Fiction Books

CHAPTER I H.M.S. "QUEEN MARY" A great, long, gray shape moved swiftly through the waters of the Thames. Smoke, pouring from three different points in the middle of this great shape, ascended, straight in the air some distance, then, caught by the wind, drifted westward. It was growing dark. Several hours before, this ocean greyhound—one of Great Britain's monster... more...

CHAPTER I. THE PORTE ST. ANTOINE. On the 26th of October, 1585, the barriers of the Porte St. Antoine were, contrary to custom, still closed at half-past ten in the morning. A quarter of an hour after, a guard of twenty Swiss, the favorite troops of Henri III., then king, passed through these barriers, which were again closed behind them. Once through, they arranged themselves along the hedges, which,... more...

ON THE STREETS OF ANTWERP. “Good-bye, Elmer, and you, too, Rooster!” “It’s too bad we have to hurry home, and break up the Big Five Motorcycle Boys’ combination, just when we’ve been having such royal good times over in the country of the Great War!” “But there was nothing else to do, Elmer, when you got that cable message telling you to take the first steamer home, as your mother was... more...

INTRODUCTION A person standing on the North Rim of the Mesa Verde in southwestern Colorado sees a vast green plain sloping away to the south. The plain drops 2000 feet in ten miles. On a clear evening, before the sun reaches the horizon, the rays of the sun are reflected from great sandstone cliffs forming the walls of deep canyons that appear as crooked yellow lines in the distance. Canyon after... more...

HEPSEY BURKE The noisy, loose-jointed train pulled out of the station, leaving behind it a solitary young man, enveloped in smoke and cinders. In the middle of the platform stood a little building with a curb roof, pointed at both ends like a Noah’s Ark; and the visitor felt that if he could only manage to lift up one side of the roof he would find the animals “two by two,” together with the... more...

his news," said Cliff Hynes, pointing to the newspaper, "means the end of homo Americanus."Out of the Antarctic it came—a wall of viscid, grey, half-human jelly, absorbing and destroying all life that it encountered.The newspaper in question was the hour-sheet of the International Broadcast Association, just delivered by pneumatic tube at the laboratory. It was stamped 1961, Month 13, Day... more...

POEMS BY ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON AUTUMN FIRES In the other gardens  And all up the vale,From the autumn bonfires  See the smoke trail! Pleasant summer over  And all the summer flowers;The red fire blazes,  The grey smoke towers. Sing a song of seasons!  Something bright in all!Flowers in the summer,  Fires in the fall! THE UNSEEN PLAYMATE When children are playing alone on the green,In comes... more...

The author of Lavengro, the Scholar, the Gypsy, and the Priest has after his fitful hour come into his own, and there abides securely.  Borrow’s books,—carelessly written, impatient, petulant, in parts repellant,—have been found so full of the elixir of life, of the charm of existence, of the glory of motion, so instinct with character, and mood, and wayward fancy, that their very names are... more...

Mr. William Hyde was discharged from Deer Lodge Penitentiary a changed man. That was quite in line with the accepted theory of criminal jurisprudence, the warden's discipline, and the chaplain's prayers. Yes, Mr. Hyde was changed, and the change had bitten deep; his humorous contempt for the law had turned to abiding hatred; his sunburned cheeks were pallid, his lungs were weak, and he... more...

New Lamps "The fault I find with the Kingfield High School," proclaimed Kathleen Wilcox, squatting on the top of a boot locker, and putting on a new pair of patent leather house shoes with a deliberate eye to their effect upon her surrounding friends and foes, "the fault I find—yes, I do find fault and I shall, Lesbia Ferrars, though you are the oldest pupil and take the school under your... more...