Fiction Books

It was now almost too dark to distinguish objects; duskier and vaguer became the flat world of marshes, set here and there with cypress and bounded only by far horizons; and at last land and water disappeared behind the gathered curtains of the night. There was no sound from the waste except the wind among the withered reeds and the furrowing splash of wheel and hoof over the submerged causeway. The... more...

INTRODUCTION Of all the novels and stories which Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley left in manuscript, only one novelette, Mathilda, is complete. It exists in both rough draft and final copy. In this story, as in all Mary Shelley's writing, there is much that is autobiographical: it would be hard to find a more self-revealing work. For an understanding of Mary's character, especially as she saw... more...

CHAPTER I JIM LESLIE WRITES A LETTER In a fifth-story sitting room of a New York boarding house four youths were holding a discussion. The sitting room was large and square, and in the wildest disorder, which was, however, sublimated into a certain system by an illuminated device to the effect that one should "Have a Place for Everything, and then there'll be one Place you won't have to... more...

A PROPOSAL. She was eighteen years old and would graduate in a few weeks, yet Elsie looked like a child, lying there in that little white bed, with her golden curls scattered on the pillow and the soft whiteness of her neck and hands shaded by the delicate Valenciennes with which her night robe was profusely decorated. A quantity of hot house flowers lay scattered on the counterpane, where the girl had... more...

CHAPTER I ANDY BURKE "John, saddle my horse, and bring him around to the door." The speaker was a boy of fifteen, handsomely dressed, and, to judge from his air and tone, a person of considerable consequence, in his own opinion, at least. The person addressed was employed in the stable of his father, Colonel Anthony Preston, and so inferior in social condition that Master Godfrey always... more...

PREFACE The aim and purport of this edition of the Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge is to provide the general reader with an authoritative list of the poems and dramas hitherto published, and at the same time to furnish the student with an exhaustive summary of various readings derived from published and unpublished sources, viz. (1) the successive editions issued by the author, (2) holograph... more...

THE BOGIE MEN Scene: A Shed near where a coach stops. Darby comes in. Has a tin can of water in one hand, a sweep's bag and brush in the other. He lays down bag on an empty box and puts can on the floor. Is taking a showy suit of clothes out of bag and admiring them and is about to put them on when he hears some one coming and hurriedly puts them back into the bag. Taig: (At door.) God save all... more...

THE SEVEN LITTLE SISTERS. THE BALL ITSELF. Dear children, I have heard of a wonderful ball, which floats in the sweet blue air, and has little soft white clouds about it, as it swims along. There are many charming and astonishing things to be told of this ball, and some of them you shall hear. In the first place, you must know that it is a very big ball; far bigger than the great soft ball, of bright... more...

The Bad Boy Begins a Diary--Dad Has Become Manager for aCircus--The Bad Boy Expects to Curry the Hyena and Do Stuntson the Trapeze--Ma Says Pa Will Ogle the CircassianBeauty--Pa Buys Some Circus Clothes and Lets His WhiskersGrow. April 10, 19..--I never thought it would come to this, that I should keep a diary, because I am not a good little boy. Nobody ever keeps a diary except a boy that wants to be... more...

INTRODUCTION. During the last few years I have been urged by people in all parts of the world to re-issue some of the wonderful stories of genuine psychic experiences collected by my Father several years ago. These stories were published by him in two volumes in 1891-92; the first, entitled Real Ghost Stories, created so much interest and brought in so large a number of other stories of genuine... more...