Fiction Books

CHAPTER I. DEPARTURE FROM DETROIT. It was on a dark, rainy evening in the month of September, 1830, that we went on board the steamer "Henry Clay," to take passage for Green Bay. All our friends in Detroit had congratulated us upon our good fortune in being spared the voyage in one of the little schooners which at this time afforded the ordinary means of communication with the few and distant... more...

CHAPTER I. THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR.--THE ARMY. The opposition between the interests of the house of Hapsburg and of the German nation, and between the old and new faith, led to a bloody catastrophe. If any one should inquire how such a war could rage through a whole generation, and so fearfully exhaust a powerful people, he will receive this striking answer, that the war was so long and terrible,... more...

The novel Alan sanded the house on Wales Avenue. It took six months, and the whole time it was the smell of the sawdust, ancient and sweet, and the reek of chemical stripper and the damp smell of rusting steel wool. Alan took possession of the house on January 1, and paid for it in full by means of an e-gold transfer. He had to do a fair bit of hand-holding with the realtor to get her set up and... more...

CHAPTER I Dillsborough I never could understand why anybody should ever have begun to live at Dillsborough, or why the population there should have been at any time recruited by new comers. That a man with a family should cling to a house in which he has once established himself is intelligible. The butcher who supplied Dillsborough, or the baker, or the ironmonger, though he might not drive what is... more...

CHAPTER I ON A STRANGE RANGE Two tired but happy punchers rode into the coast town and dismounted in front of the best hotel. Putting up their horses as quickly as possible they made arrangements for sleeping quarters and then hastened out to attend to business. Buck had been kind to delegate this mission to them and they would feel free to enjoy what pleasures the town might afford. While at that time... more...

CHAPTER I THE SONG OF THE MAORI There is a Tongan proverb which tells us that only fools and children lie awake during hours that could be devoted to slumber, and it is a wise proverb when you judge it from a Polynesian standpoint. No special preparations are required for slumber in the last haunts of Romance, and as one does not lose caste by dozing in public, the South Sea dweller sees no reason for... more...

The little man said, "Why, Mr. Bartle, come in. This is indeed a pleasure." His pinched face was lighted with an enthusiastic smile. "You know my name, so I suppose you know the Bulletin sent me for a personality interview," the tall man who stood in the doorway said in a monotone as if it were a statement he had made a thousand times—which he had. "Oh, certainly, Mr. Bartle. I... more...

CRITICAL NOTICES. "Such a novel as no English author with whom we are acquainted could have written, and no American author except Hawthorne. What separates it from the multitude of American and English novels is the perfection of its plot, and it's author's insight into the souls of his characters.... If Germany is poorer than England, as regards the number of its novelists, it in richer... more...

Chapter One The girl stood on a bank above a river flowing north. At her back crouched a dozen clean whitewashed buildings. Before her in interminable journey, day after day, league on league into remoteness, stretched the stern Northern wilderness, untrodden save by the trappers, the Indians, and the beasts. Close about the little settlement crept the balsams and spruce, the birch and poplar, behind... more...

WE GET INTERESTING NEWS It was on a tropic sea, and night, that I heard a little scrap of a tale that had in it that which was destined to preserve my life. The waning moon had not yet risen; the stars were all out, the Milky Way more than commonly near. The schooner's sails were barely drawing, and flapped idly at times. I leaned on the rail, listening to the purling of the sea against the... more...