Fiction Books

PREFACE By this edition of HAMLET I hope to help the student of Shakspere to understand the play—and first of all Hamlet himself, whose spiritual and moral nature are the real material of the tragedy, to which every other interest of the play is subservient. But while mainly attempting, from the words and behaviour Shakspere has given him, to explain the man, I have cast what light I could upon... more...

CHAPTER I. I'll tell you a story if you please to attend. G. KNIGHT:Limbo. It was the evening of a soft, warm day in the May of 17—. The sun had already set, and the twilight was gathering slowly over the large, still masses of wood which lay on either side of one of those green lanes so peculiar to England. Here and there, the outline of the trees irregularly shrunk back from the road, leaving... more...

The Life of the Party I It had been a successful party, most successful. Mrs. Carroway's parties always were successes, but this one nearing its conclusion stood out notably from a long and unbroken Carrowayian record. It had been a children's party; that is to say, everybody came in costume with intent to represent children of any age between one year and a dozen years. But twelve years was... more...

UNDER THE SWORD OF DAMOCLES. We built our cabin high on the slopes of the Sangre de Christo range, overlooking the broad, level San Luis Valley, in Colorado. At the rear of the cabin rose a towering cliff or rather a huge slab of rock standing edgewise more than two hundred feet high, apparently the upheaval of some mighty convulsion of nature in ages gone. Near the base of this cliff flowed a clear... more...

In the morning of his two hundred and fiftieth year Shepperalk the centaur went to the golden coffer, wherein the treasure of the centaurs was, and taking from it the hoarded amulet that his father, Jyshak, in the years of his prime, had hammered from mountain gold and set with opals bartered from the gnomes, he put it upon his wrist, and said no word, but walked from his mother's cavern. And he... more...

BIG GAME. ... The first shot was just a rib too far back, and though it staggered him, he didn't stop to it. Out tinkled cartridge number one and in went a second, and "cluck" said the breech-block. And then as he slewed round, I got the next bullet home, bang behind the shoulder. That did it. He tucked down his long Roman nose, and went heels over tip like a shot rabbit; and when a big... more...

“I believe I have the pleasure of seeing Mr ——,” said a voice in English, as I paused for a moment, my breakfast concluded, before the door of a Palais Royal coffee-house, planning the disposal of my day. I looked at the person who thus addressed me; and, although I pique myself on rarely forgetting the face of an acquaintance, in this instance my memory was completely at fault. But for his... more...

CHAPTER I. Along the banks of the Red River, over those fruitful plains brightened with wild flowers in summer, and swept with fierce storms in the winter-time, is written the life story of Louis Riel. Chance was not blind when she gave as a field to this man's ambition the plains whereon vengeful Chippewas and ferocious Sioux had waged their battles for so many centuries; a country dyed so often... more...

Slovenly BetsyBetsy would never wash herselfWhen from her bed she rose,But just as quickly as she couldShe hurried on her clothes.To keep her clothes all nice and cleanMiss Betsy took no pains;In holes her stockings always were,Her dresses filled with stains.Sometimes she went day after dayAnd never combed her hair,While little feathers from her bedStuck on it here and there.The schoolboys, when they... more...

CHAPTER I THE MEN WHO CHANGED SHIPS Between the lighter-load of burning beeves that came bumping down along their line at noon, a salvo of bombs slapped across them at one o’clock from a raiding Bulgar air squadron, a violent Levantine squall which all but broke them loose from their moorings at sundown, and a signal to raise steam for full speed with all dispatch at midnight, it had been a rather... more...