Fiction Books

CHAPTER I. HOW THE BLACK SHEEP CAME FORTH FROM THE FOLD. The great bell of Beaulieu was ringing. Far away through the forest might be heard its musical clangor and swell. Peat-cutters on Blackdown and fishers upon the Exe heard the distant throbbing rising and falling upon the sultry summer air. It was a common sound in those parts—as common as the chatter of the jays and the booming of the bittern.... more...

CHAPTER I Here is a story that has lain dormant for seven hundred years. At first it was suppressed by one of the Plantagenet kings of England. Later it was forgotten. I happened to dig it up by accident. The accident being the relationship of my wife's cousin to a certain Father Superior in a very ancient monastery in Europe. He let me pry about among a quantity of mildewed and musty manuscripts... more...

CHAPTER I. THE THIEVES' CORNER At the foot of the hill on which stands the Campidoglio at Rome, and close beneath the ruins that now encumber the Tarpeian rock, runs a mean-looking alley, called the Viccolo D'Orsi, but better known to the police as the 'Viccolo dei Ladri,' or 'Thieves' Corner'—the epithet being, it is said, conferred in a spirit the very reverse of... more...

A POOR MAN'S TALE OF A PATENT I AM not used to writing for print. What working-man, that never labours less (some Mondays, and Christmas Time and Easter Time excepted) than twelve or fourteen hours a day, is? But I have been asked to put down, plain, what I have got to say; and so I take pen-and-ink, and do it to the best of my power, hoping defects will find excuse. I was born nigh London, but... more...

CHAPTER I Having resigned his commission, Washington stood not upon the order of his going, but went at once to Virginia, and reached Mount Vernon the next day, in season to enjoy the Christmas-tide at home. It was with a deep sigh of relief that he sat himself down again by his own fireside, for all through the war the one longing that never left his mind was for the banks of the Potomac. He loved... more...

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CHAPTER I. PROLOGUE. To-day I am at home in the little town of the fens, where the Ahwewee River falls some thirty feet from one level of land to another. Both broad levels were covered with forest of ash and maple, spruce and tamarack; but long ago, some time in the thirties, impious hands built dams on the impetuous Ahwewee, and wide marshes and drowned wood-lands are the result. Yet just immediately... more...

THE Methodist circuit-preacher is in the way of seeing human nature in many rare and curious aspects. Under the itinerating system, the United States are divided into conferences, districts, and circuits. The conference usually embraces a State, the district a certain division of the State or conference, and the circuit a portion of the district. To every circuit is assigned a preacher, who is expected... more...

REPRINTS OF EARLY BIBLES. In 1833 the authorities of the Clarendon Press put forth a quarto reprint, word for word, page for page, and letter for letter, of the first large black-letter folio edition of 1611, of the present authorised or Royal version of the Bible. So accurate was it, that even manifest errors of the press were retained. It was published that the reader might judge whether the original... more...

CHAPTER 1.—Early Recollections. In my early recollection Chelsea had many industries characteristic of the village, which have entirely passed away.  The only conveyance—a two-horse stage coach, called the “Village Clock”—used to run from the Cross Keys, in Lawrence Street, twice a day, for one shilling to Charing Cross, and one-and-six pence to the City.  It would stop to change horses at... more...