Fiction Books

GEORG EBERS An Egyptian PrincessGeorg Moritz Ebers, a great Orientalist and Egyptologist, was born in Berlin on March 1, 1837, received his first instruction at Keilhau in Thuringen, then attended a college at Quedlinburg, and finally took up the study of law at Göttingen University. In 1858, when his feet became lame, he abandoned this study, and took up philology and archæology. After 1859 he... more...

t was just a hunch. Johnson knew that, but his hunches had often paid off in the past, and now he waited with a big man's patience. For five hours he sat in the wooden stands, under the rumpled canvas the concessionaires had put up to protect the tourists from Marlock's yellow sun. The sun was hot and soon Johnson's clothing was marked with large soiled patches of sweat. Now and then a... more...

PREFACE BEFORE perusing this work, it is as well that the reader should understand M. Zola's aim in writing it, and his views—as distinct from those of his characters—upon Lourdes, its Grotto, and its cures. A short time before the book appeared M. Zola was interviewed upon the subject by his friend and biographer, Mr. Robert H. Sherard, to whom he spoke as follows: "'Lourdes'... more...

PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION. Among the works of every writer of Fiction there are generally one or two that owe their being to some haunting thought, long communed with—a thought which has at last found a living shape in some story of deed and passion. I say one or two advisedly: for the span of man's active life is short and such haunting fancies are, of their essence, solitary. As a matter... more...

In 1841 a serf belonging to a Russian nobleman purchased his freedom and the freedom of his family for 3,500 roubles, being at the rate of 700 roubles a soul, with one daughter, Alexandra, thrown in for nothing. The grandson of this serf was Anton Chekhov, the author; the son of the nobleman was Tchertkov, the Tolstoyan and friend of Tolstoy. There is in this nothing striking to a Russian, but to the... more...

A SOCIETY SCANDAL Tall and burly, with features and skin hardened by exposure to the sun and winds of many climates, he looked like a man ready to face all hardships, equal to any emergency. Already one seemed to see the clothes and habits of civilization falling away from him, the former to be replaced by the stern, unlovely outfit of the war correspondent who plays the game. They crowded round him in... more...

CHAPTER ONE Mr. Baker, chief mate of the ship Narcissus, stepped in one stride out of his lighted cabin into the darkness of the quarter-deck. Above his head, on the break of the poop, the night-watchman rang a double stroke. It was nine o'clock. Mr. Baker, speaking up to the man above him, asked:—"Are all the hands aboard, Knowles?" The man limped down the ladder, then said... more...

"Number 481 is no better, doctor," said the head-warder, in a slightly reproachful accent, looking in round the corner of my door. "Confound 481" I responded from behind the pages of the Australian Sketcher. "And 61 says his tubes are paining him. Couldn't you do anything for him?" "He is a walking drug-shop," said I. "He has the whole British pharmacopaæ... more...

James Quincy Holden was five years old. His fifth birthday was not celebrated by the usual horde of noisy, hungry kids running wild in the afternoon. It started at seven, with cocktails. They were served by his host, Paul Brennan, to the celebrants, the boy's father and mother. The guest of honor sipped ginger ale and nibbled at canapés while he was presented with his gifts: A volume of... more...

LIVES OF ENGLISH POETS. * * * * * SAMUEL JOHNSON. There is, perhaps, no one among our English writers, who for so great a part of his life has been an object of curiosity to his contemporaries as Johnson. Almost every thing he said or did was thought worthy of being recorded by some one or other of his associates; and the public were for a time willing to listen to all they had to say of him. A mass of... more...