Fiction Books

INTRODUCTION The first volume of the present edition of Hauptmann's Dramatic Works is identical in content with the corresponding volume of the German edition. In the second volume The Rats has been substituted for two early prose tales which lie outside of the scope of our undertaking. Hence these two volumes include that entire group of dramas which Hauptmann himself specifically calls social.... more...

Chapter One "Seems to me," said Cap'n Bill, as he sat beside Trot under the big acacia tree, looking out over the blue ocean, "seems to me, Trot, as how the more we know, the more we find we don't know." "I can't quite make that out, Cap'n Bill," answered the little girl in a serious voice, after a moment's thought, during which her eyes followed those... more...

CHAPTER I THE BURSTING OF THE STORM A group of excited men were gathered in front of the Stock Exchange at Johannesburg. It was evident that something altogether unusual had happened. All wore anxious and angry expressions, but a few shook hands with each other, as if the news that so much agitated them, although painful, was yet welcome; and indeed this was so. For months a war-cloud had hung over the... more...

TOM dodged hither and thither through lanes until he was well out of the track of returning scholars, and then fell into a moody jog. He crossed a small "branch" two or three times, because of a prevailing juvenile superstition that to cross water baffled pursuit. Half an hour later he was disappearing behind the Douglas mansion on the summit of Cardiff Hill, and the school-house was hardly... more...

Chapter One A Horse in Need He came into the town as a solid, swiftly moving dust cloud. The wind from behind had kept the dust moving forward at a pace just equal to the gallop of his horse. Not until he had brought his mount to a halt in front of the hotel and swung down to the ground did either he or his horse become distinctly visible. Then it was seen that the animal was in the last stages of... more...

Think of it! "One Dollar a Pound." The Editor of this book was brought face to face with the true possibilities in Frog raising by his love for this delicate meat and his inability to get it. As I had visited all the principal markets in New York City, a market where it is known the world over that if there is anything in the eatable line to be found it can be found there. This was not so of... more...

IRON BRIDGES, AND THEIR CONSTRUCTION. "ASSEMBLING" BRIDGE UNDER SHED. In a graveyard in Watertown, a village near Boston, Massachusetts, there is a tombstone commemorating the claims of the departed worthy who lies below to the eternal gratitude of posterity. The inscription is dated in the early part of this century (about 1810), but the name of him who was thus immortalized has faded like the... more...

CHAPTER I. THE CARDINAL OF VALENCIA For three days I had been cooling my heels about the Vatican, vexed by suspense. It fretted me that I should have been so lightly dealt with after I had discharged the mission that had brought me all the way from Pesaro, and I wondered how long it might be ere his Most Illustrious Excellency the Cardinal of Valencia might see fit to offer me the honourable employment... more...

"Effie! What the devil are you up to?" Her husband's voice, chopping through her mood of terrified rapture, made her heart jump like a startled cat, yet by some miracle of feminine self-control her body did not show a tremor. Dear God, she thought, he mustn't see it. It's so beautiful, and he always kills beauty. "I'm just looking at the Moon," she said listlessly.... more...

CHAPTER I. BESIDE STILL WATERS. The youth in the multi-coloured blazer laughed. “You’d have to come and be a nurse,” he suggested. “Oh, I’d go as a drummer-boy. I’d look fine in uniform, wouldn’t I?” the waitress simpered in return. Dennis Burnham swallowed his liqueur in one savage gulp, pushed back his chair, and rose from the table. “Silly young ass,” he said, in a voice loud... more...