Fiction Books

The Life of the Party I It had been a successful party, most successful. Mrs. Carroway's parties always were successes, but this one nearing its conclusion stood out notably from a long and unbroken Carrowayian record. It had been a children's party; that is to say, everybody came in costume with intent to represent children of any age between one year and a dozen years. But twelve years was... more...

I.OPTIMISM Innumerable writers at the end of the nineteenth century have reviewed the changes which in the last fifty years have come over the civilised world. The record indeed is admitted on all hands to be marvellous. Steam, electricity, machinery, and all the practical inventions of applied science have added enormously to the material wealth, comfort, and luxury of mankind. Intellectually, the... more...

CHAPTER I. I'll tell you a story if you please to attend. G. KNIGHT:Limbo. It was the evening of a soft, warm day in the May of 17—. The sun had already set, and the twilight was gathering slowly over the large, still masses of wood which lay on either side of one of those green lanes so peculiar to England. Here and there, the outline of the trees irregularly shrunk back from the road, leaving... more...

PREFACE By this edition of HAMLET I hope to help the student of Shakspere to understand the play—and first of all Hamlet himself, whose spiritual and moral nature are the real material of the tragedy, to which every other interest of the play is subservient. But while mainly attempting, from the words and behaviour Shakspere has given him, to explain the man, I have cast what light I could upon... more...

CHAPTER I. Jeremiah Brander was one of the most prominent personages in the Cathedral town of Abchester. He inhabited an old-fashioned, red brick house near the end of the High Street. On either side was a high wall facing the street, and from this a garden, enclosing the house, stretched away to a little stream some two hundred yards in the rear; so that the house combined the advantage of a business... more...

Chapter I DRAMATIS PERSONAE "How goes it, Frank? Down first, as usual." "The early bird gets the worm, Major." "Deuced ungallant speech, considering that the lovely Octavia is the worm," and with a significant laugh the major assumed an Englishman's favorite attitude before the fire. His companion shot a quick glance at him, and an expression of anxiety passed over his face... more...

The lights that wink across the sodden moor Like phosphorescent eyes that beckon men To risk fell footsteps in the treacherous fen, And sink in loathsome muck, without a spoor— What ghosts of former days, what dread allure, Abides within this subterranean den? Or, reaching out, snares victims to its ken, With wraith-like fingers, to a peril sure? 'Tis told that evil things lurk out of sight With... more...

Introduction The common garter snake (Thamnophis sirtalis) has by far the most extensive geographic range of any North American reptile, covering most of the continental United States from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from south of the Mexican boundary far north into Canada and southeastern Alaska. Of the several recognized subspecies, the eastern T. s. sirtalis has the most extensive range, but... more...

CHAPTER I. JOHN HENRY'S LUCKY DAYS. Seven, come eleven! After promising Clara J. that I would never again light a pipe at the race track, there I stood, one of the busiest puff-puff laddies on the circuit. Well, the truth of the matter is just this: I fell asleep at the switch and somebody put the white lights all over me. Just how I happened to join the Dream Builders' Association I... more...

CHAPTER I The Puce Dressing-gown The peculiar angle of the earth's axis to the plane of the ecliptic--that angle which is chiefly responsible for our geography and therefore for our history--had caused the phenomenon known in London as summer. The whizzing globe happened to have turned its most civilized face away from the sun, thus producing night in Selwood Terrace, South Kensington. In No. 91... more...