E-books
The following Quikscript e-books are distributed in plain text, HTML and EPUB formats, along with the original source text for your convenient reference. Unless specified otherwise, the sources are in the public domain and the transliterations are available under the 🅭🄍 Creative Commons Zero licence (public domain dedication).
On this page:
Methodology
Spelling
The transliterations follow the usual Quikscript spelling guidelines:
- preserved rhoticity, or “spell all R’s”
- standard contractions from Section I of the Quikscript Manual
- standard spellings from Section II
- standard terminals and prefixes from Section III
- (not ) for words in the BATH lexical set
- (not ) for the HAPPY set
- for the NEAR set
- in words like “fire” and in words like "flour", as used in the Manual and the Quikscript Outpost
- (or , when followed by a vowel) for the CURE set, which is marginal in many accents today
The letters · and · and the standard contractions from Section III were not used. The excellent Kingsley Read Lexicon was consulted for guidance (especially for knowing when to use in unstressed syllables, as my accent uses almost exclusively), in addition to multiple dictionaries. Following a discussion on the Quikscript group, and were used in all words like “trick” and “drive”, respectively, as opposed to and .
Production
The texts were transliterated into Quikscript using custom software that I have made freely available—see the Conversion utilities page for details. The final e-books, in the various formats, were then produced using Pandoc.
Short Stories
The Invisible Man by G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936), 1911
Approx. 6,500 words
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A Father Brown short story. Amidst a love quadrangle, one man’s taunts and threats escalate to murder—all while he remains unseen by anyone.
The Adventure of the Speckled Band by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930), 1892
Approx. 10,000 words
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A Sherlock Holmes short story. A young lady asks Holmes to investigate the death of her sister, as she begins to fear for her own life alongside a volatile stepfather.
The Tower of the Elephant by Robert E. Howard (1906-1936), 1933
Approx. 10,000 words
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A Conan the Barbarian short story. Conan embarks upon a daring heist to steal a valuable gem, but discovers more than he bargained for.
The Monkey’s Paw by W. W. Jacobs (1863-1943), 1902
Approx. 4,000 words
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A weary old friend brings a mummified monkey’s paw to the White family. It is said to be enchanted so that it can grant three wishes to its owner—but tampering with fate is to come with serious consequences.
Novellas
✨NEW: The Turn of the Screw by Henry James (1843-1916), 1898
Approx. 43,000 words
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A classic story of the Gothic genre, with an ambiguous plot. A governess is appointed to two orphans in a country house, where she becomes increasingly adamant that the place is haunted and her pupils are being corrupted.
Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin A. Abbott (1838-1926), 1884
Approx. 34,000 words
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A novella about life in Flatland, a two-dimensional world. All of the worldbuilding occurs in Part One, which also serves as a veiled satire of the social hierarchy of Victorian Britain. Part Two is where things get really interesting and a bit mathematical, as our narrator discovers worlds of different dimensionalities.
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (1812-1870), 1843
Approx. 29,000 words
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Ebenezer Scrooge is a miserly businessman who cares not for friends, family, nor the joy of Christmas. But after treating everyone with cynicism and disdain on yet another Christmas Eve, he is visited in the night by ghosts that show him the consequences of his ways.
The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka (1883-1924), 1915; translated by Ian Johnston, 2003
Approx. 22,000 words
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Gregor Samsa, a travelling salesman and the sole breadwinner who always placed his family’s needs above his own, wakes up to find himself transformed into a giant, monstrous creature. He struggles to make himself understood—but now no one wants to listen to him anyway.
Animal Farm by George Orwell (1903-1950), 1944
Approx. 30,000 words
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This is probably Orwell's second-most famous work (after, of course, Nineteen Eighty-four). A story told through the lives of talking farm animals, it is an allegory for the early history of the Soviet Union and its descent into totalitarianism under Stalin.
Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894), 1886
Approx. 26,000 words
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Gabriel Utterson is increasingly concerned for his friend Dr Jekyll, due to his links to a mysterious Edward Hyde. After it transpires that this Mr Hyde is a highly detestable person, Utterson investigates their connection; despite their seemingly opposite personalities, Jekyll and Hyde turn out to be closer than anyone could have imagined.