This English fiction presents the story of Mehala, a strong-willed woman, and starts with a strange description of the Ray where Mehalah and her frail mother live. With rent day coming close, their fierce landowner, Elijah Rebow, gives them a visit to remind them that now they owe their livelihood to him. He attempts to force Mehalah into submission, yet she openly fights him and insists on self-sufficiency and liberty. Mehalah is a major Victorian novel published in 1880 and is set in the isolated marshes of Mersea and the surrounding area. The prominent theme of the book is independence and...

'Cliff Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe' by S. Baring-Gould is a fascinating account of the rock-dwellings, cliff-refuges, and underground sanctuaries that humans have built across Europe and beyond. From the Pueblo Indians in America to the limestone cliffs of Palestine, the book explores the remarkable human dwellings that have been carved out of the earth. The author draws from extensive research and his own experience to document the lives of the people who built and inhabited these structures, their reasons for doing so, and the legacy they left behind.

The Book of Were-Wolves is a classic work of European lore on lycanthropy in particular pertaining to werewolves. The book deals with three subjects: 1) Summarizing folklore and beliefs about werewolves and related phenomena; 2) Collecting specific cases from ancient, medieval, and modern histories; 3) Explaining the origins of the beliefs and demythologize the superstition. The author treats the phenomenon of the werewolf as a psychological aberration, as essentially a delusional state. He also relates it to cannibalism and to the behavior of the notorious Norse berserkers, who would suffer...