Fiction Books

CHAPTER I. A VOICE OUT OF THE DEEP. Once upon a time there was a schooner belonging to Boston which was registered under the somewhat singular name of the "Rev. Amos Adams." This was her formal title, used on state occasions, and was, no doubt, quite as appropriate as the more pretentious one of the "Duke of Marlborough," or the "Lord Warden." As a general thing, however, people... more...

CHAPTER I DOCTOR MARY'S PAYING GUEST "Just in time, wasn't it?" asked Mary Arkroyd. "Two days before the—the ceremony! Mercifully it had all been kept very quiet, because it was only three months since poor Gilly was killed. I forget whether you ever met Gilly? My half-brother, you know?" "Only once—in Collingham Gardens. He had an exeat, and... more...

CHAPTER ONE THE PRETTY PAWNBROKER On the southern edge of the populous parish of Paddington, in a parallelogram bounded by Oxford and Cambridge Terrace on the south, Praed Street on the north, and by Edgware Road on the east and Spring Street on the west, lies an assemblage of mean streets, the drab dulness of which forms a remarkable contrast to the pretentious architectural grandeurs of Sussex Square... more...

Chapter I. Foreign Pastoral Poetry In approaching a subject of literary inquiry we are often able to fix upon some essential feature or condition which may serve as an Ariadne's thread through the maze of historical and aesthetic development, or to distinguish some cardinal point affording a fixed centre from which to survey or in reference to which to order and dispose the phenomena that present... more...

CHAPTER I.East Anglia in 1837. In 1837 Lord Melbourne was Prime Minister—the handsomest, the most cultivated, the most courteous gentleman that ever figured in a Royal Court.  For his young mistress he had a loyal love, whilst she, young and inexperienced, naturally turned to him as her guide, philosopher and friend.  The Whigs were in office, but not in power.  The popular excitement that had... more...

POEMS SUBJECTIVE AND REMINISCENT MEMORIES A beautiful and happy girl,With step as light as summer air,Eyes glad with smiles, and brow of pearl,Shadowed by many a careless curlOf unconfined and flowing hair;A seeming child in everything,Save thoughtful brow and ripening charms,As Nature wears the smile of SpringWhen sinking into Summer's arms. A mind rejoicing in the lightWhich melted through its... more...

DICKON THE DEVIL. ABOUT thirty years ago I was selected by two rich old maids to visit a property in that part of Lancashire which lies near the famous forest of Pendle, with which Mr. Ainsworth’s “Lancashire Witches” has made us so pleasantly familiar. My business was to make partition of a small property, including a house and demesne to which they had, a long time before, succeeded as... more...

Bedfordshire. COLMWORTH. Here is a magnificent monument, erected in 1611, by Lady Dyer, in memory of her deceased husband, Sir William Dyer, the inscription upon which tells us that “they multiplied themselves into seven children.”  Beneath are the following quaint lines:— My dearest dust, could not thy hasty dayAfford thy drowsy patience leave to stayOne hour longer, so that we might... more...

He was just emerging for the hundredth time during the week from the frightening hallucination that had come to plague him, when Kitty Murchinsom came into his office. "It's almost 15:00, Philip," she said. When she had entered, her face had taken on the placid look that everyone wore—unwittingly, but inevitably—the instant they came near Alcorn. Finding Kitty's cool blonde... more...

We all held our breath as the coach rushed through the semi-darkness of Galloper’s Ridge. The vehicle itself was only a huge lumbering shadow; its side-lights were carefully extinguished, and Yuba Bill had just politely removed from the lips of an outside passenger even the cigar with which he had been ostentatiously exhibiting his coolness. For it had been rumoured that the Ramon Martinez gang of... more...