Fiction Books

THE INTRODUCTION The Arabian Nights was introduced to Europe in a French translation by Antoine Galland in 1704, and rapidly attained a unique popularity. There are even accounts of the translator being roused from sleep by bands of young men under his windows in Paris, importuning him to tell them another story. The learned world at first refused to believe that M. Galland had not invented the tales.... more...

A thousand books have been written about Japan; but among these,—setting aside artistic publications and works of a purely special character,—the really precious volumes will be found to number scarcely a score. This fact is due to the immense difficulty of perceiving and comprehending what underlies the surface of Japanese life. No work fully interpreting that life,—no work picturing Japan... more...

CHAPTER I. WHY UNCLE JEFF CAME TO "ROARING WATER"—THE SITUATION OF THE FARM—THE INMATES OF THE HOUSE—MY SISTER CLARICE AND BLACK RACHEL—UNCLE JEFF—BARTLE WON AND GIDEON TUTTLE—ARRIVAL OF LIEUTENANT BROADSTREET AND HIS MEN—THE TROOPERS QUARTERED IN THE HUT—OUR FARM-LABOURERS—SUDDEN APPEARANCE OF THE REDSKIN WINNEMAK—HIS FORMER VISIT TO THE FARM—CLARICE ENCOUNTERS HIM AT THE... more...

CHAPTER I A White Shape in the Moonlight THE colored boy gazed at Don and me with a look of terror. “But I tell you I seen it!” he insisted. “An’ it’s down there now. A ghost! It’s all white an’ shinin’!” “Nonsense, Willie,” Don turned to me. “I say, Bob, what do you make of this?” “I seen it, I tell you,” the boy broke in. “It ain’t a mile from here if you want to go... more...

"I say, you know, Kate—you did stay!" had been Merton Densher's punctual remark on their adventure after they had, as it were, got out of it; an observation which she not less promptly, on her side, let him see that she forgave in him only because he was a man. She had to recognise, with whatever disappointment, that it was doubtless the most helpful he could make in this character. The... more...

Almost all the processes employed in the arts and manufactures fall within the range either of physics or of chemistry. In order to improve them, one must thoroughly understand them; and no one has a chance of really understanding them, unless he has obtained that mastery of principles and that habit of dealing with facts, which is given by long-continued and well-directed purely scientific training in... more...

"My dear Trevelyan: Never in my life have I been placed in such an awkward, not to say invidious, position. I am, as you know, a plain man, fond of a plain life and plain speaking, and yet I am about to imperil that reputation by communicating to you what I fancy you will consider the most extraordinary and unbelievable intelligence you have ever received in your life. For my own part I do not know... more...

VICTORY It was a crisp November night. The artificial brilliance of Broadway was rivalled by a glorious moonlit sky. The first autumn frost was in the air, and on the side-streets long rows of taxicabs were standing, their motors blanketed, their chauffeurs threshing their arms to rout the cold. A few well-bundled cabbies, perched upon old-style hansoms, were barking at the stream of hurrying... more...

THE CLERK OF THE GOLDEN EAGLE Sibley Junction is in the sub-tropic zone of Colorado. It lies in a hot, dry, but immensely productive valley at an altitude of some four thousand feet above the sea, a village laced with irrigating ditches, shaded by big cotton-wood-trees, and beat upon by a genial, generous-minded sun. The boarders at the Golden Eagle Hotel can sit on the front stoop and see the... more...

NOTICES OF BUNYAN PREFATORY NOTICE. The subscriber has been requested by his friend the Rev. Jeremiah Chaplin, the worthy son of an honored father, [Footnote: The late Rev. Dr. Chaplin, the founder and first president of Waterville college, in the state of Maine.] and the editor of the present selections from Bunyan, to attach to them some prefatory remarks. Needless as he feels it himself to be, and... more...