Mike McShane

The 1815 eruption of Indonesia's Tambora volcano had a catastrophic effect on climate around the world. In North America and Europe, the following twelve months became known as "the year without summer." Confined indoors by the relentless rain and cold, a group of friends, including 18-year old Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley and poet Lord Byron, began writing ghost stories to pass the time. Shelley's tale "Frankenstein" remains, over 200 years later,...

An undisputed masterpiece of twentieth-century literature, this stunning, lavishly designed new edition of The Great Gatsby is perfect for Fitzgerald lovers and classics collectors alike. In his masterpiece, The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald explores the paradisiacal illusions of the post-World War One generation, only to shatter them. At the heart of this piercing and defining novel of the Jazz Age is the eponymous romantic, holding tight to...