Fiction Books

PROLOGUE In the October of 1642 there came to Cambridge a man from over-seas. He was travelling backward, after the interval of a generation, through the stages of his youth. From his landing at the port whence he had sailed so many years before in chase of fortune he came to London, where he had bustled and thundered as a stage-player. Here he found a new drama playing in a theatre that took a capital... more...

CHAPTER I. JENNIE MAKES HER TOILETTE AND THE ACQUAINTANCE OF A PORTER. Miss Jennie Baxter, with several final and dainty touches that put to rights her hat and dress—a little pull here and a pat there—regarded herself with some complacency in the large mirror that was set before her, as indeed she had every right to do, for she was an exceedingly pretty girl. It is natural that handsome young women... more...

INTRODUCTION The title chosen by its author for this little volume would assuredly commend it to the Naval Service, even if that author's name were not—as it is—a household word with more than one generation of naval officers. But to such of the general public as are not yet familiar with Mr Thursfield's writings a brief word of introduction may perhaps be useful. For the matters herein... more...

It relates to my youth, and to Italy: two fine things!  (H--- began).  I had arrived late in the evening at Florence, and while I finished my bottle of wine at supper, had fancied that, tired traveller though I was, I might pay the city a finer compliment than by going vulgarly to bed.  A narrow passage wandered darkly away out of the little square before my hotel, and looked as if it bored into the... more...

COUNTESS DORA D'ISTRIA. The Princess Helena Koltzoff-Massalsky, better known by her pseudonym of Dora d'Istria, came of the family of the Ghikas, formerly princes of Wallachia, and was born at Bucharest, on the 22nd of January, 1829. Through the care and conscientiousness of her instructor, Mons. Papadopoulos, and her own remarkable capacity, she acquired a very complete and comprehensive... more...

CHAPTER I A WAIF OF THE NIGHT Parson Dan chuckled several times as he sipped his hot cocoa before the fire. It was an open fire, and the flames licked around an old dry root which had been brought with other driftwood up from the shore. This brightly-lighted room was a pleasing contrast to the roughness of the night outside, for a strong late October wind was careening over the land. It swirled about... more...

CHAPTER I I, Cornelio Grandi, who tell you these things, have a story of my own, of which some of you are not ignorant. You know, for one thing, that I was not always poor, nor always a professor of philosophy, nor a scribbler of pedantic articles for a living. Many of you can remember why I was driven to sell my patrimony, the dear castello in the Sabines, with the good corn-land and the vineyards in... more...

INTRODUCTION EARLY SUGGESTIONS REGARDING THE TRANSMISSION OF DISEASE BY INSECTS Until very recent years insects and their allies have been considered as of economic importance merely in so far as they are an annoyance or direct menace to man, or his flocks and herds, or are injurious to his crops. It is only within the past fifteen years that there has sprung into prominence the knowledge that in... more...

CHAPTER I. Caledonia, stern and wild, may be called "meet nurse" of geologists as well as of poets. Among the most remarkable of the former is Charles Lyell, who was born in Forfarshire on November 14th, 1797, at Kinnordy, the family mansion. His father, who also bore the name of Charles, was both a lover of natural history and a man of high culture. He took an interest at one time in... more...

PÚSHKIN, THE RUSSIAN POET. No. I. Sketch of Púshkin's Life and Works, by Thomas B. Shaw, B.A. of Cambridge, Adjunct Professor of English Literature in the Imperial Alexander Lyceum, Translator of "The Heretic," &c. &c. Among the many striking analogies which exist between the physical and intellectual creations, and exhibit the uniform method adopted by Supreme Wisdom in the... more...