Fiction Books

THE PREFACE. Nothing is more easy than to discover a thing already found out. This is verified in me and that anonymous gentleman, whom the public prints have lately complimented with a Discovery to Prevent Street Robberies; though, by the by, we have only his vain ipse dixit, and the ostentatious outcry of venal newswriters in his behalf. But to strip him of his borrowed plumes, these are to remind... more...

Second Sight (Note: The following excerpts from Amy Ballantine's journal have never actually been written down at any time before. Her account of impressions and events has been kept in organized fashion in her mind for at least nine years (even she is not certain when she started), but it must be understood that certain inaccuracies in transcription could not possibly have been avoided in the... more...

His fingers moved over the modest packet of bills the invisible rockhound had handed to him. He smiled through the eternal night that was his own personal hell. Duggan's Hades. "Thanks, Pete," he said gratefully. "Here, have a box of Conmos." His sensitized fingers found the cigars, handed over a box, and he heard the nervous scuff of the other's shoes. "This eight... more...

A gentle fancy for the Christmas Season—an oft-told tale with a wistful twistful of Something that left the Earth with a wing and a prayer.Earth was so far away that it wasn't visible. Even the sun was only a twinkle. But this vast distance did not mean that isolation could endure forever. Instruments within the ship intercepted radio broadcasts and, within the hour, early TV signals. Machines... more...

FATHER'S WAY.MY father was no pessimist; he loved the things of earth,—Its cheerfulness and sunshine, its music and its mirth.He never sighed or moped around whenever things went wrong,—I warrant me he'd mocked at fate with some defiant song;But, being he warn't much on tune, when times looked sort o' blue,He'd whistle softly to himself this only tune he... more...

HUMIN NATUR' ON THE HAN'BUL 'ND ST. JO Durin' war times the gorillas hed torn up most uv the cypress ties an' used 'em for kindlin' an' stove wood, an' the result wuz that when the war wuz over there wuz n't anythink left uv the Han'bul 'nd St. Jo but the rollin' stock 'nd the two streaks uv rails from one end uv the road to the... more...

CHAPTER I LEWES "Lewes is the most romantic situation I ever saw"; thus Defoe, and the capital of Sussex shares with Rye and Arundel the distinction of having a continental picturesqueness more in keeping with old France than with one of the home counties of England. This, however, is only the impression made by the town when viewed as a whole; its individual houses, its churches and castle,... more...

I SEA-POWER[1] [Footnote 1: Written in 1899. (_Encyclopoedia_Britannica_.)] Sea-power is a term used to indicate two distinct, though cognate things. The affinity of these two and the indiscriminate manner in which the term has been applied to each have tended to obscure its real significance. The obscurity has been deepened by the frequency with which the term has been confounded with the old phrase,... more...

CHAPTER I THE MEN WHO CHANGED SHIPS Between the lighter-load of burning beeves that came bumping down along their line at noon, a salvo of bombs slapped across them at one o’clock from a raiding Bulgar air squadron, a violent Levantine squall which all but broke them loose from their moorings at sundown, and a signal to raise steam for full speed with all dispatch at midnight, it had been a rather... more...

Chapter I. The river-path along the Severn shore at Gatcombe was almost knee-deep with turbid water, and only a post here and there showed where river ordinarily ended and firm land began. Fishers and foresters stood in the pelting rain and buffeting wind anxiously calculating what havoc the sudden summer storm might work, helpless themselves to put forth a hand to save anything from its fury. Stout... more...