Fiction Books

THE COMING STORM “Say, boys, it looks like a storm and a heavy one, too.” The jest and laughter ceased at once, and three pairs of eyes looked in the direction pointed out by the speaker. “See that big bank of cloud climbing up the sky?” continued Fred Rushton. “There’s more than a capful of wind in that, if I know anything about weather.” “You’re right, Fred,” said Lester Lee, who... more...

INTRODUCTION In the world of politics and statecraft a nation which has once begun to decline seldom, perhaps never, recovers itself. There are too many other dogs about for the bone which has once been relinquished to be resumed later on. It is luck, indeed, if there are any decent scraps to be found on the platter when it is revisited. In the world of literature and thought the dogs are better bred,... more...

THE LIFE OF JOHN DRYDEN. John Dryden was born on the 9th of August 1631, at a place variously denominated Aldwincle, or Oldwincle, All Saints; or at Oldwincle, St Peter's, in Northamptonshire. The name Dryden or Driden, is from the North. There are Drydens still in the town of Scotland where we now write; and the poet's ancestors lived in the county of Cumberland. One of them, named John,... more...

The Bad Boy Begins a Diary--Dad Has Become Manager for aCircus--The Bad Boy Expects to Curry the Hyena and Do Stuntson the Trapeze--Ma Says Pa Will Ogle the CircassianBeauty--Pa Buys Some Circus Clothes and Lets His WhiskersGrow. April 10, 19..--I never thought it would come to this, that I should keep a diary, because I am not a good little boy. Nobody ever keeps a diary except a boy that wants to be... more...

INTRODUCTION. During the last few years I have been urged by people in all parts of the world to re-issue some of the wonderful stories of genuine psychic experiences collected by my Father several years ago. These stories were published by him in two volumes in 1891-92; the first, entitled Real Ghost Stories, created so much interest and brought in so large a number of other stories of genuine... more...

CHAPTER I OF A CURIOUS MEETING OF EXTREMES On the dreary suburban edge of a very old, very ignorant, very sooty, hardhearted, stony-streeted, meanly grim, little provincial town there stands a gasometer. On one side of this gasometer begins a region of disappointed fields, which, however, has hardly begun before a railway embankment cuts across, at an angle convenient for its entirely obscuring the few... more...

OF CERTAIN DELICATE MATTERS In the religious cult of Gad and Meni, practised with such enthusiasm at Quicksands, the Saints' days were polo days, and the chief of all festivals the occasion of the match with the Banbury Hunt Club —Quicksands's greatest rival. Rival for more reasons than one, reasons too delicate to tell. Long, long ago there appeared in Punch a cartoon of Lord Beaconsfield... more...

CHAPTER I. Carefully locking the door of his little gable bedroom, Alec Stoker put down the cup of hot water he carried, and peered into the mirror above his wash-stand. Then, although he had come up-stairs fully determined to attempt his first shave, he stood irresolute, stroking the almost imperceptible down on his boyish lip and chin. "It does make me look older, that's a fact," he... more...

The two spaceship crews were friendly enemies, sitting across the table from each other for their last meal before blastoff. Outside the ports, the sky was nothing but light-streaked blackness, punctured periodically by Earth glare, for Space Station 2 whirled swiftly on its axis, creating an artificial gravity. "Jonner, I figured you the last man ever to desert the rockets for a hot-rod... more...

The problem,"said Cassidy, "would seem to be simple." He thumped his outsized knuckles against the desk. "Almost too simple." "Why?" The other was a wearer of the black and silver uniform of Extrasol Traders; a short man, made shorter by the beer-barrel shape of his body and the extreme width of his shoulders. His head was capped with close-cropped gray curls. "Why?"... more...