Fiction Books

CHAPTER I. A FASCINATING YOUNG WIDOW OPENS THE STORY. "Appleton, don't look quite yet, but there's a woman just behind you whom I want you to see. I never before saw such a face and figure! They are simply perfection!" The above remarks were made by a young man, perhaps thirty years of age, to his companion, who, evidently, was somewhat his senior. The two gentlemen were seated at a... more...

THE PERUVIAN DAGGER "There's something weird and mysterious about the robbery, Kennedy. They took the very thing I treasure most of all, an ancient Peruvian dagger." Professor Allan Norton was very much excited as he dropped intoCraig's laboratory early that forenoon. Norton, I may say, was one of the younger members of the faculty, like Kennedy. Already, however, he had made for... more...

CAPTAIN SHARKEY: HOW THE GOVERNOR OF SAINT KITT'S CAME HOME When the great wars of the Spanish Succession had been brought to an end by the Treaty of Utrecht, the vast number of privateers which had been fitted out by the contending parties found their occupation gone. Some took to the more peaceful but less lucrative ways of ordinary commerce, others were absorbed into the fishing-fleets, and a... more...

A note about this story This story is from my collection, "A Place So Foreign and Eight More," published by Four Walls Eight Windows Press in September, 2003, ISBN 1568582862. I've released this story, along with five others, under the terms of a Creative Commons license that gives you, the reader, a bunch of rights that copyright normally reserves for me, the creator. I recently did the... more...

THE IDEAL WORLD I. THE IDEAL WORLD,—ITS REALM IS EVERYWHERE AROUND US; ITS INHABITANTS ARETHE IMMORTAL PERSONIFICATIONS OF ALL BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS; TO THAT WORLD WEATTAIN BY THE REPOSE OF THE SENSES. AROUND "this visible diurnal sphere"There floats a World that girds us like the space;On wandering clouds and gliding beams careerIts ever-moving murmurous Populace.There, all the lovelier... more...

THE HOLLOW.I.Fleet swallows soared and darted'Neath empty vaults of blue;Thick leaves close clung or partedTo let the sunlight through;Each wild rose, honey-hearted,Bowed full of living dew.II.Down deep, fair fields of Heaven,Beat wafts of air and balm,From southmost islands drivenAnd continents of calm;Bland winds by which were givenHid hints of rustling palm.III.High birds soared high to... more...

PREFACE The collection of Irish Triads, which is here edited and translated for the first time, has come down to us in the following nine manuscripts, dating from the fourteenth to the nineteenth century:— L, i.e. the Yellow Book of Lecan, a vellum of the end of the fourteenth century, pp. 414b—418a, a complete copy. B, i.e. the Book of Ballymote, a vellum of the end of the fourteenth century, pp.... more...

Late one evening, when the native village was wrapped in slumber, Temana and I brought our sleeping-mats down to the boat-shed, and spread them upon the white, clinking sand. For here, out upon the open beach, we could feel a breath of the cooling sea-breeze, denied to the village houses by reason of the thick belt of palms which encompassed them on three sides. And then we were away from Malepa's... more...

A SELECTION FROM THE LETTERS OF HORACE WALPOLE. VOLUME II. MADAME DE BOUFFLERS AT STRAWBERRY—THE FRENCH OPINION OF THE ENGLISH CHARACTER—RICHARDSON'S NOVELS—MADAME DE BEAUMONT. TO SIR HORACE MANN. ARLINGTON STREET, Dec. 20, 1764. … My journey to Paris is fixed for some time in February, where I hear I may expect to find Madame de Boufflers, Princess of Conti. Her husband is just dead; and... more...

CHAPTER I. A COACHING ADVENTURE. Had any of the boys in the lower forms of Eton in the year 1808, been asked who were the most popular boys of their own age, they would have been almost sure to have answered, without the slightest hesitation, Tom and Peter Scudamore, and yet it is probable that no two boys were more often in disgrace. It was not that they were idle, upon the contrary, both were fairly... more...