Fiction Books

Chapter One. Missing. 1,000 Pound Reward. The above-named Sum will be paid to any person giving information which will lead to the discovery of the whereabouts of a young Englishman named Richard Grenville, who was last seen at Durban on 15th December, 1877. Apply to Masterton and Driffield, Advocates, Port Natal. Facing this striking announcement, and with his back to the Standard Bank of South... more...

HOSPITALITY OF THE ARAB. In 1804, Osman Bardissy was the most influential of the Mameluke Beys, and virtually governed Egypt. Mehemet Ali, then rising into power, succeeded in embroiling this powerful old chief with Elfy Bey, another of the Mamelukes. The latter escaped to England, where he was favourably received, and promised assistance by our government against Osman, who was in the French... more...

The year 1888, that of the Silver Wedding of the Prince and Princess of Wales, is also the 25th anniversary of the year when the Prince first began to appear in public life. It is, therefore, a fit time to present some record of events in which His Royal Highness has taken part, and of services rendered by him to the nation, during the past quarter of a century. The best and the least formal way of... more...

INTRODUCTION. ON February the First 1887, the Lady Vain was lost by collision with a derelict when about the latitude 1° S. and longitude 107° W. On January the Fifth, 1888—that is eleven months and four days after—my uncle, Edward Prendick, a private gentleman, who certainly went aboard the Lady Vain at Callao, and who had been considered drowned, was picked up in latitude 5° 3′ S. and... more...

THE MARCH ASSIZE. Something more than half a century ago, a person, in going along Holborn, might have seen, near the corner of one of the thoroughfares which diverge towards Russell Square, the respectable-looking shop of a glover and haberdasher named James Harvey, a man generally esteemed by his neighbors, and who was usually considered well to do in the world. Like many London tradesmen, Harvey was... more...

CHAPTER I. THE RICH CHARLOTTE. The room had three occupants, two were men, the third a woman. The men were middle-aged and gray-haired, the woman on the contrary was in the prime of youth; she was finely made, and well proportioned. Her face was perhaps rather too pale, but the eyes and brow were noble, and the sensitive mouth showed indications of heart as well as intellect. The girl, or rather young... more...

CHAPTER I THE HOUSE NEXT DOOR What’s behind this wall? As I write, here in my surgeon’s study, I ask myself that question. What’s behind it? My neighbors? Then what do I know—really know—of them? After all, this wall which rises beyond my desk, the wall against which my glass case of instruments rests, symbolizes the boundary of knowledge—seemingly an opaque barrier. I am called a man of... more...

I. AFTER SCHOOL. "Our content is our best having."—Shakespeare. Nobody had ever told Marjorie that she was, as somebody says we all are, three people,—the Marjorie she knew herself, the Marjorie other people knew, and the Marjorie God knew. It was a "bother" sometimes to be the Marjorie she knew herself, and she had never guessed there was another Marjorie for... more...

CUBICLE THIRTEEN The new girl sat on the edge of her bed, and gazed round at the small domain which for the next three months would be the one spot in this strange new world of school that she could call her own. It was really quite a nice cubicle, some eight feet wide by ten feet long—just large enough to contain a small white-counterpaned bed, a dressing-table and chest of drawers combined, a small... more...

CHAPTER I THE PRISON AT CÆSAREA It was but two hours after midnight, yet many were wakeful in Cæsarea on the Syrian coast. Herod Agrippa, King of all Palestine—by grace of the Romans—now at the very apex of his power, celebrated a festival in honour of the Emperor Claudius, to which had flocked all the mightiest in the land and tens of thousands of the people. The city was full of them, their... more...