Fiction Books

CHAPTER ONE EXPERIMENTS IN EGYPT AND EURASIA Thousands of years before the city of Rome was ringed with its six miles of stone wall, other peoples in Asia, Eastern Europe and Africa were building civilizations. New techniques of excavation, identification and preservation, subsidized by an increasingly affluent human society, and developed during the past two centuries of archeological research have... more...

OUR PARISH CHAPTER I—THE BEADLE.  THE PARISH ENGINE.  THE SCHOOLMASTER How much is conveyed in those two short words—‘The Parish!’  And with how many tales of distress and misery, of broken fortune and ruined hopes, too often of unrelieved wretchedness and successful knavery, are they associated!  A poor man, with small earnings, and a large family, just manages to live on from hand to... more...

CHAPTER I. THE PORTE ST. ANTOINE. On the 26th of October, 1585, the barriers of the Porte St. Antoine were, contrary to custom, still closed at half-past ten in the morning. A quarter of an hour after, a guard of twenty Swiss, the favorite troops of Henri III., then king, passed through these barriers, which were again closed behind them. Once through, they arranged themselves along the hedges, which,... more...

PREFACE It comes to me as a very welcome piece of news, and yet a piece of news which I have been long expecting, that a special American edition of Edmund Leamy's Irish fairy tales is about to be published. This, then, will be the third issue of the little book. I venture to predict that it will not be the last; and I fancy the American publisher who has had the judgment to take the matter up... more...

Mr. William Hyde was discharged from Deer Lodge Penitentiary a changed man. That was quite in line with the accepted theory of criminal jurisprudence, the warden's discipline, and the chaplain's prayers. Yes, Mr. Hyde was changed, and the change had bitten deep; his humorous contempt for the law had turned to abiding hatred; his sunburned cheeks were pallid, his lungs were weak, and he... more...

Miss Abercrombie, the manual therapist patted the old man on the shoulder. "You're doing just fine, Mr. Lieberman. Show it to me when you have finished." The oldster in the stained convalescent suit gave her a quick, shy smile and went back to his aimless smearing in the finger paints. Miss Abercrombie smoothed her smock down over trim hips and surveyed the other patients working at the... more...

CHAPTER I. "Since I can do no good because a woman,Reach constantly at something that is near it.—The Maid's Tragedy: BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. Miss Brooke had that kind of beauty which seems to be thrown into relief by poor dress. Her hand and wrist were so finely formed that she could wear sleeves not less bare of style than those in which the Blessed Virgin appeared to Italian painters; and... more...

THE SHE-WOLF Leonard Bilsiter was one of those people who have failed to find this world attractive or interesting, and who have sought compensation in an “unseen world” of their own experience or imagination—or invention.  Children do that sort of thing successfully, but children are content to convince themselves, and do not vulgarise their beliefs by trying to convince other people.  Leonard... more...

CHAPTER I. "OUT OF THE EVERYWHERE INTO THE HERE." On October 1, 1847, I am credibly informed, my baby eyes opened to the light(?) of a London afternoon at 5.39. A friendly astrologer has drawn for me the following chart, showing the position of the planets at this, to me fateful, moment; but I know nothing of astrology, so feel no wiser as I gaze upon my horoscope.   Horoscope of Annie Besant.... more...

On a dreary afternoon of November, when London was closely wrapped in a yellow fog, Hermione Lester was sitting by the fire in her house in Eaton Place reading a bundle of letters, which she had just taken out of her writing-table drawer. She was expecting a visit from the writer of the letters, Emile Artois, who had wired to her on the previous day that he was coming over from Paris by the night train... more...