Books published by Wildside Press

"Maybe it is a crazy idea!" The year was 1854 and the speaker was an engineer named Frederick N. Gisborne. He was telling Cyrus W. Field how he had almost given up the fight to carry out his idea of running a cable under the Gulf of St. Lawrence to connect Nova Scotia with Newfoundland.Mr. Field didn't think the idea was crazy at all. He went even further. He began to dream of a transatlantic cable. But could it be done? Could anybody even make a waterproof cable line two thousand miles long? How could it be laid on the ocean floor, if the ocean had a floor? And could the "lightning" travel for such a distance-between two continents? It would be the greatest gamble ever attempted.In The First Transatlantic Cable, Adelc Gutman Nathan tells the fascinating story of how some of the most brilliant scientists, businessmen, statesmen, inventors and soldiers of fortune joined with Mr. Field in playing for the great stakes and making the dream come true.Personalities like Samuel F.B. Morse, the genius of the telegraph, Matthew Fontaine Maury, the "Father of Oceanography," and Isambard Kingdom Brunei, the Little Giant of engineering, come to life in these pages. Here is the adventure story of one of the most thrilling chapters in history.

"The Blood of the Vampire" (1897) was overshadowed by the publication of DRACULA in the same year. Marryat's vampire is strikingly different from Bram Stoker's vampires: she is female and drains her victims' life force, rather than their blood. A remarkable novel that holds up well for modern reading.

IN THE MANSION OF MURDER...A self-made millionaire, whose true story was not fit to print...His beautiful "friend"...His wife, and her friend, a very suspect psychiatrist...And a man from the haunted past, with his father's blood on his hands, and every reason in the world to kill and kill again...

Archie Lynn Joscelyn (1899 - 1985) was a 2012 Montana Cowboy Hall of Fame Inductee. Born in Montana, he spent most of his life in that state, penning hundreds of novels and short stories dealing with western life and adventure. King of the Rodeo was originally published in 1942.

Marlin Pierce, 325-pound editor-in-chief of the Phalanx publishing enterprises, was cordially hated by everyone who worked for him. And somebody hated him cordially enough to murder an old recluse for the purpose of framing Pierce for the electric chair. But Tony Hunter, Pierce's right hand assistant, believed in giving his boss the benefit of his own personal doubt, and re-framed the job to look like suicide-but with sinister consequences! Voluptuous Connie Talbot, feminine press agent, died violently; a phantom gunman eradicated the most important figure of a penthouse inquiry; and quite suddenly Tony Hunter found himself not only the victim of assorted attempts at mayhem but neck-deep in a problem that threatened the extinction of his Sunday supplement . . . and his life as well!

"I want to be ALONE with you!"Johnny Smith looked into Katie Morrison's eyes. A quiver ran across her flesh. She whispered back: "I'd like to be alone with you, too." Johnny grinned and took her in his arms. She fitted herself shamelessly against him . . .Johnny picked Katie up on Sands Street near the Brooklyn Navy Yard. He was a sailor with twelve hours' leave. There were five things he wanted to do in those twelve hours. One of them was to stay with a girl - any girl.Then he found Katie and something wonderful happened to them. Happiness was in their grasp but they quarreled and Johnny vanished. From that day on Katie sought Johnny on ships throughout the world, never giving up their dream that might have been. A tender, earthy tale of a passion that would not die!

"SOMETHING is going to happen to me!"Joe Hammond was in Rome on furlough after fifteen months at the front. It was to be seven days of excitement and pleasure-a lifetime of love in one week. The first day he met Maria Consorti who gave him her body for a meal, and then abandoned him for an American capitano. Then he found Nina Bonte, business woman, who left her prosperous Bar Nazionale long enough to have a brief affair with him. And there was sad-eyed Gianna Aragno, too weak from hunger to give Joe her love, and lustful aging Carla Valsetti. Joe left Rome with a feeling of deep sadness for the Eternal City and for the young lives ruined and cast adrift by the war.A collection of poignant and vital stories by one of America's most important young writers.

Bleak Island, where Ann Marsh lived, was a wind-swept, solitary place, but it had everything that can make an island wonderful for a little girl. There were beaches to explore, and the ever-changing sea to look at, and there was the lighthouse of which Ann's father was the keeper. From the top of the tower Ann thought she could see the entire world!Then one day the Coast Guard boat brought a small, frightened stranger to Bleak Island: nine-year-old Betsy Gates had come alone all the way from Ohio to stay with her grandmother. Everything on the island seemed strange to the child, who had lived all her life in a city and had supposed the rest of the world to be made up of apartment houses and stores. Ann quickly made up her mind that Betsy was like "a summer person's little girl"- she didn't belong; she didn't know anything.Gradually the two girls learned to understand the differences in each other's worlds and became best friends. And the delightful relationship between the grownups and the children is one of the nicest parts of this classic New England story. Includes drawings in line by Marjorie Torrey.

$100,000. What would you do if you found so much money on the back seat of a taxicab? Eddie Doran figured he'd keep it. The money was all in small bills. Untraceable. Probably a payoff of some kind. Or a pick-up. Racket money. Dirty money. Dirty or not, Eddie needed that dough. He was broke. Dead broke, and through as a fighter. The briefcase with the money in it was like manna from heaven. Only it wasn't. It was sudden death wrapped in tight green bundles -- a present straight from hell. From that moment on, Eddie was a marked man...

Tom Wade came home to Westport on a Wednesday evening and told his wife he had quit his lucrative advertising job to write The Great American Novel. Em had been a good wife for twelve years -- she reeled a bit but was determined to support her husband in his aim, while their son Gordy, an enthusiastic Little Leaguer, was simply thrilled to have Daddy home for evening practice. But the neighbors, who had always trusted Tom, were hurt and horrified. Bob Talbot, their closest friend, spoke for the whole community of Madison-Avenue-commuters when he insisted Tom was already one helluva writer: "There hasn't been as brilliantly sustained writing in America in the past twenty years as your Frozyumyum copy." The laundry man kissed Tom's custom good-bye, but the Wade liquor bill soared to $140 in a month, and the cleaning woman quit-because, of course, Tom hadn't written a word, but had started out waxing the floor, defrosting the refrigerator, ironing slips, planning a study, beginning his literary journal, and daydreaming about agents, publishers, producers, and movie stars.Life with a future Salinger soon palled on Tom's wife and son, and Em was coming close to leaving her husband when he suddenly booked passage for the Wade family on a tramp steamer to Spain. "What a place to write!" Tom exulted when they arrived. "No wonder Don Quixote is so long!" The Wades settled down near Torremolinos in a colony of non-writing writers, and soon Tom's defection was to spearhead a job-quitting movement that threatened to drain the Avenue of all its available talent. The solution to this problem, Tom's involvement with a couple of smuggling night-club girls, and Em's loyal search for her lost husband up and down the Casbah in Tangier, sweep this riotously funny novel to its happy conclusion.

After her parents' sudden death, loneliness makes Rosemary O'Connor seek out a neighboring farm where horses are being exercised. Here she feels closer to her father, who taught her all she knew about riding and horses. Soon the owner of the farm warmly welcomes Rosemary and introduces her to other young people in a local hunt club. This leads to a summer job at the hunt stables where Rosemary finds her horse, the kind of Irish hunter she has always longed for. Of course, Dublin Jack does belong to Mr. Medford, the wealthy, stable owner, and he is almost dead when Rosemary finds him. Can she -- should she -- help him to live in spite of the stable manager's ugly threats?Although Rosemary's main concern is for Dublin Jack, she works hard at her job, which includes teaching children to ride, cleaning tack, feeding and exercising other horses, and learning to control the hounds. One night, when she is more tired than usual, disaster strikes. Rosemary wakes up in the hospital, and here she learns of new plans for the stable, for herself, and for Dublin Jack.The color and excitement of horse shows, hunting, and riding with hounds in California (where no killing of a fox is involved) pervade this story of a plucky girl who believes in not letting go of her horse once she's found him.

Barry Morris Goldwater (1909-1998) was an American politician, businessman, and author who was a five-term United States Senator from Arizona (1953-65, 1969-87) and the Republican Party's nominee for President of the United States in 1964. Despite his loss of the 1964 presidential election in a landslide, Goldwater is the politician most often credited with sparking the resurgence of the American conservative political movement in the 1960s.

Trouble struck the schooner Griselda at 9:40 on an April evening. It was not the fault of the weather or the sea or the soundness of her hull. The trouble was human. A woman. Her name was Julia Parks, though in the beginning she insisted it was Lambert. It was hard to blame Howard Crane for bringing her aboard, because Julia always got what she wanted.What she wanted in this case was money. Keith Lambert's -- her ex-husband's -- money. That there were others too who wanted it was one of the first things that came to the minds of the Barbados police the next morning when Julia was found suffocated in her cabin. But the only trail they had to follow was one of tangled lives and tangled motives that led to jealousy, blackmail, native secrecy, and sudden death -- all against the peaceful tropical background of picturesque Barbados.Here is another of the highly polished, tightly knit, and suspenseful mysteries that have made George Harmon Coxe for almost twenty years one of the deans of mystery writers.

It galled luscious, golden-haired Alma Chrysler to be tied to a husband as stodgy and unexciting as Norman. She didn't think a man should spend his evenings tinkering with a car.Variety was the spice of love, Almla believed, and proved her theory with Scotty, Jim, Bob, and others she could hardly remember.Now it was Ward Green and he was the best of the lot -- a slave to her passion for her -- but could she maneuver him into going along with her plan for the permanent removal of her husband?Only time and her exquisitely formed body would decide whether she could manipulated Ward's hunger for her, giving and then withholding, sating and then starving, until he was ready to obey her slightest command...Originally published as "When the Lusting Began" (1960).

If Kate Archer had known just what the invitation entailed, she most certainly would not have succumbed to the pleading of June Gladstone to spend a month's vacation at her father's luxurious farm.Kate had met June at school, and, although four years her senior, had gone out of her way to befriend the forlorn, unattractive, almost ugly girl in her early teens. Now, five years later, the invitation had appeared out of the blue, and Kate found herself a guest in a strange, isolated household of very bohemian ways, with a menacing undercurrent that made Kate very uneasy. Suddenly, things began to happen with astonishing rapidity. Clotilde, June's beautiful stepsister was kidnapped in very gruesome circumstances, and Kate had to play a nerve-racking part in delivering the ransom money.But two murders occurred before peace was finally restored in the Gladstone household, and the warped, twisted mind of a murderer was revealed.

Slowly I turned to face the hall and the doorway. I waited in an agony of suspense. The great house was as silent as an empty grave, with the pulse of time beating eternally against it: tick, tock; tick, tock; tick, tock...Gradually I relaxed and let my hand drop, until -- I shrieked and turned -- and raised my hand dripping with blood. I stared at it like a maniac, and then at the thing it had touched...

Barry was a small gray furry ball, only two weeks old, when he was tossed into the swirling river. It would have been the end of the pup if young Jim Williams and his big black and tan dog, Old Jeff, had not rescued him. From then on Barry was a one-man dog, and that man was Jim.By the time the dog was full-grown, he weighed a good 150 pounds. With his sharp pointed ears and gray coat Barry was constantly mistaken for a timber wolf -- so much so, in fact, that even the longhorns on the range attacked him.Then came a fierce struggle between the cowhands and a notorious wolf pack, led by Lobo the Black Wolf. Year after year the pack had terrorized and attacked the grazing cattle. It was while tracking them down that Jim shot Barry by mistake. Gun-shy and hurt, the dog took to the timber alone.But the range riders were to win their battle in an exciting climax as Barry rushed in to save Jim from the maddened Lobo. The fight was a grizzly one -- a fight to the finish -- as the two animals fought for their lives on the open range in the black of night.

This series collects the complete scripts of 100 selected, previously unpublished plays by 19th-Century American playwrights. Volume 20 features Augustin Daly's "Man and Wife," "Divorce," "The Big Bonanza," "Pique," and "Needles and Pins."

This series collects the complete scripts of 100 selected, previously unpublished plays by 19th-Century American playwrights. Volume 6 features John Howard Payne, with his plays "The Last Duel in Spain," "Woman's Revenge," "The Italian Bride," "Romulus, the Shepherd King," and "The Black Man."

One by one they faced him. One by one they died… Only four hours after Walt Slade landed in Los Angeles, he was locked in a desperate life-and-death struggle with the gang of killers he had trailed over a thousand miles. One by one they faced him. One by one they died-until at last he was up against the vicious, deadly remnants whose orders from their leader were- "KILL SLADE-ANY WAY YOU CAN!"

VIOLENCE... INTRIGUE... DEATH...A grotesque, diabolical old doctor with a terrifying hypodermic needle that packs a special wallop...A barrel-shaped man of mystery with dark glasses and darker motives, involving the fate of nations...A beautiful brunette with soft, creamy skin and a lovely pearl-handled revolver, out to "get her man" in an unlovely way...You'll meet them all in A SHOT OF MURDER, a tale of mystery and mayhem which begins in Paris and ends in a strange mountain sanitorium where weird experiments are tried on human minds.

One man stood in the way of the happiness of Kirk Douglas and lovely Dana Warren. That man was Ricardo Sanchez, her husband and dancing partner, who refused to give her a divorce. Otherwise life was pleasant for Kirk -- until someone banked $100,000 in his name and a strange girl was killed in his apartment. Lieutenant Max Gold of Homicide tried to crack the case fast with Kirk as his chief suspect, but ran into trouble after Candy Linvingston, queen of the smartset, mad e aplay for Kirk and the killer struck again -- this time in the Club Caliente, where Dana and Ricardo danced. A suave, sophisticated Manhattan melodrama told against the backdrop of cafe society.

Volume 3 of America's Lost Plays features George Henry Boker, with "The World a Mask," "Glaucus," and "The Bankrupt."

Lawrason Hillyard produces virtually the entire output of promethium, a highly sought metal needed to fight World War II. As rich as he is hated by his enemies (including his wife), he is the perfect target for murder. And it's up to Col. Primrose to investigate, with the able assistance of Sgt. York and Mrs. Latham.

Everyone in Cranberry Cove, Maine, took it for granted that school "away" followed the sixth grade. There was no further schooling available in the little seacoast village.But when twelve-year-old Minta, at the end of the spring term, came face to face with the dismal prospect of going away to school that very fall -- in Hardwick, all of ten miles away! -- she was rebelliou. She NEVER wanted to leave the place and the people she loved so dearly; and she was especially troubled by a little nibbling fear that her place at home might be taken by the new baby her mother and father were expecting in September.Mr. and Mrs. Stanley understood their daughter, and couldn't have been more affectionate and reassuring; and old Auntie Joe, who lived with them, showed just the right mixture of common sense and sympathy. So by the time the "summer people" began to arrive, Minta was ready -- almost -- to forget her troubles. It was such fun to have her friends from Boston, Lucy and Jane, back again! No day was long enough, however, for all the things they found to do together: helping Bud Fernald to haul lobster traps, camping out on an offshore island, dressing up for the Firemen's Ball, and -- best of all -- playing wonderful games of make-believe in a secret cave.It was partly through the "rescue" of the cave's mysterious inhabitant that Minta learned a great deal about people, and about what growing up really means. And by the end of a wonderfully eventful summer she had come to understand, too, that even with its occasional troubles, life is "full of wonderful good things."

The Kingdom of Killain -- that's the Duarte, a big-city hotel at the crossroads of the world. The grifters, tough lads, girls on the make -- all learn to stay away from Hotel Duarte because Johnny Killain's in charge there. That's his turf -- a flick of his fist makes broken guys and dolls. So Johnny patrolled the dark corridors in peace...until the night he rounded a bend and looked murder square in the eye. The blonde lay on the bed in 609, her face a puffed, blue, strangled horror. Her name was Ellen Killain, and she was Johnny's ex-wife. His still-beloved ex-wife.

The murder hadn't happened yet, but when it did, it would come as no surprise to the man from the D.A.'s office.Right now, in fact, he was sitting in the victim's apartment, awaiting her return. He had already taken care to plant the leads, to weave together the whole web of evidence that would direct the police unerringly to the wrong man.If you want a frame-up done right, he was thinking, build the frame yourself. ...Then he heard a key in the door. He rose, and reached for the pistol under his coat.

The best selling novelist was dead in the summer house.The millionaire was in the pillory in the town square.The village idiot was guarding him with a twenty-foot bullwhip.The bridge champion was under arrest for stealing his own car.The doctor was trying to get everyone in sight jailed for murder.Things were in an unholy mess on Cape Cod -- and Asey Maye had only one weekend to clear it up!

The town was dark and heavy with doom. Hate, generations old, flowed through it like a malevolent river. Julie knew the force of that hate... and the violence which had issued from it in the past. It could erupt again; she lived in terror.Ben, the stranger, saw Julie and fell in love. A secret voice warned him to stay away, but he did not. They clung together in the darkness; meanwhile, through the midnight shadows of the town a killer moved to wreak his vengeance on them both.