Fiction Books

The coppers smashed my father's printer when I was eight. I remember the hot, cling-film-in-a-microwave smell of it, and Da's look of ferocious concentration as he filled it with fresh goop, and the warm, fresh-baked feel of the objects that came out of it. The coppers came through the door with truncheons swinging, one of them reciting the terms of the warrant through a bullhorn. One of... more...

CHAPTER I. LE CHEF FALLS IN LOVE WITH THE HALF-BREED MAIDEN. The sun was hanging low in the clear blue over the prairie, as two riders hurried their ponies along a blind trail toward a distant range of purple hills that lay like sleepy watchers along the banks of the Red River. The beasts must have ridden far, for their flanks were white with foam, and their riders were splashed with froth and mud,... more...

AUTHOR'S NOTE The six stories in this volume are the result of some three or four years of occasional work. The dates of their writing are far apart, their origins are various. None of them are connected directly with personal experiences. In all of them the facts are inherently true, by which I mean that they are not only possible but that they have actually happened. For instance, the last story... more...

LECTURE I THE TYPES OF PHILOSOPHIC THINKING As these lectures are meant to be public, and so few, I have assumed all very special problems to be excluded, and some topic of general interest required. Fortunately, our age seems to be growing philosophical again—still in the ashes live the wonted fires. Oxford, long the seed-bed, for the english world, of the idealism inspired by Kant and Hegel, has... more...

The Outcast. A furious gust of wind tore down the chimney, blowing the smoke out into the small but cosily-furnished sitting-room of the little cottage at Kingston-on-Thames, and sending a shower of sparks hissing and spluttering on to the hearth-rug, where they were promptly trodden out by a tall, fair-haired young giant, who lazily removed his feet from a chair on which they reposed, for the purpose.... more...

LEAVE IT TO JEEVES Jeeves—my man, you know—is really a most extraordinary chap. So capable. Honestly, I shouldn't know what to do without him. On broader lines he's like those chappies who sit peering sadly over the marble battlements at the Pennsylvania Station in the place marked "Inquiries." You know the Johnnies I mean. You go up to them and say: "When's the next... more...

CHAPTER I INTRODUCES JOE "Come here, you Joe, and be quick about it!" The boy addressed, a stout boy of fifteen, with an honest, sun-browned face, looked calmly at the speaker. "What's wanted?" he asked. "Brush me off, and don't be all day about it!" said Oscar Norton impatiently. Joe's blue eyes flashed indignantly at the tone of the other. "You can brush... more...

Chapter I How the Great Wind Came to Beacon House A wind sprang high in the west, like a wave of unreasonable happiness, and tore eastward across England, trailing with it the frosty scent of forests and the cold intoxication of the sea. In a million holes and corners it refreshed a man like a flagon, and astonished him like a blow. In the inmost chambers of intricate and embowered houses it woke like... more...

AMOS KILBRIGHT: HIS ADSCITITIOUS EXPERIENCES. [This story is told by Mr. Richard Colesworthy, an attorney-at-law, in a large town in one of our Eastern States. The fact that Mr. Colesworthy is a practical man, and but little given, outside of his profession, to speculative theorizing, adds a weight to his statements which they might not otherwise possess.] In the practice of my profession I am in the... more...

Who Knows? These things are quite improbable, to be sure; but are they impossible? Our big world rolls over as smoothly as it did centuries ago, without a squeak to show it needs oiling after all these years of revolution. But times change because men change, and because civilization, like John Brown's soul, goes ever marching on. The impossibilities of yesterday become the accepted facts of... more...