Fiction Books

INTRODUCTIONMammals from along the Alaska Highway were obtained for the University of Kansas Museum of Natural History in the summers of 1947 and 1948 by Mr. J. R. Alcorn, field representative of the Museum. He and his family visited Alberta, British Columbia, the Yukon Territory and Alaska in an automobile and trailer from June 9, 1947, to September 6, 1947, and again from June 8, 1948, to August 24,... more...

PREFACE. ———— The history of the symbol of the cross has had an attraction for the author ever since, as an enquiring youth, he found himself unable to obtain satisfactory answers to four questions concerning the same which presented themselves to his mind. The first of those questions was why John the Baptist, who was beheaded before Jesus was executed, and so far as we are told never had... more...

He slipped a green carnation into his evening coat, fixed it in its place with a pin, and looked at himself in the glass, the long glass that stood near the window of his London bedroom. The summer evening was so bright that he could see his double clearly, even though it was just upon seven o'clock. There he stood in his favourite and most characteristic attitude, with his left knee slightly... more...

Aristides Homos, an Emissary of the Altrurian Commonwealth, visited the United States during the summer of 1893 and the fall and winter following. For some weeks or months he was the guest of a well-known man of letters at a hotel in one of our mountain resorts; in the early autumn he spent several days at the great Columbian Exhibition in Chicago; and later he came to New York, where he remained until... more...

PREFACE Ever since—almost exactly a hundred years ago—the Grimms produced their Fairy Tale Book, folk-lorists have been engaged in making similar collections for all the other countries of Europe, outside Germany, till there is scarcely a nook or a corner in the whole continent that has not been ransacked for these products of the popular fancy. The Grimms themselves and most of their followers... more...

The Bishop was walking across the fields to afternoon service. It was a hot July day, and he walked slowly—for there was plenty of time—with his eyes fixed on the far-off, shimmering sea. That minstrel of heat, the locust, hidden somewhere in the shade of burning herbage, pulled a long, clear, vibrating bow across his violin, and the sound fell lazily on the still air—the only sound on earth... more...

CHAPTER I. THE VILLAGE.—ITS INHABITANTS.—AN OLD MANORHOUSE: AND AN ENGLISHFAMILY; THEIR HISTORY, INVOLVING A MYSTERIOUS EVENT. "Protected by the divinity they adored, supported by the earth which they cultivated, and at peace with themselves, they enjoyed the sweets of life, without dreading or desiring dissolution." Numa Pompilius. In the country of—there is a sequestered hamlet, which I... more...

In the old times of religious gloom and intolerance lived Richard Digby, the gloomiest and most intolerant of a stern brotherhood. His plan of salvation was so narrow, that, like a plank in a tempestuous sea, it could avail no sinner but himself, who bestrode it triumphantly, and hurled anathemas against the wretches whom he saw struggling with the billows of eternal death. In his view of the matter,... more...

CHAPTER I. THE BOY CHAKA PROPHESIES You ask me, my father, to tell you the tale of the youth of Umslopogaas, holder of the iron Chieftainess, the axe Groan-maker, who was named Bulalio the Slaughterer, and of his love for Nada, the most beautiful of Zulu women. It is long; but you are here for many nights, and, if I live to tell it, it shall be told. Strengthen your heart, my father, for I have much to... more...

My Birth, Parentage, and Family Pretensions—Unfortunately I prove to be a Detrimental or Younger Son, which is remedied by a trifling accident—I hardly receive the first elements of science from my Father, when the elements conspire against me, and I am left an Orphan. Gentle reader, I was born upon the water—not upon the salt and angry ocean, but upon the fresh and rapid-flowing river. It was in... more...