In the first of these two crime fiction tales, R.I.P. (Restless in Pieces), modern grave­-robbers steal the bones of Charles Dodgson (also known as Lewis Carroll), expecting to hold them for ransom. But they also dis­cover a rare first edition of Alice’s Adventures in Wonder­land as well as one of Dodgson’s missing Diaries in the casket. This sets off a series of events, both deadly and comical, across England, Wales, and North Korea. Inspector Ian Spectre of Scotland Yard is brought in to solve the case, assisted by none other than Dodgson’s ghost. The second tale, The Oxfordic Oracle, is set in Victorian Oxford. Inspector Spectre goes undercover to investigate numerous reported strange events during the meetings of the Oxford Phantasmalogical Society, where an actress prophesies under the influence of ethene gas escaping into the basement of the building. Charles Dodgson also makes a first time appearance at the Society meeting, which gets out of hand as too much ethene escapes and every­one begins to pro­phesy nonsense which becomes the inspiration for some of the famous poems in Carroll’s Sylvie and Bruno books.

Watch out… the Beast is about! This new story for young readers is based on the mysterious legend of the Beast of Bodmin Moor. The acclaimed Cornish writer Alan M. Kent tells the charming tale of how a big cat came to wander the wild landscape of Cornwall. Filled with delight and wonder, this is a tale to enrich the imagination and stay long in the memory. The illustrations are by Gabrielle Cailes, an artist who knows Cornwall intimately. With wonderful spirit, colour, and energy, they capture the detail of the story and its thrilling sense of place. The story is presented bilingually with a vibrant modern translation into Cornish by Neil Kennedy.

It was in 1880 and 1881 that Robert Louis Stevenson wrote Treasure Island, which was begun at Braemar, Scotland, where his father aided him with suggestions from his own seafaring experiences. It was finished in the course of his second visit to Davos in the winter of 1881–1882. Treasure Island, which appeared when the author was thirty-one, was his first long romance, and it brought to him his first taste of popular success, when the story was published in book form. It was in October 1881, that this story began to appear as a serial in an English magazine called Young Folks. The title then was The Sea Cook, or Treasure Island, but when published in book form in May 1883, the name was simply Treasure Island, a name which has taken its place among the titles of far older classics. This edition contains the superb illustrations of Louis Rhead, which were first published in 1915. The Cornish translation is by Nicholas Williams, who also translated Louis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland into Cornish and into Irish.

The Cult of Relics is a new novel by Alan M. Kent (author of Proper Job, Charlie Curnow! and Electric Pastyland), presented in a bilingual format, with a Cornish-language translation, Devocyon dhe Greryow, by Nicholas Williams. The story is set in Western Britain in the mid-1990s just after the Gulf War, and tells of three extraordinary people: of the New-Age Traveller Jude Fox, of the American photojournalist Eddie Hopkins, and of the Cornish-born archaeologist Robert Bolitho.

The Cult of Relics yw novel nowyth dhyworth Alan M. Kent (auctour a Proper Job, Charlie Curnow! hag a Electric Pastyland), hag yma va dyllys gans trailyans Kernowek Nicholas Williams, Devoycyon dhe Greryow. An whedhel-ma a gebmer le i’n West a Vreten Veur in cres an bledhydnyow mil, naw cans, peswar ugans ha deg, termyn cot warlergh Bresel an Morbleg. Yth eson ny ow metya ino gans try ferson, meur a les: Jûd Fox, Viajyores a’n Oos Nowyth; Eddie Hopkins, an fôtojornalyst Amerycan; ha’n hendhyscansyth dhia Gernow, Robert Bolitho.

1883: On a doomed volcanic island in the southern Pacific, a group of American castaways commit the body of an enigmatic genius to the deep, along with the secrets of an extraordinary life…

2014: The Deep Watch environmental ship Aurora mysteriously sinks with all hands in remote Antarctic waters and a subsequent oceanic sequence of strange sightings, antique gold bars and damaged ships blazes a trail around the world. Separate investigations by journalist Barrington Hobbes and Naval Intelligence officer Donall Lindsay lead both towards extreme danger on land and sea, a worldwide ecological conspiracy … and an avenging legend!

For many, this book has been a source of fascination, surely one of the most influential novels ever written, an inspiration for such scientists and discoverers as engineer Simon Lake, oceanographer William Beebe, polar traveler Sir Ernest Shackleton. Likewise Dr Robert D. Ballard, finder of the sunken Titanic, confesses that this was his favourite book as a teenager, and Cousteau himself, most renowned of marine explorers, called it his shipboard bible. The present translation is a faithful yet communicative rendering of the original French texts published in Paris by J. Hetzel et Cie.—the hardcover first edition issued in the autumn of 1871, collated with the softcover editions of the First and Second Parts issued separately in the autumn of 1869 and the summer of 1870. Although prior English versions have often been heavily abridged, this new translation is complete to the smallest substantive detail.