Fiction Books

THE BOBSLED RACE "All ready, boys?" "Wait a minute, Jack." "Can't wait; life is too short!" cried Jack Rover gayly. He was seated at the front of a long bobsled holding six boys. "Remember, we've got to be back at the Hall in half an hour." "Please don't mention it!" pleaded Randy Rover, his cousin. "Hi, you fellows! are you going to race or... more...

t filled all the ebony depths of space. Twirling slowly in awesome majesty, the meteor scintillated like a massive black diamond. And with its onrush came a devastating sense of doom. He looked everywhere. To the front, to the side, and below—there was no escape. Transfixed, he stared at the great rock flashing in the fire of myriad suns as it— Bill Staker, passenger rocket captain for... more...

HOW THE WHALE GOT HIS THROAT Nthe sea, once upon a time, O my Best Beloved, there was a Whale, and he ate fishes. He ate the starfish and the garfish, and the crab and the dab, and the plaice and the dace, and the skate and his mate, and the mackereel and the pickereel, and the really truly twirly-whirly eel. All the fishes he could find in all the sea he ate with his mouth—so! Till at last there was... more...

January 6, 1794. If I had undertaken to follow the French revolution through all its absurdities and iniquities, my indolence would long since have taken the alarm, and I should have relinquished a task become too difficult and too laborious. Events are now too numerous and too complicated to be described by occasional remarks; and a narrator of no more pretensions than myself may be allowed to shrink... more...

Chapter 1 THE PROMENADE The piece was a West End success so brilliant that even if you belonged to the intellectual despisers of the British theatre you could not hold up your head in the world unless you had seen it; even for such as you it was undeniably a success of curiosity at least. The stage scene flamed extravagantly with crude orange and viridian light, a rectangle of bedazzling illumination;... more...

It was in a little woodland glen, with a streamlet tumbling through it. She sat with her back to a snowy birch-tree, gazing into the eddies of a pool below; and he lay beside her, upon the soft, mossy ground, reading out of a book of poems. Images of joy were passing before them; and there came four lines with a picture—    "Hard by, a cottage-chimney smokes,    From betwixt two aged... more...

CHAPTER I It was the Pageant of the Prophets which gave Jerry Paxton his first chance. There were several links in the primrose chain of fortune which led him from the first opportunity to the last. The first and most important may be said to have been Mrs. Abercrombie Brendon, who opened her house for a portrait exhibition. She had an eye for men as well as for art, so when handsome Jerry appeared,... more...

CHAPTER I In the older conception, history was a record chiefly of battles, of intrigues, of wicked deeds; it was true that the evil that men did lived after them; at least, the even tenor of their ways was passed over without notice by the chroniclers, and only a salient point, a great battle or a great crime, attracted attention. If little but deeds of violence is recorded about men, still less... more...

The readers of the "Antiquary" will remember the anecdote told with so much effusion by Jonathan Oldbuck. '"Davy Wilson," he said, "commonly called Snuffy Davy, from his inveterate addiction to black rappee, was the very prince of scouts for searching blind alleys, cellars, and stalls, for rare volumes. He had the scent of a slow-hound, sir, and the snap of a bull-dog. He would... more...

HOME AT LAST. It was on a summer's evening early in the month of August that the little Mummy was once again seen on the platform at Dawlish. She looked now very much like she did when we saw her of yore—slightly broadened, it is true, by the added years, but she still wore somewhat rusty widow's black, and her face still had that half-anxious, half-comical expression, which made people... more...