Fiction Books

"There's the island, Parker!" Retch called. Bill Parker shifted the controls of the 'copter and the big craft swung in the direction Retch was pointing. Squinting his eyes against the sun glare rising from the Pacific, Parker clearly saw the island. It was miles away as yet but it swam like a mirage suspended just above the surface of the sea. The island was not large—Parker guessed... more...

COUNTESS NATALIE DOLGORUCKI "No, Natalie, weep no more! Quick, dry your tears. Let not my executioner see that we can feel pain or weep for sorrow!" Drying her tears, she attempted a smile, but it was an unnatural, painful smile. "Ivan," said she, "we will forget, forget all, excepting that we love each other, and thus only can I become cheerful. And tell me, Ivan, have I not always... more...

Puck's Song See you the dimpled track that runs,All hollow through the wheat?O that was where they hauled the gunsThat smote King Philip's fleet! See you our little mill that clacks,So busy by the brook?She has ground her corn and paid her taxEver since Domesday Book. See you our stilly woods of oak,And the dread ditch beside?O that was where the Saxons broke,On the day that Harold died! See... more...

I. MR. BLACKLOCK When Napoleon was about to crown himself—so I have somewhere read—they submitted to him the royal genealogy they had faked up for him. He crumpled the parchment and flung it in the face of the chief herald, or whoever it was. "My line," said he, "dates from Montenotte." And so I say, my line dates from the campaign that completed and established my fame—from... more...

PROLOGUE: THE OLYMPIANSLOOKING back to those days of old, ere the gate shut to behind me, I can see now that to children with a proper equipment of parents these things would have worn a different aspect. But to those whose nearest were aunts and uncles, a special attitude of mind may be allowed. They treated us, indeed, with kindness enough as to the needs of the flesh, but after that with... more...

It took a fierce battle with the prehistoric Cro-Magnons, and a modern wrestling match with the Russian Bear, before Oogie, the Caveman, finally won beautiful Sala for his womanFrom the caves men appeared, dragging after them the women who had been clubbed into submission  ill him...!" "Moider 'im...!" "Tear his arm off!" The cries and shrieks and boos and confusion were... more...

ÉPÎTRE DÉDICATOIRE 17 Août, 1905. MON CHER DUJARDIN, Il se trouve que je suis Гѓ  Paris en train de corriger mes épreuves au moment où vous donnez les dernières retouches au manuscrit de 'La Source du Fleuve Chrétien,' un beau titre—si beau que je n'ai pu m'empêcher de le 'chipper' pour le livre de Ralph Elles, un personnage de mon roman qui ne parait... more...

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON AN ELEGY High on his Patmos of the Southern SeasOur northern dreamer sleeps,Strange stars above him, and above his graveStrange leaves and wings their tropic splendours wave,While, far beneath, mile after shimmering mile,The great Pacific, with its faery deeps,Smiles all day long its silken secret smile. Son of a race nomadic, finding stillIts home in regions furthest from its... more...

I. Real and Ideal—these are the handy terms, admiring or disapproving, which criticism claps with random facility on to every imaginable school. This artist or group of artists goes in for the real—the upright, noble, trumpery, filthy real; that other artist or group of artists seeks after the ideal—the ideal which may mean sublimity or platitude. We summon every living artist to state whether he... more...

CHAPTER I For forty-eight hours the snow-storm had been raging unabated over New York. After a wild and windy Thursday night the world had awakened to a mysterious whirl of white on Friday morning, and to a dark, strange day of steady snowing. Now, on Saturday, dirty snow was banked and heaped in great blocks everywhere, and still the clean, new flakes fluttered and twirled softly down, powdering and... more...