Charles Brabin

After young Ruth Bowman's mother dies, the child is raised by Agatha Pixley, and in time, the girl falls in love with Agatha's son, Eric. While Eric is at sea with Captain Scudder on a boat owned by Jim and Hiram Hawley, a jealous villager spreads the tale that Ruth is illegitimate, and the townspeople inevitably snub her. Jim Hiram sets his boat on fire after its arrival in port so that he can collect insurance money, and Ruth, believing that Eric is on board, tries to rescue him. When Ruth and Eric escape safely, Captain Scudder reveals that he, Ruth's long-lost father, was legally married to her mother, which re-establishes Ruth's good name and enables her to marry Eric.

After a brief view of Edgar Allan Poe's family background, his grandfather, David Poe, Sr., an Irish immigrant to America, and his father, David Poe, Jr., the poet's life is depicted from the death of his mother and his subsequent adoption by John Allan, to his own tortured death in 1849. Expelled from the University of Virginia for incurring too many debts, Poe nonetheless courts and marries Virginia Clemm but is disowned by his foster father. While residing in Fordham, New York, Poe tries to earn a living as a writer but meets with little financial success. Overwhelmed by their impoverished state, Virginia dies and Poe sinks into a profound depression. Always a victim of alcohol and subject to hallucinations, Poe first imagines that his neighbor, Helen Whitman, is Virginia, then plunges himself into an elaborate delusion in which his wife's spirit, various other spectres and a raven finally drive him to his own death.

Kitty Lorraine has one purpose in life: turning her daughter Shirley into a star. Kitty controls every aspect of the girl's nascent career -- even blackmailing a stage manager so that Shirley can take a more prestigious gig. But Kitty goes too far when she breaks up her daughter's budding relationship with sweet artist Warren Foster. Heartbroken, Shirley sets off on a series of disastrous but profitable relationships.

Kathleen, the daughter of a poor tenant farmer, dreams of her wedding with her beloved Terrence. The dream is interrupted when the Squire of the estate takes an interest in Kathleen and forces her father to allow him to marry her to forgive the father's debt.

"Mismates" is the story of a wealthy youth who, against his mother's wishes, marries a poor girl and is disowned. At first determined to support himself and his wife, he soon craves the accustomed luxury and deserts his wife and child. On false information provided by the boy's mother and substantiated by himself the wife is sent to jail and the child kidnapped by the husband. This is where the drama kicks in.

A blind cobbler is able, by dint of his extraordinary hearing, to recognize the identity of a murderer. His own son is accused of the killing, and the old man waits, knowing the murderer will return to prevent the blind man from revealing what he knows.

A woman and her children escape severe poverty and abuse. She successfully betters her family's condition while living with the secret that she killed her abusive husband in order to protect her children from him.

The villainous Dr. Fu Manchu races against a team of Englishmen to find the tomb of Ghengis Khan, because he wants to use the relics to cause an uprising in the East to wipe out the white race.

Pioneers and a family man leave Virginia for Kentucky during the Revolutionary War.

In early 19th century England, ambitious and ruthless orphan Rebecca Sharp advances from the position of governess to the heights of British society.

A slumlord learns just how important it is to maintain clean living quarters when his wife contracts tuberculosis.

Police Chief Jim Fitzpatrick is after gangster Sam Belmonte. He uses his police detective brother Ed to watch over Daisy who is associated with Belmonte but things don't go as planned.

Tim spends his days running with a railroad gang which frustrates his struggling parents. When his father falls ill Tim reluctantly gets a job begrudging being forced into that position, but when events take a tragic turn he realizes the need for him to become a responsible adult.

"Twinkletoes" Minasi wants to be a great dancer like her deceased mother. Twink meets Chuck Lightfoot, a noted prizefighter, who falls in love with her at first sight. She tries to avoid falling in love with Chuck, whose wife, Cissie, is a drunken harridan and more than a little bit spiteful. Meanwhile, Twink has secured a job in a singing-dancing act in a Limehouse theater, under the auspices of Roseleaf, who has more than just a protective interest in the girl. The jealous Cissie discovers that Twink's sign-painting father also has a night job as a burglar, and she turns him into the police. While a big success dancing on the stage, the arrest of her father has left her somewhat down in the dumps, and she decides to toss herself into the Thames. Possibly, the now-free Chuck, since Cissie has been killed in an accident, might come along and rescue her.

A horse with great potential is reluctantly sold by the breeder and by chance passes through multiple hands who do not treat him well.

A postulant falls in love with a flamboyant singer from a cafe next door to her convent.

The Secret Kingdom is a 1917 silent action movie serial comprised of 15 chapters: 1. Land of the Intrigue 2. Royalty at Red Wing 3. Sealed Packet 4. Honorable Mr. Oxenham 5. Carriage Call #101 6. Human Flotsam 7. Ghost Ship 8. Rum Cay 9. Swamp Adder 10. A Goat Without Horns 11. The White Witch 12. The Shark's Nest 13. The Tragic Masque 14. The Portrait of a King 15. The Tocsin.

Young lord of Whitehall Manor, Sir Anthony Elliott, becomes secretly engaged to Elinore Vane, but she marries his brother Paul. Resentful Anthony, decides to go to America, Nina Desmond, whom he earlier rescued from a fall, asks to go with him, but he refuses. Nina overhears him also refuse Elinore, whom Paul mistreats.

Informed by her husband Ed that they will not be honeymooning at Niagara Falls as promised, but rather at the County Fair, newlywed Peggy decides it is time to assert her independence and steals away to the falls alone, leaving her bewildered husband to follow. After the honeymoon, Ed takes his bride to the home that had been his mother's, and Peggy redecorates the entire house in her husband's absence. Gradually, Ed learns to submit to his wife's modern attitudes until he discovers that her continual visits to the city have not been to the dentist's, as she had said, but to the studio of portrait painter Perry Pipp. Ed angrily confronts Peggy with her deception, forcing her to return home to her parent's house. Later, when Ed learns that Peggy has been posing for a portrait as a birthday surprise, he begs his wife's forgiveness, which she bestows, along with the information that a baby is on it's way.

Elam "Burning Daylight" Harnish is a prospector who makes a million dollars in the Dawson, Alaska gold rush and loses the million dollars in Dawson. He journeys to San Francisco, makes three million dollars and loses it in San Francisco. He returns to Alaska and eventually finds his treasure.