Fiction Books

Two Years Later A young man strode along through one of the principal streets of the town of Woodford, New Hampshire, with his blue eyes clouded and an expression of mingled displeasure and purpose about the firm lines of his mouth. It was an April afternoon and the warm sunshine uncurling the tiny buds on the old elm trees lit to a brighter hue the yellow Forsythia bushes already in bloom in the... more...

CHAPTER I.           "O that sweet gleam of sunshine on the lake!"          WILSON'S City of the Plague If, reader, you have ever looked through a solar microscope at the monsters in a drop of water, perhaps you have wondered to yourself how things so terrible have been hitherto unknown to you—you have felt a loathing at the limpid element you hitherto deemed so... more...

CHAPTER I. SPILLED OUT. Sylvie Argenter was driving about in her mother's little basket-phæton. There was a story about this little basket-phæton, a story, and a bit of domestic diplomacy. The story would branch away, back and forward; which I cannot, right here in this first page, let it do. It would tell—taking the little carriage for a text and key—ever so much about aims and ways and... more...

Thirty million miles out, Keeter began monitoring the planet's radio and television networks. He kept the vigil for two sleepless days and nights, then turned off the receivers and began a systematic study of the notes he had taken on English idioms and irregular verbs. Twelve hours later, convinced that there would be no language difficulty, he left the control room, went into his cabin and fell... more...

INTRODUCTION. Dear Reader: Please look through this "Introduction" before beginning with the regular chapters. It is always well to know the object, aim, and mode of treatment of a book before reading it, so as to be able to look at it from the author's view-point. First: A word about the title—"Nature's Miracles." Some may claim that it is unscientific to speak of the... more...

HENRI RENÉ ALBERT GUY DE MAUPASSANT The Necklace She was one of those pretty and charming girls who are sometimes, as if by a mistake of destiny, born in a family of clerks. She had no dowry, no expectations, no means of being known, understood, loved, wedded, by any rich and distinguished man; and she let herself be married to a little clerk at the Ministry of Public Instruction. She dressed plainly... more...

CHAPTER ILIGHT-PRODUCING ORGANISMS The fact that animals can produce light must have been recognized from the earliest times in countries where fireflies and glowworms abound, but it is only since the perfection of the microscope that the phosphorescence of the sea, the light of damp wood and of dead fish and flesh has been proved to be due to living organisms. Aristotle mentions the light of dead fish... more...

CHAPTER I. Stranger in a strange Land.—A Citadel of Trunks.—Besieged.—Retreat in good Order.—A most tremendous Uproar.—Kicks! Thumps!—Smash of Chain!—Crash of Tables!—A general Row!—The Cry for Help!—The Voice of David!—The Revelation of the Darkness!—The fiery Eyes!—The Unseen!—The Revelation of the Mystery.—A general Fight. Mr. Moses V. Sprole had passed the greater part... more...

INTRODUCTION. The first of the Essays following appeared in "Scribner's Monthly," in July, 1880; and immediately became honored by the attention of the Medical Press throughout the country. The aggressive title of the paper, justified, in great measure, perhaps, the vigor of the criticism bestowed. Again and again the point was raised by reviewers that the problem presented by the title,... more...

Zalen Lindsay stood on the rostrum in the huge new United Worlds auditorium on the shore of Lake Pontchartrain and looked out at an ocean of eye-glasses. Individually they ranged in hue from the rose-tinted spectacles of the Americans to the dark brown of the Soviet bloc. Their shapes and adornments were legion: round, harlequin, diamond, rhomboid, octagonal, square, oval; rimless, gem-studded,... more...