Fiction Books

CHAPTER I AN OUTLINE OF SHAKESPEARE'S LIFE Our Knowledge of Shakespeare.—No one in Shakespeare's day seems to have been interested in learning about the private lives of the dramatists. The profession of play writing had scarcely begun to be distinguished from that of play acting, and the times were not wholly gone by when all actors had been classed in public estimation as vagabonds. While... more...

A REJECTED MANUSCRIPT. "A letter for Mr. Roseleaf," he heard his landlady say to the chambermaid. And he was quite prepared to hear the girl reply, in a tone of surprise: "For Mr. Roseleaf! This is the first letter he has had since he came." The young man referred to stood just within his chamber door, waiting with some anxiety for the letter to be brought to him. He was about twenty... more...

"ONE OF THOSE IMPOSSIBLE AMERICANS" "N'avez-vous pas—" she was bravely demanding of the clerk when she saw that the bulky American who was standing there helplessly dangling two flaming red silk stockings which a copiously coiffured young woman assured him were bien chic was edging nearer her. She was never so conscious of the truly American quality of her French as when a... more...

Trakor, youthful member of the tribe of Gerdak, moved at a swinging trot along a winding game trail that led to the caves of his people. Through occasional rifts in the matted mazes of branches, leafs, creepers and vines of the semi-tropical forest and jungle, rays of the late afternoon sun dappled the dusty elephant path under his naked feet. His slim young body, clothed only by the pelt of Jalok, the... more...

Chapter 1 In my opinion, it is impossible to create characters until one has spent a long time in studying men, as it is impossible to speak a language until it has been seriously acquired. Not being old enough to invent, I content myself with narrating, and I beg the reader to assure himself of the truth of a story in which all the characters, with the exception of the heroine, are still alive.... more...

en Tilman sat down in the easiest of all easy chairs. He picked up a magazine, flipped pages; stood up, snapped fingers; walked to the view wall, walked back; sat down, picked up the magazine. He was waiting, near the end of the day, after hours, in the lush, plush waiting room—“The customer’s ease is the Sales Manager’s please”—to see the Old Man. He was fidgety, but not about something.... more...

In the village clearing, under the diffuse red sun of Hedlot, Chet Barfield listened intently. Mostly he heard the villagers, the Agvars, noisy with the disregard for sound that comes of defective hearing. But above their clamor was another note. No ... Yes! There it was again—the swish-roar-scream of a spaceship! Chet's heart lifted to the altitude of that ship. Rescue! Rescue was at hand for... more...

HEIRESS AND HEIR They stood high on the Abbey cliff-edge—an old man, eagle-profiled, hawk-beaked, cockatoo-crested, with angry grey eyebrows running peakily upwards towards his temples at either side ... and a boy. They were the Earl Raincy and his grandson Louis—all the world knew them in that country of the Southern Albanach. For Leo Raincy was a great man, and the lad the heir of all he... more...

CHAPTER I ENDURANCE AND ADVENTURE: THE VOYAGE AND LANDING "So they left ye goodly and pleasante citie, which had been ther resting-place near 12 years; but they knew they were pilgrimes, & looked not much on those things, but lift up their eyes to ye heavens, their dearest cuntrie, and quieted their spirits." —Bradford's History of Plymouth Plantations. Chap. VII. December weather in... more...

Thirty minutes to Litchfield. Conn Maxwell, at the armor-glass front of the observation deck, watched the landscape rush out of the horizon and vanish beneath the ship, ten thousand feet down. He thought he knew how an hourglass must feel with the sand slowly draining out. It had been six months to Litchfield when the Mizar lifted out of La Plata Spaceport and he watched Terra dwindle away. It had been... more...