Fiction Books

INTRODUCTION. I was about to address my readers with the usual phrase, that "at the request of friends" I had collected the scattered memorials of the chief events of my life, and now presented them to the reading world, in the hope that some lesson might be learnt from them, which could be useful to the inexperienced when similarly situated. But I will be more candid, and say rather, that... more...

Living as we do in the midst of rivers, water in all its forms, except indeed that of the trackless and mighty ocean, is familiar to our little inland county. The slow majestic Thames, the swift and wandering Kennett, the clear and brimming Loddon, all lend life and verdure to our rich and fertile valleys. Of the great river of England—whose course from its earliest source, near Cirencester, to where... more...

"Quite impossible, as you see, to start without an introduction," laughed Ivan. "Well, then, I mean to place the event described in the poem in the sixteenth century, an age—as you must have been told at school—when it was the great fashion among poets to make the denizens and powers of higher worlds descend on earth and mix freely with mortals... In France all the notaries'... more...

THE LION'S BROOD. INTRODUCTION. Centuries come and go; but the plot of the drama is unchanged, and the same characters play the same parts. Only the actors cast for them are new. It is much worn,—this denarius,—and the lines are softened and blurred,—as of right they should be, when you think that more than two thousand years have passed since it felt the die. It is lying before me now on my... more...

LITTLE MOTHER. One day Kitty's mother called her little daughter to her, and taking both her dimpled dots of hands in her own soft white ones, said, "Kitty, my darling, I am going to New York this morning, to see your dear grandma', and I shall have to leave the house in your charge until I come back. Do you think you can be my little housekeeper for to-day?" "Oh yes, mamma! I... 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...

LIST of the SUBSCRIBERS, A. Copies. SIR. John St. Aubyn, of Clowance, Baronet 20Rev. Mr. Jerveys Allen, of HelstonThomas Saunders Allen of St. Just, Attorney at LawAlexander Allen, Purser of the Wolf Sloop of WarJohn Antony, of St. IvesJohn Antony, junior, of St. Ives B. Joseph Beard, of PenzanceJohn Batten, jun. of ditto, MerchantJoseph Batten, of dittoJohn Blewett, Esq. of Marazion 4George Borlase,... 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...

Paul's Second Letter to the Corinthians 1:1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus through the will of God, and Timothy our brother, to the assembly of God which is at Corinth, with all the saints who are in the whole of Achaia: 1:2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all... 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...