Clive Anderson looks at one of the world's fastest growing websites, the online encyclopedia to which anybody can contribute.

Is Wikipedia a valuable source of human knowledge or a symptom of the spread of mediocrity and the devaluation of research?

The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll1and Mr Hyde is a novella written by Robert Louis Stevenson about a lawyer, Gabriel John Utterson, who investigates the strange link between his old friend, Dr Henry Jekyll, and the misanthropic man Edward Hyde. It was first published in 1886.

In his central theme of duality, "that strong sense of a man's double being which must at times come in upon and overwhelm the mind of every thinking creature", Stevenson had been inspired by a real life figure, Deacon Brodie, a respected member of the community by day, and a burglar by night.

Writer HG Wells based his novel War of the Worlds on the ideas of American astronomer Percival Lowell.

Lowell suggested that that the canals on Mars carried water from the poles across an ancient and desolate planet.

In Wells’ book Martians flee their dying planet in rockets and descend on London in an attempt to take over the world.

This classic early science fiction novel was written by H.G. Wells in 1898. It describes the invasion of the earth by Martians using heat rays and fighting machines. It has been adapted many times for radio and movies.

The Prisoner of Zenda , a popular adventure story published in 1894, relates the tale of Rudolf Rassendyll who has to impersonate a king, whom he happens to closely resemble, when the king is abducted by enemies on the eve of his coronation.

With no written language, Native Americans living in the Lake Superior region passed their cultural identity down through the generations by way of stories. Far more than mere tales to amuse children, they passed along the collective wisdom of the tribes. In the 1830s, government Indian Agent and ethnologist Henry R Schoolcraft learned the language of these people and went out to collect and preserve their stories before the tribes disappeared under the westward rush of American civilization. Though these stories were recast as children's fairy tales in the 1920s, they contain much of the old wisdom of a culture which has largely disappeared.

The Four Million by O. Henry in mp3 audio format
The Four Million is the second book written by O. Henry while he served time for embezzlement in a penitentiary in Ohio. The book is a series of short stories which take place in New York City in the early years of the 20th century and are representative of the surprise endings that popularized O. Henry's work. They also capture his use of coincidence or chance to create humor in the story. O Henry wrote about ordinary people in everyday circumstances. He is quoted as once saying, "There are stories in everything. I've got some of my best yarns from park benches, lampposts and newspaper stands."

Ten Days in a Madhouse by Nelly Bly in mp3 audio format

In 1887 Nellie Bly, one of the first female newspaper writers, and a young reporter who would soon go on to make a career for herself as an investigative journalist and stunt reporter, had herself committed to the Blackwell's Island Insane Asylum in New York. Her purpose was to discover what life was like for those who had been deemed insane. She was surprised to discover the depth of mistreatment of the patients. Partially as a result of her reporting, more money was allocated to the asylum and reforms were put into place.

Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carrol in mp3 audio format

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is a work of children's literature by the English mathematician and author, Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, written under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll. It tells the story of a girl named Alice who falls down a rabbit-hole into a fantasy realm populated by talking playing cards and anthropomorphic creatures. The tale is fraught with satirical allusions to Dodgson's friends and to the lessons that British schoolchildren were expected to memorize. The Wonderland described in the tale plays with logic in ways that has made the story of lasting popularity with children as well as adults