Fiction Books

JOURNAL. Philadelphia: December 1838. My Dear E——. I return you Mr. ——'s letter. I do not think it answers any of the questions debated in our last conversation at all satisfactorily: the right one man has to enslave another, he has not the hardihood to assert; but in the reasons he adduces to defend that act of injustice, the contradictory statements he makes appear to me to refute each... more...

THE FIVE LITTLE FRIENDS AT SCHOOL Bob and Betty, Paul and Peggy and little Dot are five little friends. They go to the same school. Many other children go to the school too, but these five little friends are the ones this story is about. Bob is the tall boy in the brown suit. Betty is the girl in the checked dress. Paul is the boy with the white blouse. Peggy is the girl with curls. Little Dot is the... more...

PREFACE. In these days when books on every conceivable subject are written in their thousands annually; when monthly journals are produced by scores, and daily newspapers in hundreds, to supply the public with a record of the world's doings; and when readers are found for them all, it may not be thought unfitting that each large mail centre in the United Kingdom which contributes by its postal and... more...

CHAPTER I "IF YOUR NAME ISN'T POLLY IT OUGHT TO BE" "As pretty a wench as man ever clapped eyes on. Wake up, Lance, and look at her." The portly man of genial aspect sitting in the corner of the bow window of the Maiden Head Inn at the High Street end of Dyott Street in the very heart of St. Giles, clapped his sleeping friend on the shoulder and shook him. The sleeper, a young man... more...

CHAPTER I It was a warm, grey, moist evening, typical Irish weather, and Miss Berknowles was curled up in a window-seat of the library reading a book. Kilgobbin Park lay outside with the rooks cawing in the trees, miles of park land across which the dusk was coming, blotting out all things from Arranakilty to the Slieve Bloom Mountains. The turf fire burning on the great hearth threw out a rich steady... more...

"Q." A year or two ago it was observed that three writers were using the curiously popular signature "Q." This was hardly less confusing than that one writer should use three signatures (Grant Allen, Arbuthnot Wilson, and Anon), but as none of the three was willing to try another letter, they had to leave it to the public (whose decision in such matters is final) to say who is Q to it.... more...

THE STORY OF GEORGE WASHINGTON * * * * * I.—WHEN WASHINGTON WAS A BOY. When George Washington was a boy there was no United States. The land was here, just as it is now, stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific; but nearly all of it was wild and unknown. Between the Atlantic Ocean and the Alleghany Mountains there were thirteen colonies, or great settlements. The most of the people who lived... more...

I A girl came out of lawyer Royall's house, at the end of the one street of North Dormer, and stood on the doorstep. It was the beginning of a June afternoon. The springlike transparent sky shed a rain of silver sunshine on the roofs of the village, and on the pastures and larchwoods surrounding it. A little wind moved among the round white clouds on the shoulders of the hills, driving their... more...

You might enter this story by the stage door. You remember beautiful Valentine Germain—the actress? She married Robert Oglebay, the painter, brother of Sir Peter Oglebay, the great engineer. Their baby Phyllis— But, after all, the main entrance is more dignified. Sir Peter Oglebay's passion is for Construction: to watch massive machinery slowly hoisting materials more massive into positions of... more...

THE FAIRIES OF CARAGONAN. Once upon a time a lot of fairies lived in Mona. One day the queen fairy's daughter, who was now fifteen years of age, told her mother she wished to go out and see the world. The queen consented, allowing her to go for a day, and to change from a fairy to a bird, or from a bird to a fairy, as she wished. When she returned one night she said: "I've been to a... more...