Fiction Books

THE SLEEPING BEAUTY. Long, long ago, in ancient times, there lived a King and Queen,And for the blessing of a child their longing sore had been:At last, a little daughter fair, to their great joy, was given,And to the christening feast they made, they bade the Fairies seven— The Fairies seven, who loved the land—that they the child might bless,Yet one old Fairy they left out, in pure... more...

CHAPTER I WILD GEESE Slow Dog, Medicine Man, looked out of his lodge. Wild geese were honking overhead. To the Indian it meant the return of spring. "I must be the first to kill one," muttered Slow Dog. Entering his lodge, he presently came out with bow and arrows. Hastening toward a bend in the river which formed a sheltered cove, he hid among a clump of willow bushes and waited in the hope... more...

o give some Satisfaction to the just Expectations of very many Persons, as well of this Realm as of foreign Countries, who fearing the dismal Effects of the Contagion, have done us the Honour to request of us some Account of the Nature of the Distemper that has depopulated Marseilles, and of the Success of such Remedies as we have employed against it; we have thought fit to draw up the following... more...

CHAPTER I. A PARISIENNE'S "AT HOME" Despite a short frock, checked stockings, wide turned-over collar, and a loose sash around the waist of her blouse in other words, despite the childish fashion of a dress which seemed to denote that she was not more than thirteen or fourteen years of age, she seemed much older. An observer would have put her down as the oldest of the young girls who on... more...

CHAPTER I.   . . . THIS ancient city,  How wanton sits she amidst Nature's smiles!   . . . Various nations meet,  As in the sea, yet not confined in space,  But streaming freely through the spacious streets.—YOUNG.   . . . His teeth he still did grind,  And grimly gnash, threatening revenge in vain.—SPENSER. "PARIS is a delightful place,—that is allowed by all. It is... more...

he narrative of John Dodge is one of the records of frontier life during the period of the American Revolution that displays the intense feeling of hatred and unfairness evinced by the British soldiers to the American rebels. It was written and published during the time of the greatest excitement in the West—the scene of the Narrative—and is historically valuable because of being contemporary with... more...

CHAPTER I. THE TWIN EAGLETS. Autumn was upon the world -- the warm and gorgeous autumn of the south -- autumn that turned the leaves upon the trees to every hue of russet, scarlet, and gold, that transformed the dark solemn aisles of the trackless forests of Gascony into what might well have been palaces of fairy beauty, and covered the ground with a thick and soundless carpet of almost every hue of... more...

Salem, June 15, 1835.—A walk down to the Juniper. The shore of the coves strewn with bunches of sea-weed, driven in by recent winds. Eel-grass, rolled and bundled up, and entangled with it,—large marine vegetables, of an olive-color, with round, slender, snake-like stalks, four or five feet long, and nearly two feet broad: these are the herbage of the deep sea. Shoals of fishes, at a little... more...

ACT I The scene is the blue and white room in the house of the Misses Susan and Phoebe Throssel in Quality Street; and in this little country town there is a satisfaction about living in Quality Street which even religion cannot give. Through the bowed window at the back we have a glimpse of the street. It is pleasantly broad and grass-grown, and is linked to the outer world by one demure shop, whose... more...

INTRODUCTORY.—NUMBER ONE. I would that it were possible so to tell a story that a reader should beforehand know every detail of it up to a certain point, or be so circumstanced that he might be supposed to know. In telling the little novelettes of our life, we commence our narrations with the presumption that these details are borne in mind, and though they be all forgotten, the stories come out... more...