Fiction Books

CHAPTER I. merry party were sitting in the verandah of one of the largest and handsomest bungalows of Poonah. It belonged to Colonel Hastings, colonel of a native regiment stationed there, and at present, in virtue of seniority, commanding a brigade. Tiffin was on, and three or four officers and four ladies had taken their seats in the comfortable cane lounging chairs which form the invariable... more...

THE INGENIOUS STUDENT. There was once a student in Tuy who was so very poor that, if faith in Providence be not reckoned, he possessed no riches. But Juan Rivas was endowed with a wonderfully fine gift of ingenuity, and although he was somewhat behind in the payment for the Masses on behalf of his predecessors, and even more so with his mundane creditors, still was he a man who meant well and would do... more...

CHAPTER I. Every one who knows Oxford, and a good many besides, must have heard of certain periodical migrations of the younger members of that learned university into distant and retired parts of her Majesty’s dominions, which (on the “lucus a non lucendo” principle) are called and known by the name of Reading Parties. Some half-dozen undergraduates, in peril of the coming examination, form... more...

INTRODUCTION. The object of the translators of the following tales was to present the English public with a collection, which should combine effectiveness with variety, and at the same time should contain specimens of the most celebrated writers of prose fiction whom Germany has produced. The names of the authors will, they think, be a sufficient guarantee that they have not failed in this last... more...

LOB LIE-BY-THE-FIRE INTRODUCTORY. Lob Lie-By-The-Fire—the Lubber-fiend, as Milton calls him—is a rough kind of Brownie or House Elf, supposed to haunt some north-country homesteads, where he does the work of the farm labourers, for no grander wages than "------to earn his cream bowl duly set." Not that he is insensible of the pleasures of rest, for "—When, in one night, ere glimpse of... more...

A MEMORY One crisp evening early in March, 1887, I climbed the three flights of rickety stairs to the fourth floor of the old "Press" building to begin work on the "news desk." Important as the telegraph department was in making the newspaper, the desk was a crude piece of carpentry. My companions of the blue pencil irreverently termed it "the shelf." This was my second night in... more...

CHAPTER I. The note-book of my grandfather, Major Flinders, contains much matter relative to the famous siege of Gibraltar, and he seems to have kept an accurate and minute journal of such of its incidents as came under his own observation. Indeed, I suspect the historian Drinkwater must have had access to it, as I frequently find the same notabilia chronicled in pretty much the same terms by both... more...

THE LITTLE IRON SOLDIER OR, WHAT AMINADAB IVISON DREAMED ABOUT. AMINADAB IVISON started up in his bed. The great clock at the head of the staircase, an old and respected heirloom of the family, struck one. "Ah," said he, heaving up a great sigh from the depths of his inner man,"I've had a tried time of it." "And so have I," said the wife. "Thee's been kicking and... more...

[The following Tale appeared in the Magazine for October 1845. It was intended by the writer as a sketch of some of the more striking features of the railway mania (then in full progress throughout Great Britain), as exhibited in Glasgow and Edinburgh. Although bearing the appearance of a burlesque, it was in truth an accurate delineation (as will be acknowledged by many a gentleman who had the... more...

THE BRIDE'S JOURNEY. BY MRS CROWE. In the year 1809, when the French were in Prussia, M. Louison, an officer in the commissariat department of the imperial army, contracted an attachment for the beautiful Adelaide Hext, the daughter of a respectable but not wealthy merchant. The young Frenchman having contrived to make his attachment known, it was imprudently reciprocated by its object; we say... more...