Fiction Books

It relates to my youth, and to Italy: two fine things!  (H--- began).  I had arrived late in the evening at Florence, and while I finished my bottle of wine at supper, had fancied that, tired traveller though I was, I might pay the city a finer compliment than by going vulgarly to bed.  A narrow passage wandered darkly away out of the little square before my hotel, and looked as if it bored into the... more...

INTRODUCTION The title chosen by its author for this little volume would assuredly commend it to the Naval Service, even if that author's name were not—as it is—a household word with more than one generation of naval officers. But to such of the general public as are not yet familiar with Mr Thursfield's writings a brief word of introduction may perhaps be useful. For the matters herein... more...

CHAPTER I. JENNIE MAKES HER TOILETTE AND THE ACQUAINTANCE OF A PORTER. Miss Jennie Baxter, with several final and dainty touches that put to rights her hat and dress—a little pull here and a pat there—regarded herself with some complacency in the large mirror that was set before her, as indeed she had every right to do, for she was an exceedingly pretty girl. It is natural that handsome young women... more...

PROLOGUE In the October of 1642 there came to Cambridge a man from over-seas. He was travelling backward, after the interval of a generation, through the stages of his youth. From his landing at the port whence he had sailed so many years before in chase of fortune he came to London, where he had bustled and thundered as a stage-player. Here he found a new drama playing in a theatre that took a capital... more...

PREFACE A little book on a great subject, especially when that book is one of a "series," is notoriously an object of literary distrust. For the limitations thus imposed upon the writer are such as few men can satisfactorily cope with, and he must needs ask the indulgence of his readers for his painfully-felt shortcomings in dealing with the mass of material which he has to manipulate. And more... more...

"SHAKSPEARE'S RIME WHICH HE MADE AT THE MYTRE." In the third volume of Mr. Collier's valuable History of Dramatic Poetry (p. 275.) is the following passage, which forms part of a note: "Mr. Thorpe, the enterprising bookseller of Bedford Street, is in possession of a MS. full of songs and poems, in the handwriting of a person of the name of Richard Jackson, all copied prior to the... more...

Much has been written by critics, especially by those in Germany (the native land of criticism), upon the important question, whether to please or to instruct should be the end of Fiction—whether a moral purpose is or is not in harmony with the undidactic spirit perceptible in the higher works of the imagination. And the general result of the discussion has been in favour of those who have contended... more...

CHAPTER I WE START FOR THE WAR I, James Frisby of Fairlee, in the county of Kent, on the eastern shore of what was known in my youth as the fair Province of Maryland, but now the proud State of that name, growing old in years, but hearty and hale withal, though the blood courses not through my veins as in the days of my youth, sit on the great porch of Fairlee watching the sails on the distant bay,... more...

PREFACE. The changing of the old order in country manors and mansions may be slow or sudden, may have many issues romantic or otherwise, its romantic issues being not necessarily restricted to a change back to the original order; though this admissible instance appears to have been the only romance formerly recognized by novelists as possible in the case. Whether the following production be a picture... more...

THE DEAD ROBIN.All through the win-ter, long and cold,  Dear Minnie ev-ery morn-ing fedThe little spar-rows, pert and bold,  And ro-bins, with their breasts so red. She lov-ed to see the lit-tle birds  Come flut-ter-ing to the win-dow pane,In answer to the gen-tle words  With which she scat-ter-ed crumbs and grain. One ro-bin, bol-der than the rest,  Would perch up-on her fin-ger fair,And... more...