Fiction Books

INTRODUCTION The publishing history of this translation has been sketched by Cross, in his History of Henry Fielding, and may simply be summarized here. The first edition, entitled Ovid's Art of Love Paraphrased and Adapted to the Present Time (or Times) was first issued in February, 1747, and was advertised in the Gentleman's and Scots Magazines in that month. During March, further... more...

In the matter of raising canary-birds—at once strong of body and of note, tamed to associate with humanity on rarely friendly terms, and taught to sing with a sweetness nothing short of heavenly—Andreas Stoffel was second to none. And this was not by any means surprising, for he had been born (and for its saintly patron had been christened) close by the small old town of Andreasberg: which stands... more...

A Simple Story is one of those books which, for some reason or other, have failed to come down to us, as they deserved, along the current of time, but have drifted into a literary backwater where only the professional critic or the curious discoverer can find them out. "The iniquity of oblivion blindly scattereth her poppy;" and nowhere more blindly than in the republic of letters. If we were... more...

THE FIRE-EATERS long time ago there lived a man who had the biggest head in the world. Into it he had crammed all the knowledge that might be gathered from the four corners of the earth. Every one said he was the wisest man living. "If I could only find a wife," said the sage, "as wise for a woman as I am for a man, what a race of head-pieces we could bring into the world!" He waited... more...

IN THE name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. I rise in the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ, who redeemed me by His precious blood. Bless, guide, and protect me from all evil, O Lord! Strengthen me to all good and lead me to eternal life. Amen. After dressing, kneel and say: My Lord and my God! I prostrate myself before the throne of Thy divine Majesty, and give Thee infinite... more...

The Legend of the Bleeding-heart In days of old, when all things in the Wood had speech, there lived within its depths a lone Flax-spinner. She was a bent old creature, and ill to look upon, but all the tongues of all the forest leaves were ever kept a-wagging with the story of her kindly deeds. And even to this day they sometimes whisper low among themselves (because they fain would hold in mind so... more...

INTRODUCTION TO THEFIRST EDITION The favourable reception given to my volume of Russian Fairy Tales has encouraged me to follow it up with a sister volume of stories selected from another Slavonic dialect extraordinarily rich in folk-tales––I mean Ruthenian, the language of the Cossacks. Ruthenian is a language intermediate between Russian and Polish, but quite independent of both. Its territory... more...

It was not a sinister silence. No silence is sinister until it acquires a background of understandable menace. Here there was only the night quiet of Maternity, the silence of noiseless rubber heels on the hospital corridor floor, the faint brush of starched white skirts brushing through doorways into darkened and semi-darkened rooms. But there was something wrong with the silence in the "basket... more...

CHAPTER I THE FIGHT IN THE FOREST Cold winter lay deep in the Canadian wilderness. Over it the moon was rising, like a red pulsating ball, lighting up the vast white silence of the night in a shimmering glow. Not a sound broke the stillness of the desolation. It was too late for the life of day, too early for the nocturnal roamings and voices of the creatures of the night. Like the basin of a great... more...

THE FROG PRINCE. IN the olden time, when wishing was having, there lived a King, whose daughters were all beautiful; but the youngest was so exceedingly beautiful that the Sun himself, although he saw her very often, was enchanted every time she came out into the sunshine. Near the castle of this King was a large and gloomy forest, and in the midst stood an old lime-tree, beneath whose branches... more...