Fiction Books

I THE LONE TRAVELER When Mistress Spring starts from way down South to bring joy and gladness to the Green Meadows and the Green Forest, the Laughing Brook and the Smiling Pool, a great many travelers start with her or follow her. Winsome Bluebird goes just a little way ahead of her, for Winsome is the herald of Mistress Spring. Then comes Honker the Goose, and all the world hearing his voice from way,... more...

GENTLE SISTER SOUTH WIND ARRIVES "Good news, good news for every one, above or down below,For Master Winsome Bluebird's come to whistle off the snow!" All the Green Meadows and all the Green Forest had heard the news. Peter Rabbit had seen to that. And just as soon as each of the little meadow and forest folks heard it, he hurried out to listen for himself and make sure that it was true.... more...

JOEL AND THE SNAKE "Come on, Dave!" It was Joel's voice, and Polly pricked up her ears. "'Tisn't going to hurt you. Hoh! you're a 'fraid-cat—old 'fraid-cat!" "No, I'm not 'fraid-cat," declared little Davie, trying to speak stoutly; "I'm coming, Joel," and his little rusty shoes pattered unevenly down the rickety board walk.... more...

CHAPTER I Under a canopied platform stood a young girl, modeling in clay. The glare of the California sunshine, filtering through the canvas, became mellowed, warm and golden. Above the girl's head—yellow like the stalk of wheat—there hovered a kind of aureola, as if there had risen above it a haze of impalpable gold dust. A poet I know might have cried out that here ended his quest of the... more...

CHAPTER I You don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain't no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth. That is nothing. I never seen anybody but lied one time or another, without it was Aunt Polly, or the widow, or maybe Mary.... more...

Preface. In the history of colonisation there is probably no example on record so extraordinary as that of the emigration from the colony of the Cape of Good Hope, in 1835, of nearly six thousand souls, who, without guides or any definite knowledge of where they were going or what obstacles they would encounter, yet placed their all in the lottery and journeyed into the wilderness. The cause of this... more...

PREFACE Every man of determined inquiry, who will ask, without the dread of discovering more than he dares believe, what is divinity? what is law? what is physic? what is war? and what is trade? will have great reason to doubt at some times of the virtue, and at others of the utility, of each of these different employments. What profession should a man of principle, who is anxiously desirous to promote... more...

OUR HERO DEPARTS FROM VIENNA, AND QUITS THE DOMAIN OF VENUS FOR THE ROUGH FIELD OF MARS. Luckily for our adventurer, before she adhered to this determination, the young Count de Melvil was summoned to Presburg by his father, who desired to see him, before he should take the field, in consequence of a rupture between the Emperor and the French King; and Fathom of course quitted Vienna, in order to... more...

INTRODUCTION The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Smollett's third novel, was given to the world in 1753. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, writing to her daughter, the Countess of Bute, over a year later [January 1st, 1755], remarked that "my friend Smollett . . . has certainly a talent for invention, though I think it flags a little in his last work." Lady Mary was both right and wrong.... more...

REPAIRS TO THE METROPOLIS, AND ENROLS HIMSELF AMONG THE SONS OF PAEAN. Before this affair could be brought to a proper explanation, the season being almost ended, the ladies departed from Tunbridge, and in a little time Doctor Fathom followed them to London, having previously obtained permission to visit them in that metropolis. He had solicited the same favour of some other families, in which he hoped... more...