work, but he soon finds...