Fiction Books

"Ther hopped Hawkyn,Ther daunsed Dawkyn,Ther trumped Tomkyn...." The Tournament of Tottenham. In Southampton Row, Bloomsbury, there is a small alley or passage leading into Queen Square, and rendered inaccessible to all but foot passengers by some iron posts. The shops in this passage are of a subdued exterior, and are overshadowed by a dingy old edifice dedicated to St. George the Martyr,... more...

A DISCONTENTED BEAUTY. "Leone," cried a loud voice, "where are you? Here, there, everywhere, except just in the place where you should be." The speaker was a tall, stout, good-tempered looking man. Farmer Noel people called him all over the country-side. He stood in the farmyard, looking all the warmer this warm day for his exertions in finding his niece. "Leone," he cried again... more...

Forward, Captain K. Z——, Richard Shandon mate, will start from New Prince's Docks for an unknown destination." The foregoing might have been read in the Liverpool Herald of April 5th, 1860. The departure of a brig is an event of little importance for the most commercial port in England. Who would notice it in the midst of vessels of all sorts of tonnage and nationality that six miles of... more...

FRANCE. Hotel de Louvre, January 6th, 1858.—On Tuesday morning, our dozen trunks and half-dozen carpet-bags being already packed and labelled, we began to prepare for our journey two or three hours before light. Two cabs were at the door by half past six, and at seven we set out for the London Bridge station, while it was still dark and bitterly cold. There were already many people in the streets,... more...

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CHAPTER I MINETTA LANE "A boy at fourteen needs a mother or the memory of a mother as he does at no other period of his life."—Enoch's Diary. Except for its few blocks that border Washington Square, MacDougalStreet is about as squalid as any on New York's west side. Once it was aristocratic enough for any one, but that was nearly a century ago. Alexander Hamilton's mansion and... more...

HIS BIRTH On an evening in 1866 (exactly eight hundred years after the Battle of Hastings) Mr. Henry Knight, a draper's manager, aged forty, dark, clean-shaven, short, but not stout, sat in his sitting-room on the second-floor over the shop which he managed in Oxford Street, London. He was proud of that sitting-room, which represented the achievement of an ideal, and he had a right to be proud of... more...

Once upon a time—but whether in the time past or time to come is a matter of little or no moment—this wide world had become so overburdened with an accumulation of worn-out trumpery, that the inhabitants determined to rid themselves of it by a general bonfire. The site fixed upon at the representation of the insurance companies, and as being as central a spot as any other on the globe, was... 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...

Chapter One. “Mind what you’re doing! Come down directly, you young dog! Ah, I thought as much. There, doctor: a job for you.” It was on board the great steamer Chusan, outward bound from the port of London for Rockhampton, Moreton Bay, and Sydney, by the north route, with a heavy cargo of assorted goods such as are wanted in the far south Colonies, and some fifty passengers, for the most part... more...