Fiction Books

CHAPTER I. OF THE OBJECT-MATTER AND PARTITION OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 1. Moral Philosophy is the science of human acts in their bearing on human happiness and human duty. 2. Those acts alone are properly called human, which a man is master of to do or not to do. A human act, then, is an act voluntary and free. A man is what his human acts make him. 3. A voluntary act is an act that proceeds from the will... more...

"The Talented Mr. Ripley" is an Hitchcockian and blood-curdling study of the psychopath and his victims. At the centre of this masterpiece, set in the exquisitely decadent scapes of Italy, is a titanic encounter between Ripley, the aforementioned psychopath protagonist and young Greenleaf, a consummate narcissist. Ripley is a cartoonishly poor young adult whose overriding desire is to belong to... more...

Dr. Ludwig Thoma, perhaps better known to his Bavarian countrymen as Peter Schlemiehl, was born in Oberammergau on January 21, 1867. After graduating from a gymnasium in Munich, he studied at the School of Forestry at Aschauffenburg. He did not finish his course there, but entered the University at Munich and received his degree as Doctor Juris in 1893. A year later Dr. Thoma began to practice law; but... more...

CHAPTER I. ABOVE THE CLOUDS. “And can this be my own world? ’Tis all gold and snow, Save where scarlet waves are hurled Down yon gulf below.” “’Tis thy world, ’tis my world, City, mead, and shore, For he that hath his own world Hath many worlds more.” A boy, whom I knew very well, was once going through a meadow, which was full of buttercups. The nurse and his baby sister were with him;... more...

SPECIAL INTRODUCTION. The region which extends from the frontiers of Egypt to the Atlantic Ocean, and from the Mediterranean to the Niger, was in ancient times inhabited by a people to whom we give the general name of Berbers, but whom the ancients, particularly those of the Eastern portion, knew under the name of Moors. "They were called Maurisi by the Greeks," said Strabo, "in the first... more...

In the dusk of a spring evening, Helen Caniper walked on the long road from the town. Making nothing of the laden basket she carried, she went quickly until she drew level with the high fir-wood which stood like a barrier against any encroachment on the moor, then she looked back and saw lights darting out to mark the streets she had left behind, as though a fairy hand illuminated a giant... more...

MOON-FACE John Claverhouse was a moon-faced man. You know the kind, cheek-bones wide apart, chin and forehead melting into the cheeks to complete the perfect round, and the nose, broad and pudgy, equidistant from the circumference, flattened against the very centre of the face like a dough-ball upon the ceiling. Perhaps that is why I hated him, for truly he had become an offense to my eyes, and I... more...

This book suggests that the real Pharaoh of the Exodus was not Meneptah or Merenptah, son of Rameses the Great, but the mysterious usurper, Amenmeses, who for a year or two occupied the throne between the death of Meneptah and the accession of his son the heir-apparent, the gentle-natured Seti II. Of the fate of Amenmeses history says nothing; he may well have perished in the Red Sea or rather the Sea... more...

MOON SPOTS. I.    INTRODUCTION. With the invention of the telescope came an epoch in human history. To Hans Lippershey, a Dutch optician, is accorded the honour of having constructed the first astronomical telescope, which he made so early as the 2nd of October, 1608. Galileo, hearing of this new wonder, set to work, and produced and improved instrument, which he carried in triumph to Venice, where... more...

The Ajax XX was the first American space craft to make a successful landing on the moon. She had orbited the Earth's natural satellite for a day and a half before making history. The reason for orbiting was important. The Russians had been boasting for a number of years that they would be first. Captain Junius Robb, U.S.A.F., had orders to investigate before and after landing. The moon's dark... more...