Fiction Books

elson saw the girl at the same time she saw him. He had just rounded an outcropping of rock about ten miles from the East Coast Mausoleum. They were facing each other, poised defensively, eyes alertly on each other, about twenty feet apart. She was blond and lean with the conditioning of outdoor life, almost to the point of thinness. And although not really beautiful, she was attractive and young,... more...

Dekker, back from space, found great physical changes in the people of Earth; changes that would have horrified him five years before. But now, he wanted to be like the rest—even if he had to lose an eye and both ears to do it.Rolf Dekker stared incredulously at the slim, handsome young Earther who was approaching the steps of Rolf's tumbling-down Spacertown shack. He's got no ears, Rolf... more...

CHAPTER I TALES IN THE RAIN "How should I your true love know,   From another one?By his cockle hat and staff,   And his sandal shoon..." It was the fourth time that Felicia, at the piano, had begun the old song. Kenelm uncurled his long legs, and sat up straight on the window-seat. "Why on earth so everlasting gloomy, Phil?" he said. "Isn't the rain bad enough, without... more...

CHAPTER I "You chump," I thought contemptuously. I was seven years old at the time, and the gentleman to whom I referred was Henry Ward Beecher. What it was that aroused my contempt for the man will be more fully understood if I tell first of the grudge that I bore him. I was sitting in my mother's pew in the old church in Brooklyn. I was altogether too small for the pew, it was much too... more...

MALICIOUSLY ACCUSED “Let them think what they like. If I had died I would have been a hero; because I lived I suppose there is nothing in the history of crime that I have not committed.” Young Captain Code Schofield sprang out of the deep, luxurious chair and began to pace up and down before the fire. He did not cast as much as a glance at the woman near him. His mind was elsewhere. He had heard... more...

The Harlequinade For some time now she has been sitting there. Miss Alice Whistler is an attractive young person of about fifteen (very readily still she tells her age), dressed in a silver grey frock which she wishes were longer. The frock has a white collar; she wears grey silk stockings and black shoes; and, finally, a little black silk apron, one of those French aprons. If you must know still more... more...

CHAPTER I "I will incline mine ear to a parable: I will open my dark sayings upon the harp."—Psalm 49:4. [1]The harp is a musical instrument invented many centuries ago. When properly strung and played upon it yields sweet music, making glad the heart. The first mention of the harp made in the Bible is in Genesis 4:21, and the inventor's name was Jubal. He was therefore called "the... more...

THE HARRISES IN NEW YORK It was five o'clock in the afternoon, when a bright little messenger boy in blue touched the electric button of Room No. —— in Carnegie Studio, New York City. At once the door flew open and a handsome young artist received a Western Union telegram, and quickly signed his name, "Alfonso H. Harris" in the boy's book. "Here, my boy, is twenty-five... more...

The fact that newspaper reporters commonly call their articles "stories" points to a certain analogy between the novel and the newspaper. Even when prose fiction aims to be a fine art, it readily takes on a journalistic character; it is usually designed for immediate effect--at the concomitant risk of producing no other--and it easily passes from hand to hand or from country to country. In our... more...

CHAPTER I. "EMILY DID IT." Among my earliest recollections these three words have a place, coming to my ears as the presages of a reprimand. I had made a frantic effort to lift my baby-brother from his cradle, and had succeeded only in upsetting baby, pillows and all, waking my mother from her little nap, while brother Hal stood by and shouted, "Emily did it." I was only five years of... more...