Fiction Books

JACK AND THE CHECK-BOOK nce upon a time a great many years ago there lived a poor woman who, having invested all her savings in mining shares, was soon brought to penury and want. She had bought her modest little home and all there was in it on the instalment plan, and here she was, upon a certain beautiful morning in late spring, absolutely penniless, and three days off, staring her in the face, were... more...

When the British landed on the west side of Mackinac Island at three o'clock in the morning of July 17,1812, Canadians were ordered to transport the cannon. They had only a pair of six-pounders, but these had to be dragged across the long alluvial stretch to heights which would command the fortress, and sand, rock, bushes, trees, and fallen logs made it a dreadful portage. Voyageurs, however, were... more...

Heretofore our knowledge of the osteology of Heliscomys Cope has been extremely limited; this genus previously was known by its teeth, fragmental maxillaries, incomplete palatine bone and mandible, and part of one forelimb. In the summer of 1946 the writer, as a member of the University of Kansas Museum of Natural History field party, discovered the anterior part of a skull of Heliscomys in the middle... more...

SPINNING TOPS. At a Leeds Board School last week, the master said to his class, "There is to be a meeting of the British Association in Leeds. What is it all about? Who are the members of the British Association? What do they do?" There was a long pause. At length it was broken by an intelligent shy boy: "Please, sir, I know—they spin tops!" Now I am sorry to say that this answer was... more...

TERESA FRANCES THOMPSON, who also bore my name by marriage, died on January 26, 1919. This verse is published to her memory, because I wish to keep together the poetry she occasioned and enable those who loved her—and they were a great many-to know definitely what she was to me. I think that is the truth. This is the only means I have at present of acknowledging publicly the vast debt I owe to her.... more...

INTRODUCTION—(1829) The plan of this Edition leads me to insert in this place some account of the incidents on which the Novel of WAVERLEY is founded. They have been already given to the public, by my late lamented friend, William Erskine, Esq. (afterwards Lord Kinneder), when reviewing the 'Tales of My Landlord' for the QUARTERLY REVIEW, in 1817. The particulars were derived by the Critic... more...

en and Moira Connington lived in a rented cottage with a small yard, a smaller garden, and too many fir trees. The lawn, which Len seldom had time to mow, was full of weeds, and the garden was overgrown with blackberry brambles. The house itself was clean and smelled better than most city apartments, and Moira kept geraniums in the windows. However, it was dark on account of the firs. Approaching the... more...

INTRODUCTION There is the proper mood and the just environment for the reading as well as for the writing of works of fiction, and there can be no better place for the enjoying of a novel by Anthony Trollope than under a tree in Kensington Gardens of a summer day. Under a tree in the avenue that reaches down from the Round Pond to the Long Water. There, perhaps more than anywhere else, lingers the... more...

"I have always and everywhere lived such a life that each passing day was spent as though that light would never return; (that is, in tranquillity! Put aside those thoughts which worry you, if you wish to follow my lead. Ascyltos persecutes you here; get out of his way. I am about to start for foreign parts, you may come with me. I have taken a berth on a vessel which will probably weigh anchor... more...

Mrs. Hudson, the landlady of Sherlock Holmes, was a long-suffering woman. Not only was her first-floor flat invaded at all hours by throngs of singular and often undesirable characters but her remarkable lodger showed an eccentricity and irregularity in his life which must have sorely tried her patience. His incredible untidiness, his addiction to music at strange hours, his occasional revolver... more...