Fiction Books

CHAPTER I THE LAST SEA LINK WITH FRANCE 1720-1744 The fortress of Louisbourg arose not from victory but from defeat; not from military strength but from naval weakness; not from a new, adventurous spirit of attack, but from a half-despairing hope of keeping one last foothold by the sea. It was not begun till after the fortunes of Louis XIV had reached their lowest ebb at the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713.... more...

CHAPTER I A PLENIPOTENTIARY   Has no writer ever dealt with the dramatic aspect of the unopened envelope? I cannot recall such a passage in any of my authors, and yet to my mind there is much matter for philosophy in what is always the expressionless shell of a boundless possibility. Your friend may run after you in the street, and you know at a glance whether his news is to be good, bad, or... more...

PART 1. EASTERN AUSTRALIA. CHAPTER 1. ORIGINS. 1.1. GOVERNOR PHILLIP. Arthur Phillip, whose claim to be considered the first inland explorer of the south-eastern portion of Australia rests upon his discovery of the Hawkesbury River and a few short excursions to the northward of Port Jackson, had but scant leisure to spare from his official duties for extended geographical research. For all that,... more...

CHAPTER I The first Penhallow crossed the Alleghanies long before the War for Independence and on the frontier of civilisation took up land where the axe was needed for the forest and the rifle for the Indian. He made a clearing and lived a hard life of peril, wearily waiting for the charred stumps to rot away. The younger men of the name in Colonial days and later left the place early, and for the... more...

CHAPTER I I am Geoffrey Benteen, Gentleman Adventurer, with much experience upon the border, where I have passed my life. My father was that Robert Benteen, merchant in furs, the first of the English race to make permanent settlement in New Orleans. Here he established a highly profitable trade with the Indians, his bateaux voyaging as far northward as the falls of the Ohio, while his influence among... more...

CHAPTER ONE I wasn't really a Westerner an' that's why I'm so different from most of 'em. Take your regular bonie fide Westerner an' when he dies he don't turn to dust, he turns to alkali; but when it comes my turn to settle, I'll jest natchely become the good rich soil o' the Indiana cornbelt. I was born in Indiana and I never left it till after I was ten... more...

I. A DISCUSSION SOMEWHAT IN THE AIR The flying ship of Professor Lucifer sang through the skies like a silver arrow; the bleak white steel of it, gleaming in the bleak blue emptiness of the evening. That it was far above the earth was no expression for it; to the two men in it, it seemed to be far above the stars. The professor had himself invented the flying machine, and had also invented nearly... more...

CHAPTER I. MY GOSSIP, MAISIE MAY. It was upon the fair green braes that look over the Black Water of Dee near by where it meets the clear Ken, that Maisie May and I played many a morning at Wanderers and King's men. I mind it as it were yesterday, for the dales and holms were pranked out with white hawthorn and broad gowans, and by our woodland hiding-places little frail wildflowers grew, nodding... more...

CHAPTER I HOW IT STARTEDEthel Morton, called from the color of her eyes Ethel "Blue" to distinguish her from her cousin, also Ethel Morton, whose brown eyes gave her the nickname of Ethel "Brown," was looking out of the window at the big, damp flakes of snow that whirled down as if in a hurry to cover the dull January earth with a gay white carpet. "The giants are surely having a... more...

INTRODUCTION La Cousine Bette was perhaps the last really great thing that Balzac did—for Le Cousin Pons, which now follows it, was actually written before—and it is beyond all question one of the very greatest of his works. It was written at the highest possible pressure, and (contrary to the author's more usual system) in parts, without even seeing a proof, for the Constitutionnel in the... more...