Fiction Books

I THE STORY OF THE SESTINA “Armatz de fust e de fer e d’acier, Mos ostal seran bosc, fregz, e semdier, E mas cansos sestinas e descortz, E mantenrai los frevols contra ’ls fortz.”THE FIRST NOVEL.—ALIANORA OF PROVENCE, COMING IN DISGUISE AND IN ADVERSITY TO A CERTAIN CLERK, IS BY HIM CONDUCTED ACROSS A HOSTILE COUNTRY; AND IN THAT TROUBLED JOURNEY ARE MADE MANIFEST TO EACH THE SNARES WHICH HAD... more...

SCENE I It was an August evening, still and cloudy after a day unusually chilly for the time of year. Now, about sunset, the temperature was warmer than it had been in the morning, and the departing sun was forcing its way through the clouds, breaking up their level masses into delicate lattice-work of golds and greys. The last radiant light was on the wheat-fields under the hill, and on the long chalk... more...

THE FOUNTAIN OF MARIBOorTHE QUEEN AND THE ALGREVE The Algreve he his bugle wound   The long night all—The Queen in bower heard the sound,   I’m passion’s thrall. The Queen her little page address’d,   The long night all—“To come to me the Greve request,”   I’m passion’s thrall. He came, before the board stood he,   The long night all—“Wherefore, O Queen, has sent for... more...

Introduction to ULLER UPRISING by John F. Carr With the publication of this novel, Uller Uprising, all of H. Beam Piper's previously published science fiction is now available in Ace editions. Uller Uprising was first published in 1952 in a Twayne Science Fiction Triplet—a hardbound collection of three thematically connected novels. (The other two were Judith Merril's Daughters of Earth and... more...

Although the ratio of 3 to 1 in which contrasted characters reappear in the second or F generation is sometimes referred to as Mendel's Law of Heredity, the really significant discovery of Mendel was not the 3 to 1 ratio, but the segregation of the characters (or rather, of the germinal representatives of the characters) which is the underlying cause of the appearance of the ratio. Mendel saw that... more...

Such was the simple and unpretending advertisement that announced the Lives of the English Poets; a work that gave to the British nation a new style of biography. Johnson's decided taste for this species of writing, and his familiarity with the works of those whose lives he has recorded, peculiarly fitted him for the task; but it has been denounced by some as dogmatical, and even morose; minute... more...

Bliss Carman: An Appreciation How many Canadians--how many even among the few who seek to keep themselves informed of the best in contemporary literature, who are ever on the alert for the new voices—realise, or even suspect, that this Northern land of theirs has produced a poet of whom it may be affirmed with confidence and assurance that he is of the great succession of English poets? Yet... more...

The Captain peered into the eyepiece of the telescope. He adjusted the focus quickly. "It was an atomic fission we saw, all right," he said presently. He sighed and pushed the eyepiece away. "Any of you who wants to look may do so. But it's not a pretty sight." "Let me look," Tance the archeologist said. He bent down to look, squinting. "Good Lord!" He leaped... more...

I INTRODUCTION Three score years and ten after the declaration went forth from Independence Hall that "all men are created equal," and fifteen years before the great struggle that was to test whether a nation dedicated to that proposition can long endure, Iowa, "the only free child of the Missouri Compromise," was admitted into the Union on an equal footing with the original States.... more...

CHAPTER I BETTER THAN LONDON A long, green wave ran up, gleaming like curved glass in the sunlight, and broke in a million sparkles against a shelf of shingle. Above the shingle rose the soft cliffs, clothed with scrubby grass and crowned with gorse. "Columbus," said the stranger, "this is just the place for us." Columbus wagged a cheery tail and expressed complete agreement. He was... more...