Fiction Books

1. A Horror from the Past   drab gray sheet of cloud slipped stealthily from the moon's round face, like a shroud slipping from the face of one long dead, a coldly phosphorescent face from which the eyes had been plucked. Yellow radiance fell toward a calm, oily sea, seeking a narrow bank of fog lying low on the water, penetrating its somber mass like frozen yellow fingers. Vilma Bradley... more...

THE PORTENT The hot weather had come suddenly, at least a month earlier than usual, and New York lay baking under a scorching sun when Miss Hetty Torrance sat in the coolest corner of the Grand Central Depot she could find. It was by her own wish she had spent the afternoon in the city unattended, for Miss Torrance was a self-reliant young woman; but it was fate and the irregularity of the little gold... more...

The Palace of the Eagles East of the Land of the Rising Sun there dwelled a king who spent all his days and half his nights in pleasure. His kingdom was on the edge of the world, according to the knowledge of those times, and almost entirely surrounded by the sea. Nobody seemed to care what lay beyond the barrier of rocks that shut off the land from the rest of the world. For the matter of that, nobody... more...

LAFE JOHNSON ARRIVES AT THE LAZY L RANCH It may come as a shock to many to learn that we have in cowland a considerable number of full-blooded men who have never made it a practice to step outside the door of a morning and shoot a fellow-citizen before breakfast. This is true; vital statistics and fiction to the contrary, notwithstanding. They are well-grown, two-fisted men, also, and work very hard... more...

INTRODUCTION THE first three numbers in this collection are tales of the White Hills in New Hampshire. The passages from Sketches from Memory show that Hawthorne had visited the mountains in one of his occasional rambles from home, but there are no entries in his Note Books which give accounts of such a visit. There is, however, among these notes the following interesting paragraph, written in 1840 and... more...

CHAPTER I Having made final inspection of the knots of her shoe-laces and the fastenings of her skirt, Janet turned toward her "perfectly horrid" oilcoat, which, as usual, had spent the night on the floor. As it would never come off till she had tortured her fingers on the edges of its big rusty buttons, she always parted from it on unpleasant terms, casting it from her; whereupon this... more...

INTRODUCTION. In what relation the Apology of Plato stands to the real defence of Socrates, there are no means of determining. It certainly agrees in tone and character with the description of Xenophon, who says in the Memorabilia that Socrates might have been acquitted 'if in any moderate degree he would have conciliated the favour of the dicasts;' and who informs us in another passage, on... more...

CHAPTER I A glorious midsummer day was drawing to a close; its heat had passed; the tall forest trees, whose leaves were pleasantly rustled by the cool breeze of approaching night, flung a bridge of tremulous shadows across the surface of Loch Meg, and all nature was at peace. The tiny lake, though bearing an old-world name, was of the new world, and was one of the myriad forest gems that decked the... more...

is sleep-drugged mind was slow to respond. He was lying face down, he knew that. And he ought to get up. If he didn't get up he would drown. Something hot and heavy, like a huge hand, was pressing him deeper into the brackish mire. He pondered. Perhaps it were better to drown. For a moment he allowed himself the luxury of the thought, then decided against it. Plenty of time later for drowning.... more...

CHAPTER I TRUXTON KING He was a tall, rawboned, rangy young fellow with a face so tanned by wind and sun you had the impression that his skin would feel like leather if you could affect the impertinence to test it by the sense of touch. Not that you would like to encourage this bit of impudence after a look into his devil-may-care eyes; but you might easily imagine something much stronger than brown... more...