Fiction Books

FOREWORD I have been so frequently asked how I, a woman, came by my intimate acquaintance with life in the more remote districts of the southern Appalachians, particularly in the matter of illicit distilling, that I think it not amiss to here set down a few words as to my sources of knowledge. I have always lived in a small city in the heart of the Cumberlands, and a portion of each year was spent in... more...

The receivers, two of them lawyers, had long faces when they sat down across from my desk in the office of the Imperial Printing Company. "Frankly, Mr. Shane," said the older one, "it is a very grave question in our minds whether we should try to continue to operate the business or whether we should close the plant and liquidate the machinery and equipment the best we can." I was... more...

CHAPTER I. The Culm, which rises in Somersetshire, and hastening into a fairer land (as the border waters wisely do) falls into the Exe near Killerton, formerly was a lovely trout stream, such as perverts the Devonshire angler from due respect toward Father Thames and the other canals round London. In the Devonshire valleys it is sweet to see how soon a spring becomes a rill, and a rill runs on into a... more...

THE WIDOW OF DUNSKAITH."Oh, mony a shriek, that waefu' night,Rose frae the stormy main;An' mony a bootless vow was made,An' mony a prayer vain;An' mithers wept, an' widows mournedFor mony a weary day;An' maidens, ance o' blithest mood,Grew sad, and pined away." The northern Sutor of Cromarty is of a bolder character than even the southern one—abrupt, and... more...

The First Book of Chronicles 1:1 Adam, Seth, Enosh, 1:2 Kenan, Mahalalel, Jared, 1:3 Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech, 1:4 Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. 1:5 The sons of Japheth: Gomer, and Magog, and Madai, and Javan, and Tubal, and Meshech, and Tiras. 1:6 The sons of Gomer: Ashkenaz, and Diphath, and Togarmah. 1:7 The sons of Javan: Elishah, and Tarshish, Kittim, and Rodanim. 1:8 The sons of Ham: Cush, and... more...

CHAPTER I. DEATH AND BURIAL OF A SLAVE'S INFANT. "The small and great are there, and the servant is free from his master." A Southern gentleman, who was visiting in New York, sent me, with his reply to my inquiries for the welfare of his family at home, the following letter which he had just received from one of his married daughters in the South. The reader will be so kind as to take the... more...

CHAPTER I THE FIVE LITTLE SYKESES A coal fire crackled cheerily in the little open grate that supplied warmth to the steam-heated living-room in the modest apartment of Mr. Thomas S. Bingle, lower New York, somewhere to the west of Fifth Avenue and not far removed from Washington Square—in the wrong direction, however, if one must be precise in the matter of emphasizing the social independence of the... more...

Our ship, the space-flyer, Planetara, whose home port was Greater New York, carried mail and passenger traffic to and from both Venus and Mars. Of astronomical necessity, our flights were irregular. The spring of 2070, with both planets close to the Earth, we were making two complete round trips. We had just arrived in Greater New York, one May evening, from Grebhar, Venus Free State. With only five... more...

CHAPTER I MISTRESS AND AGENT The lady of Thorpe was bored. These details as to leases and repairs were wearisome. The phrases and verbiage confused her. She felt obliged to take them in some measure for granted; to accept without question the calmly offered advice of the man who stood so respectfully at the right hand of her chair. “This agreement with Philip Crooks,” he remarked, “is a somewhat... more...

LITTLE SAINT ELIZABETH She had not been brought up in America at all. She had been born in France, in a beautiful chateau, and she had been born heiress to a great fortune, but, nevertheless, just now she felt as if she was very poor, indeed. And yet her home was in one of the most splendid houses in New York. She had a lovely suite of apartments of her own, though she was only eleven years old. She... more...