Fiction Books

DEFINITION AND DEVELOPMENT Mankind has always loved to tell stories and to listen to them. The most primitive and unlettered peoples and tribes have always shown and still show this universal characteristic. As far back as written records go we find stories; even before that time, they were handed down from remote generations by oral tradition. The wandering minstrel followed a very ancient profession.... more...

Early in the Mackinac summer Owen Cunning took his shoemaker's bench and all his belongings to that open cavern on the beach called the Devil's Kitchen, which was said to derive its name from former practices of the Indians. They roasted prisoners there. The inner rock retained old smoke-stains. Though appearing a mere hole in the cliff to passing canoe-men, the Devil's Kitchen was... more...

CHAPTER I. THE TRUST. "I brought them here as to a sanctuary."SOUTHEY. Most of us have heard of the sad times in the middle of the seventeenth century, when Englishmen were at war with one another and quiet villages became battlefields. We hear a great deal about King and Parliament, great lords and able generals, Cavaliers and Roundheads, but this story is to help us to think how it must have... more...

These eight stories are made from our Western Frontier as it was in a past as near as yesterday and almost as by-gone as the Revolution; so swiftly do we proceed. They belong to each other in a kinship of life and manners, and a little through the nearer tie of having here and there a character in common. Thus they resemble faintly the separate parts of a whole, and gain, perhaps, something of the... more...

This was the rainy year. Last year had been the dry one, and it would come again. But they wouldn't be here to see it, Captain Louis Carnahan thought. They had seen four dry ones, and now had come the fourth wet one, and soon they would be going home. For them, this was the end of the cycle. At first they had kept track of the days, checking each one off on their calendars, but the calendars had... more...

CHAPTER I. In Which Morris Suspects How very little does the amateur, dwelling at home at ease, comprehend the labours and perils of the author, and, when he smilingly skims the surface of a work of fiction, how little does he consider the hours of toil, consultation of authorities, researches in the Bodleian, correspondence with learned and illegible Germans—in one word, the vast... more...

I AN OFFER TO OPEN THE RIVER Considering the state of the imperial city of Frankfort, one would not expect to find such a gathering as was assembled in the Kaiser cellar of the Rheingold drinking tavern. Outside in the streets all was turbulence and disorder; a frenzy on the part of the populace taxing to the utmost the efforts of the city authorities to keep it within bounds, and prevent the... more...

CHAPTER I. “He has come to ope the purple testament of war.” —Richard II It was the 7th of August, 1812, when Winnebeg, the confidential Indian messenger of Captain Headley, commanding Fort Dearborn, suddenly made his appearance within the stockade. With a countenance on which was depicted more of the seriousness and concern than usually attach to his race, he requested the officer of the guard,... more...

THE RIDERS. I dare say ’tis a wild, foolish, dangerous thing; but I do it, nevertheless! As for my reasons, they are the strongest. First, I wish to do it. Second, you’ve all opposed my doing it. So there’s an end of the matter!” It was, of course, a woman that spoke,—moreover, a young one. And she added: “Drat the wind! Can’t we ride faster? ’Twill be dark before we reach the... more...

CHAPTER I. WHAT A LETTER FROM A TRAMP STEAMER DID. "I say, what's gone wrong now, Maurice, old fel?" The speaker, a roughly clad boy of about fifteen or over, caught hold of his companion's sleeve and looked sympathetically in his face. The lad whom he called Maurice was better dressed, and he seemed to carry with him a certain air of refinement that was lacking in his friend, who was... more...