Fiction Books

W. C. Bryant's Discourse on the Life, Genius, and Writings of James Fenimore Cooper, Delivered at Metropolitan Hall, N.Y., February 25, 1852. It is now somewhat more than a year, since the friends of James Fenimore Cooper, in this city; were planning to give a public dinner to his honor. It was intended as an expression both of the regard they bore him personally, and of the pride they took in the... more...

Grant Pemberton sat up suddenly in his berth, every sense straining and alert. What was it that had awakened him in the deathly stillness of the space-flier? His right hand slid under the pillow and clutched the handle of his gun. Its firm coolness was a comforting reality. There it was again. A tiny scratching on the door as though someone was fumbling for the slide-switch. Very quietly he sat,... more...

â–  "I don't really see where this problem has anything to do with me," the CIA man said. "And, frankly, there are a lot of more important things I could be doing." Ford, the physicist, glanced at General LeRoy. The general had that quizzical expression on his face, the look that meant he was about to do something decisive. "Would you like to see the problem... more...

One afternoon of a cold winter's day, when the sun shone forth with chilly brightness, after a long storm, two children asked leave of their mother to run out and play in the new-fallen snow. The elder child was a little girl, whom, because she was of a tender and modest disposition, and was thought to be very beautiful, her parents, and other people who were familiar with her, used to call... more...

The Princess Miss Mehitable Upton had come to the city to buy a stock of goods for the summer trade. She had a little shop at the fashionable resort of Keefeport as well as one in the village of Keefe, and June was approaching. It would soon be time to move. Miss Upton's extreme portliness had caused her hours of laborious selection to fatigue her greatly. Her face was scarlet as she entered a... more...

INTRODUCTION. The father of Daniel Defoe was a butcher in the parish of St. Giles's, Cripplegate, London. In this parish, probably, Daniel Defoe was born in 1661, the year after the restoration of Charles II. The boy's parents wished him to become a dissenting minister, and so intrusted his education to a Mr. Morton who kept an academy for the training of nonconformist divines. How long Defoe... more...

CHAPTER 1 THE COWARDLY LION'S HEROIC DEED In all the world, there is no country or township known that can ever compare against the beauty and magnitude of the Marvelous Land of Oz. This is not a debatable issue. The Land of Oz is not only beautiful with the glittering gemstones that are found commonplace in this remarkable fairyland, but its enchantment goes ever farther. In all the territory of... more...

POINT OF VIEW. This book was not designed as a biography, but is rather a portrait. And, to speak more carefully still, it is not so much this, as my conception of what a portrait of Hawthorne should be. For I cannot write with the authority of one who had known him and had been formally intrusted with the task of describing his life. On the other hand, I do not enter upon this attempt as a mere... more...

CHAPTER I When Lilly Becker eked out with one hand that most indomitable of pianoforte selections, Rubinstein's "Melody in F," her young mind had a habit of transcending itself into some such illusory realm as this: Springtime seen lacily through a phantasmagoria of song. A very floral sward. Fountains that tossed up coloratura bubbles of sheerest aria and a sort of Greek frieze of youth... more...

CHAPTER I "Boy, come here!" Squire Walker was a very pompous man; one of the most notable persons in the little town of Redfield, which, the inquiring young reader will need to be informed, as it is not laid down on any map of Massachusetts that I am acquainted with, is situated thirty-one miles southwest of Boston. I am not aware that Redfield was noted for anything in particular, unless it... more...