Fiction Books

OUTSIDE THE RECORD. In General SessionsCourt Room, June 5, 1896. Dorothy dear: It is over. Warren’s fate is in the hands of the jury. I have done the little I could, but the strain has been almost too much for me. Even now, my heart sinks at the thought that I may have left something undone or failed to see some trap of the District Attorney. For more than two hours I have been sitting here fighting... more...

PREFACE. One fine August bank-holiday many thoughts, more or less connected with the day, prompted me to write this essay, so forcibly did it appear that people required help to make their lives easier and happier. Since then there have been several bank-holidays; and though trade is depressed throughout the country, though financial panic has ruined thousands, yet the demand for beer, spirits, and... more...

In his garden, Negu Mah, the Callisto uranium merchant, sat sipping a platinum mug of molkai with his guest, Sliss the Venusian. Nanlo, his wife, pushing before her the small serving cart with its platinum molkai decanter, paused for an instant as she entered the shell of pure vitrite which covered the garden, giving it the illusion of out-of-doorness. Negu Mah sat at his ease, his broad, merry,... more...

The “Pampered Pet.” “There goes the ‘Pampered Pet’ again! Got its little keeper with it, as usual. Why don’t they lead her by a chain, and be done with it?” Miles stood by the schoolroom window, hands jingling in pockets, as he surveyed a prospect, sufficiently grey and drear to make any diversity doubly welcome, and at his words there came the sound of a general pushing-back of chairs,... more...

The Space Wanderer Returns ilary Grendon piloted his battered, time-worn space flier, the Vagabond, to the smiling Earth that rose rapidly to greet it. Only the instinctive ease of long practise prevented a smash-up, his hands trembled so at the controls.Hilary returns to find alien diskoids in Earth's stratosphere, and out-world lords patrolling her cities.Home again—the old familiar Earth! He... more...

GENESIS By H. Beam Piper Was this ill-fated expedition the end of a proud, old race—or the beginning of a new one? There are strange gaps in our records of the past. We find traces of man-like things—but, suddenly, man appears, far too much developed to be the "next step" in a well-linked chain of evolutionary evidence. Perhaps something like the events of this story furnishes the answer to... more...

CHAPTER I Murray McTavish was seated at a small table, green-baized, littered with account-books and a profusion of papers. But he was not regarding these things. Instead, his dark, intelligent eyes were raised to the smallish, dingy window in front of him, set in its deep casing of centuries-old logs. Nor was the warm light shining in his eyes inspired by the sufficiently welcome sunlight beyond. His... more...

Chapter I     "Little Next Door—her years are few—    Loves me, more than her elders do;    Says, my wrinkles become me so;    Marvels much at the tales I know.    Says, we shall marry when she is grown——" The little happy song stopped short. John Wesley Pringle, at the mesa's last headland, drew rein to adjust his geography. This was new country to him. Close... more...

CHAPTER 1 Night is generally my time for walking. In the summer I often leave home early in the morning, and roam about fields and lanes all day, or even escape for days or weeks together; but, saving in the country, I seldom go out until after dark, though, Heaven be thanked, I love its light and feel the cheerfulness it sheds upon the earth, as much as any creature living. I have fallen insensibly... more...

The conquests of the French have resulted, during this war, in a boon to knowledge and to letters. Egypt has furnished us with monuments of its aboriginal inhabitants, which the ignorance and superstition of the Copts and Mussulmans kept concealed from civilized countries. The libraries of the convents of the various countries have been ransacked by savants and precious manuscripts have been brought to... more...