Fiction Books

The First Conference An Account of Mr. Maxwell Laird of Coul his Appearance after Death to Mr. Ogilvie a Minister of the present Establishment at Innerwick, 3 Miles East from Dunbar. Upon the 3d Day of February, 1722, at seven a clock at Night after I had parted with Thurston [his Name Cant], and was coming up the Burial Road, one came riding up after me: upon hearing the Noise of his Horse’s feet, I... more...

THE OLD NURSE'S STORY You know, my dears, that your mother was an orphan, and an only child; and I daresay you have heard that your grandfather was a clergyman up in Westmoreland, where I come from. I was just a girl in the village school, when, one day, your grandmother came in to ask the mistress if there was any scholar there who would do for a nurse-maid; and mighty proud I was, I can tell ye,... more...

Sophy smiled at her image in the mirror, and her grey eyes smiled back at her. The shadows under them—warm, golden stains like those on a bruised magnolia leaf—gave them a mysterious, impassioned look. She felt that she was going to have a happy evening. In those days, in the early '90s, electric light was not much used in the houses in Regent's Park. Candles in brass sconces lighted her... more...

CHURCHILL—HIS LIFE AND WRITINGS. In Churchill we find a signal specimen of a considerable class of writers, concerning whom Goldsmith's words are true—   "Who, born for the universe, narrow'd their mind,  And to party gave up what was meant for mankind." Possessed of powers and natural endowments which might have made him, under favourable circumstances, a poet, a hero, a man,... more...

THE DREAM. It was Sunday night, and Robert Hardy had just come home from the evening service in the church at Barton. He was not in the habit of attending the evening service, but something said by his minister in the morning had impelled him to go out. The evening had been a little unpleasant, and a light snow was falling, and his wife had excused herself from going to church on that account. Mr.... more...

THE FOURTH MAN The raft might have been taken for a swath of cut sedge or a drifting tangle of roots as it slid out of the shadowy river mouth at dawn and dipped into the first ground swell. But while the sky brightened and the breeze came fresh offshore it picked a way among shoals and swampy islets with purpose and direction, and when at last the sun leaped up and cleared his bright eye of the... more...

A gentle fancy for the Christmas Season—an oft-told tale with a wistful twistful of Something that left the Earth with a wing and a prayer.Earth was so far away that it wasn't visible. Even the sun was only a twinkle. But this vast distance did not mean that isolation could endure forever. Instruments within the ship intercepted radio broadcasts and, within the hour, early TV signals. Machines... more...

His fingers moved over the modest packet of bills the invisible rockhound had handed to him. He smiled through the eternal night that was his own personal hell. Duggan's Hades. "Thanks, Pete," he said gratefully. "Here, have a box of Conmos." His sensitized fingers found the cigars, handed over a box, and he heard the nervous scuff of the other's shoes. "This eight... more...

Dear Mother: I have concluded to send you my journal, not because I think it contains anything of great interest, but because I know you will take it as an evidence that I have not forgotten my Mother. Nancy and I have been married two years today, and through that time have walked peacefully along the path of life together, a path on which little Alice now presses her tiny feet and, holding a little... more...

CHAP. I. Mary, the heroine of this fiction, was the daughter of Edward, who married Eliza, a gentle, fashionable girl, with a kind of indolence in her temper, which might be termed negative good-nature: her virtues, indeed, were all of that stamp. She carefully attended to the shews of things, and her opinions, I should have said prejudices, were such as the generality approved of. She was educated... more...