Fiction Books

THE HALL. The ancient house, and the best for housekeeping in this county or the next; and though the master of it write but squire, I know no lord like him. —Merry Beggars. The reader, if he has perused the volumes of the Sketch-Book, will probably recollect something of the Bracebridge family, with which I once passed a Christmas. I am now on another visit to the Hall, having been invited to a... more...

BOOK I How blest my lot, in these sweet fields assign'd Where Peace and Leisure soothe the tuneful mind. SCOTT, of Amwell, Moral Eclogues (1773) Happiness Cricketers on village greens, haymakers in the evening sunshine, small boats that sail before the wind—all these create in me the illusion of Happiness, as if a land of cloudless pleasure, a piece of the old Golden World, were hidden, not (as... more...

JACK AND THE CHECK-BOOK nce upon a time a great many years ago there lived a poor woman who, having invested all her savings in mining shares, was soon brought to penury and want. She had bought her modest little home and all there was in it on the instalment plan, and here she was, upon a certain beautiful morning in late spring, absolutely penniless, and three days off, staring her in the face, were... more...

When the British landed on the west side of Mackinac Island at three o'clock in the morning of July 17,1812, Canadians were ordered to transport the cannon. They had only a pair of six-pounders, but these had to be dragged across the long alluvial stretch to heights which would command the fortress, and sand, rock, bushes, trees, and fallen logs made it a dreadful portage. Voyageurs, however, were... more...

FORCED BENEFITS.   The maxim, that men may safely be left to seek their own interest, and are sure to find it, appears to require some slight qualification, for nothing can be more certain, than that men are often the better of things which have been forced upon them. Those who advocate the idea in its rigour, forget that there are such things as ignorance and prejudice in the world, and that most men... more...

INTRODUCTION—(1829) The plan of this Edition leads me to insert in this place some account of the incidents on which the Novel of WAVERLEY is founded. They have been already given to the public, by my late lamented friend, William Erskine, Esq. (afterwards Lord Kinneder), when reviewing the 'Tales of My Landlord' for the QUARTERLY REVIEW, in 1817. The particulars were derived by the Critic... more...

INTRODUCTION There is the proper mood and the just environment for the reading as well as for the writing of works of fiction, and there can be no better place for the enjoying of a novel by Anthony Trollope than under a tree in Kensington Gardens of a summer day. Under a tree in the avenue that reaches down from the Round Pond to the Long Water. There, perhaps more than anywhere else, lingers the... more...

1 That sketch up there with the boy's cap? Yes; that's the same woman. I wonder whether you could guess who she was. A singular being, is she not? The most marvellous creature, quite, that I have ever met: a wonderful elegance, exotic, far-fetched, poignant; an artificial perverse sort of grace and research in every outline and movement and arrangement of head and neck, and hands and fingers.... more...

CHAPTER I THE VERDICT The March wind swirled boisterously down Grellingham Place, catching up particles of grit and scraps of paper on his way and making them a torment to the passers-by, just as though the latter were not already amply occupied in trying to keep their hats on their heads. But the blustering fellow cared nothing at all about that as he drove rudely against them, slapping their faces... more...

I "Undine Spragg—how can you?" her mother wailed, raising a prematurely-wrinkled hand heavy with rings to defend the note which a languid "bell-boy" had just brought in. But her defence was as feeble as her protest, and she continued to smile on her visitor while Miss Spragg, with a turn of her quick young fingers, possessed herself of the missive and withdrew to the window to read... more...