Fiction Books

It was shortly after midnight when a persistent nightmare aroused Don Foster from sleep. For a moment he lay drowsily in his blankets there on the sand, with memory of the nightmare still vivid. It had been a monstrous flying thing like a giant blue-bottle fly that he had been battling in his sleep. Memory of the thing's high-pitched, droning buzz still rang in his ears. Then abruptly he realized... more...

EARLY LIFE AT BROOK FARM AND CONCORD George William Curtis was born in Providence, February 24, 1824. From the age of six to eleven he was in the school of C.W. Greene at Jamaica Plain, and then, until he was fifteen, attended school in Providence. His brother Burrill, two years older, was his inseparable companion, and they were strongly attached to each other. About 1835 Curtis came under the... more...

THE PLUNDERER I Roger Payne had come to a decision. He waited until the office door had closed behind the departing stenographer, then swung his long legs recklessly upon his flat-top desk and shouted across the room at his partner: "Jim Tibbetts!" Tibbetts frowned. He was footing a column of cost figures and the blast from his young partner nearly made him lose count. Payne grinned. He liked... more...

CHAPTER I. THE BALL. Belonging to one of the first families in France, still young, and with a face that would have been agreeable had it not been for the almost ridiculous and disproportionate length of his nose, M. de Lucenay joined to a restless love of constant motion the habit of talking and laughing fearfully loud upon subjects quite at variance with good taste or polished manners, and throwing... more...

CHAPTER I The rays of the September sun flooded the great halls of the old chateau of the Dukes of Charmerace, lighting up with their mellow glow the spoils of so many ages and many lands, jumbled together with the execrable taste which so often afflicts those whose only standard of value is money. The golden light warmed the panelled walls and old furniture to a dull lustre, and gave back to the... more...

'Tis two score years since Carroll's art, With topsy-turvy magic,SentAlicewondering through a partHalf-comic and half-tragic. Enchanting Alice! Black-and-white Has made your deeds perennial;And naught save "Chaos and old Night"Can part you now fromTenniel; But still you are a Type, and based In Truth, likeLearandHamlet;And Types may be re-draped to tasteIn cloth-of-gold or camlet.... more...

CARNAL CHRISTIANS. I. 1 Corinthians 3: 1.—And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal.The apostle here speaks of two stages of the Christian life, two types of Christians: "I could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ." They were Christians, in Christ, but instead of being spiritual Christians, they were... more...

Chapter One. A Voyage of Discovery. I had not a friend in the world. My own fault? No doubt. It is usually said so, at any rate, so of course must be true. For I, Kenrick Holt, who do this tale unfold, am not by nature and temperament an expansive animal, rather the reverse, being constitutionally reticent; and, is it not written that the world takes you at your own valuation? Still, I had managed to... more...

My dear son:— The doctors have left and I am told that in a few hours I shall die. In my lifetime the world has progressed from the chaotic turmoil of the early Atomic era to the peacefulness and tranquility of our present age, and I die content. For ten years I have instructed you in all that you will need for the future. One final lesson remains to be taught. On the wall of my bedchamber hangs a... more...

CHAPTER I. THE ENCHANTER AND THE WARRIOR. It was the summer of the year 1491, and the armies of Ferdinand and Isabel invested the city of Granada. The night was not far advanced; and the moon, which broke through the transparent air of Andalusia, shone calmly over the immense and murmuring encampment of the Spanish foe, and touched with a hazy light the snow-capped summits of the Sierra Nevada,... more...