Books published by Aziloth Books

Born in India, Rudyard Kipling is renowned for his varied exciting tales of the sub-continent. Less well-known is the Nobel laureate's attachment to the United States and especially to Vermont, where he lived (in Brattleboro) for over four years. Here he made the acquaintance of Dr. James Conland who had fished with the Grand Banks fleet as a youth. Dr. Conland's nautical reminiscences sparked Kipling's creative mind and, "rejoicing to escape from the dread respectability of our little town" the two men ran off to "the shore front, and to the old T-wharf of Boston Harbour, and to queer meals in sailors' eating-houses… we boarded every craft that looked as if she might be useful, and we delighted ourselves to the limit of delight."Captains Courageous is the fruit of Kipling's Boston escapade. It charts the tale of Harvey Cheyne, a rich, spoilt 15 year-old, who falls from an ocean-going liner, is rescued by the fishing boat We're Here - and is forced to spend the next three months with the crew, earning his living as a deck-hand among the huge waves and treacherous currents of the Grand Banks. The experience is the making of Harvey, transforming the pampered, boastful boy into a self-reliant young man who knows the value - and the responsibilities - of friendship and honest work. A unique book of American adventure from the archetypal Indian writer.

For Lebanese-American writer and artist, Khalil Gibran, Jesus the Son of Man was the most challenging and cherished of all his works. "My art can find no better resting place than the personality of Jesus. …He shall always be the supreme figure of all ages and in Him we shall always find mystery, passion, love, imagination, tragedy, beauty, romance and truth."It was always Gibran's ambition to re-tell the story of Jesus in an unconventional way, to paint a more rounded picture of a spiritual leader he deeply revered and this he did through the eyes of Jesus' contemporaries. He selects some familiar biblical characters, such as Mary Magdalene, Pontius Pilate and John the Baptist and adds a number of fictional ones, among them a cobbler, an astronomer and a philosopher. The seventy-seven voices, presented as short chapters, explore facets of Jesus, Gibran-style, and from these testaments we get a glimpse of how Christ might have been perceived at the time by those around Him.Jesus the Son of Man is rated by many critics as Gibran's most inspirational work, more so even than The Prophet.

H G Wells is one of the 'fathers' of Science Fiction. His novel 'The First Men in the Moon' chronicles humanity's first faltering steps to the stars. The story uses a human-meets-alien adventure to juxtapose two characters whose temperaments personify the extremes of scientific endeavour - the disinterested researcher and the seeker after fame and fortune. Wells' description of spaceflight, including weightlessness, low-gravity gymnastics on the moon and re-entry angles for returning spacecraft, have all proved amazingly prescient. His books have retained their popularity with the public for more than a century.

'Orlando' is a historical fantasy in which the eponymous hero remains alive for over three centuries, but ages physically just 36 years. Over this huge span of time, Orlando has many strange adventures, chief among them being his sex-change from a man to a woman. Woolf uses this bizarre and intriguing notion to examine many aspects of human existence: the difference between fact and imagination; the utility of poetry and art; how humans conform to whatever civilization of group they find themselves in; and (a central theme of the book) the gender roles which society imposes so unjustly upon men and women, when - in Woolf's view - the two sexes have in reality very similar dreams and aspirations.

William Morris is more widely known for his beautifully designed 'Arts and Crafts' wallpapers, but his first love was ancient Nordic Poetry, and especially the 13th century Icelandic 'Volsunga Saga'. Morris was obsessed with this tale from his youth, and over many years penned a 10,000 line epic poem that, on publication, was accorded high praise by such literary luminaries as George Bernard Shaw and T. E. Lawrence. The saga tells the History of the Volsungs, a tale strewn with epic battles, supernatural visitations, dragon-guarded treasures, enchanted swords forged from ancient weapons, magical rings, beautiful maidens, undying loves and implacable hatreds. The motifs and themes in the 'Volsunga Saga' have inspired a host of artistic works, among them Richard Wagner's 'Der Ring des Nibelungen' and J. R. Tolkien's 'Lord of the Rings'. William Morris' full poem proved taxing for most readers, and a shorter version - with some of the less compelling episodes précised by W Turner and H Scott - was published in 1910 to great acclaim. It is here presented in a new edition, complete with original glossary, additional imagery and a précis of the rarely-noted Book IV.