Fiction Books

Little Clare’s first home. “The mossy marbles restOn the lips he hath pressedIn their bloom,And the names he loved to hearHave been carved for many a yearOn the tomb.”  Oliver Wendell Holmes. “Cold!” said the carrier, blowing on his fingers to keep them warm. “Cold, bully Penmore!” ejaculated Hal Dockett,—farrier, horse-leech, and cow-doctor in ordinary to the town of Bodmin and its... more...

It might well be called the country of the outlaw, this vast tract of dense mountain forests and craggy ravines, this congeries of swirling torrents and cataracts and rapids. Here wild beasts lurked out their savage lives, subsisting by fang and prey,—the panther, the bear, the catamount, the wolf,—and like unto them, ferocious and fugitive, both fearsome and afraid, the man with a "wolf's... more...

All Dave Miller wanted to do was commit suicide in peace. He tried, but the things that happened after he'd pulled the trigger were all wrong. Like everyone standing around like statues. No St. Peter, no pearly gate, no pitchforks or halos. He might just as well have saved the bullet!Dave Miller would never have done it, had he been in his right mind. The Millers were not a melancholy stock, hardly... more...

I. INTRODUCTION. There are but few more interesting spots in Africa than the little corner of the west coast occupied by the Republic of Liberia. It has been the scene of a series of experiments absolutely unique in history—experiments from which we are to derive the knowledge upon which we must rely in the solution of the weighty problems connected with the development of a dark continent, and with... more...

CHAPTER I The Road THOUGH it was six days since Daniel Ordway had come out of prison, he was aware, when he reached the brow of the hill, and stopped to look back over the sunny Virginia road, that he drank in the wind as if it were his first breath of freedom. At his feet the road dropped between two low hills beyond which swept a high, rolling sea of broomsedge; and farther still—where the... more...

The lips of a strange woman drop as an honey-comb, and her mouth is smoother then oyl: But her end is bitter as wormwood, and sharp as a two-edged sword. The Text here presents you with a strange woman; with whom though I desire not to procure you a familiar acquaintance, yet I'le give you such cognizance of her, and excite that abhorrency of her baseness in all your minds, that if any have... more...

CHAPTER I A LOST LANDMARK "The sins of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me." These are the words that have followed me always. This is the curse which has fallen on my life. If I had not known my father, if I had not loved him, if I had not closed his eyes in desert silence deeper than the silence of the grave, even if I could have buried and... more...

GUY DE MAUPASSANTA STUDY BY POL. NEVEUX"I entered literary life as a meteor, and I shall leave it like a thunderbolt." These words of Maupassant to Jose Maria de Heredia on the occasion of a memorable meeting are, in spite of their morbid solemnity, not an inexact summing up of the brief career during which, for ten years, the writer, by turns undaunted and sorrowful, with the fertility of a... more...

TO THE PUBLIC. The papers which are herewith submitted to you for your perusal and consideration, were delivered into my hands by Mr. Berl Trout. The papers will speak for themselves, but Mr. Trout now being dead I feel called upon to say a word concerning him. Mr. Berl Trout was Secretary of State in the Imperium In Imperio, from the day of its organization until the hour of his sad death. He was,... more...

THE LOVE-PHILTRE OF IKEY SCHOENSTEIN The Blue Light Drug Store is downtown, between the Bowery and First Avenue, where the distance between the two streets is the shortest. The Blue Light does not consider that pharmacy is a thing of bric-a-brac, scent and ice-cream soda. If you ask it for pain-killer it will not give you a bonbon. The Blue Light scorns the labour-saving arts of modern pharmacy. It... more...