Fiction Books

CHAPTER I. ALMOST A RIOT. No, it was not an earthquake that happened in the city of Los Angeles, California, on that beautiful sun-shiny morning. It was just a tow-headed, cross-eyed youth shaking things up at the corner of Sixth and Main in an attempt to find his father. And not one corner of the cross streets was involved, but all four corners. The upheaval that followed this search for a missing... more...

CHAPTER I FORBIDDEN WATERS Richard Gregory stirred restlessly in his sleep vaguely aware of an unfamiliar sound, a faint tapping, insistent, disturbing. He wakened sharply and sat bolt upright, conscious of the fact that he was fully dressed. Then he remembered. "All right, Bill," he called softly. "Coming." It took but a minute to shove his automatic into his pocket and secure his... more...

The morning paper lay unread before Philon Miller on the breakfast table and even the prospects of steaming coffee, ham, eggs and orange juice could not make him forget his last night's visitors. On the closed-circuit Industrial TV screen glowed the words, Food Preparation Center breakfast menu for July 24, 2052. No. 1, orange juice, coffee, ham and eggs. No. 2, waffle, coffee.... Automatically he... more...

SLOW TORTURE Straight off, we were in the country.  It was most lovely and pleasant in those sylvan solitudes in the early cool morning in the first freshness of autumn.  From hilltops we saw fair green valleys lying spread out below, with streams winding through them, and island groves of trees here and there, and huge lonely oaks scattered about and casting black blots of shade; and beyond the... more...

To begin, I am a Frenchman, a teacher of languages, and a poor man,—necessarily a poor man, as the great world would say, or I should not be a teacher of languages, and my wife a copyist of great pictures, selling her copies at small prices. In our own eyes, it is true, we are not so poor—my Clélie and I. Looking back upon our past we congratulate ourselves upon our prosperous condition. There was... more...

Let me state my case calmly and without any undue fuss. I am, even by German standards, an uncommonly prudent person and I know how to keep my five senses under control. Apart from that, I am a lawyer and father to three sons. Neither during lilac time nor when there are hibiscus, sunflowers and asters on the ground am I in the habit of laying myself open to sentimental and romantic mood-swings. I do... more...

CHAPTER I THE EYES OF DREAD "What's the matter, Raal? You seem to be worried about something." Dick Oakwood, blue eyed and smiling and resembling a blond savage in his garb of soft zebra skin, glanced down at his chief warrior who prostrated himself at the feet of the boy king. "Tahara, hal! Come quickly, O Master!" replied Raal, his whole body expressing fear. "What is it,... more...

I was born March 15th 1838 at a place now called Williams in Lawrence County, Indiana. When the day came for me to be named, mother said, "He looks like my brother Zachariah," but father said, "He looks like my brother Simpson." "All right", said mother," we will just christen him Zachariah Simpson." And that is my name unto this day. Now, when mother said... more...

THE CHARITABLE CHUMS' BENEFIT CLUB.   The 'Mother Bunch' public-house stands modestly aside from the din, traffic, and turmoil of a leading London thoroughfare, and retires, like a bashful maiden, from the gaze of a crowd to the society of its own select circle. It is situated in a short and rather narrow street, leading from an omnibus route running north from the city to nowhere in... more...

I. EARLY LIFE. The poet and the novelist write largely out of personal experience, and must give expression to the effects of their own history. What they have seen and felt, gives shape and tone to what they write; that which is nearest their own hearts is poured forth in their books. To ignore these influences is to overlook a better part of what they write, and is often to lose the explanation of... more...