Fiction Books

CHAPTER I On a brilliant day in May, in the year 1868, a gentleman was reclining at his ease on the great circular divan which at that period occupied the centre of the Salon Carre, in the Museum of the Louvre. This commodious ottoman has since been removed, to the extreme regret of all weak-kneed lovers of the fine arts, but the gentleman in question had taken serene possession of its softest spot,... more...

CHAPTER I. THE HEGIRA OF THE WESTS FROM EDINBURGH I John Fothergill West, student of law in the University of St. Andrews, have endeavoured in the ensuing pages to lay my statement before the public in a concise and business-like fashion. It is not my wish to achieve literary success, nor have I any desire by the graces of my style, or by the artistic ordering of my incidents, to throw a deeper shadow... more...

CHAPTER I. UNDER THE MEXICAN EAGLE.—EXIT THE FOREIGNER.—MONTEREY, 1840. "Caramba! Adios, Seflores!" cried Captain Miguel Peralta, sitting on his roan charger on the Monterey bluffs. A white-sailed bark is heading southward for Acapulco. His vaqueros tossed up their sombreros, shouting, "Vive Alvarado! Muerte los estrangeros!" The Pacific binds the hills of California in a sapphire... more...

Chapter 1 Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. Everything was in confusion in the Oblonskys' house. The wife had discovered that the husband was carrying on an intrigue with a French girl, who had been a governess in their family, and she had announced to her husband that she could not go on living in the same house with him. This position of affairs had... more...

CHAPTER I. A NOVEL CASE "Talking of sudden disappearances the one you mention of Hannah in that Leavenworth case of ours, is not the only remarkable one which has come under my direct notice. Indeed, I know of another that in some respects, at least, surpasses that in points of interest, and if you will promise not to inquire into the real names of the parties concerned, as the affair is a secret,... more...

There is a lot of entertainment and also a great deal of truth in this story. We recommend it highly. Professor Carbonic was diligently at work in his spacious laboratory, analyzing, mixing and experimenting. He had been employed for more than fifteen years in the same pursuit of happiness, in the same house, same laboratory, and attended by the same servant woman, who in her long period of service had... more...

here was no use hiding from the truth. Somebody had blundered—a fatal blunder—and they were going to pay for it! Mark Forepaugh kicked the pile of hydrogen cylinders. Only a moment ago he had broken the seals—the mendacious seals that certified to the world that the flasks were fully charged. And the flasks were empty! The supply of this precious power gas, which in an emergency should have been... more...

It was just as he saw The Barbarian's squat black tankette lurch hurriedly into a nest of boulders that young Giulion Geoffrey realized he had been betrayed. With the muzzle of his own cannon still hot from the shell that had jammed The Barbarian's turret, he had yanked the starboard track lever to wheel into position for the finishing shot. All around him, the remnants of The... more...

WE GET INTERESTING NEWS It was on a tropic sea, and night, that I heard a little scrap of a tale that had in it that which was destined to preserve my life. The waning moon had not yet risen; the stars were all out, the Milky Way more than commonly near. The schooner's sails were barely drawing, and flapped idly at times. I leaned on the rail, listening to the purling of the sea against the... more...

CHAPTER I. "How the wind is rising!" said Rosamond.—"God help the poor people at sea to-night!" Her brother Godfrey smiled.—"One would think," said he, "that she had an argosy of lovers at sea, uninsured." "You gentlemen," replied Rosamond, "imagine that ladies are always thinking of lovers." "Not always," said Godfrey; "only when they... more...