Fiction Books

WILLIAM HABINGTON. This poet might have been expected to have belonged to the 'Spasmodic school,' judging by his parental antecedents. His father was accused of having a share in Babington's conspiracy, but was released because he was godson to Queen Elizabeth. Soon after, however, he was imprisoned a second time, and condemned to death on the charge of having concealed some of the... more...

I A Maker of SongsSunsetThe pines, darkly purple, towered against the sunset. Behind the hills, the splendid tapestry glowed and flamed, sending far messages of light to the grey East, where lay the sea, crooning itself to sleep. Bare boughs dripped rain upon the sodden earth, where the dead leaves had so long been hidden by the snow. The thousand sounds and scents of Spring at last had waked the... more...

Author's Preface. "Biographers should not busy themselves so much with deeds, as their moving causes; with what motives, by what means, for what ends and under what circumstances they were performed. If we limit ourselves to a simple detail of facts, our judgment is determined by success; and upright men are condemned as evil or imprudent, because of the unfavorable issue of their endeavors.... more...

PREFACE The first edition of this book appeared in 1905. That edition is exhausted,—an evidence of the great present-day interest in the woman’s rights movement. This new edition takes into account the developments since 1905, contains the recent statistical data, and gives an account of the woman’s suffrage movement which has been especially characteristic of these later years. Wherever the... more...

The explosion brought Jim Peters upright in bed. He sat there, leaning back on the heels of his hands, blinking stupidly at the wall. His vision cleared and he looked down at Myra, just stirring beside him. Myra opened her eyes. Jim said, "Did you feel that?" Myra yawned. "I thought I was dreaming. It was an explosion or something, wasn't it?" Jim's lips set grimly. After ten... more...

Chapter 1: Fresh from Ireland. A number of officers of O'Brien's regiment of foot, forming a part of the Irish Brigade in the service of France, were gathered in a handsome apartment in the Rue des Fosses, on the 20th of June, 1701, when the door opened, and their colonel entered with a young officer in the uniform of the regiment. "I have asked you here, gentlemen all," he said,... more...

Guy de Maupassant Guy de Maupassant was born at the Chateau de Miromesnil, near Dieppe, on August 5th, 1850. The Maupassants were an old Lorraine family who had settled in Normandy in the middle of the Eighteenth Century. His father had married in 1846 a young lady of the rich bourgeoisie, Laure Le Poittevin. With her brother Alfred, she had been the playmate of Gustave Flaubert, the son of a Rouen... more...

At a time when in our fatherland a cold raw wind made its presence felt, and the sharp frost at night checked the growth of the early bud, the Rhine valley between the Bergstrasse and Hardtgebirge had revelled for many weeks in the timely spring, the especial privilege of this garden of Germany. Even three hundred years ago at the time of our narrative the Neckar valley shimmered with the white and red... more...

CHAPTER 1 The description of the family of Wakefield; in which a kindred likeness prevails as well of minds as of persons I was ever of opinion, that the honest man who married and brought up a large family, did more service than he who continued single, and only talked of population. From this motive, I had scarce taken orders a year before I began to think seriously of matrimony, and chose my wife as... more...

INTRODUCTION On the banks of a shallow winding stream, traversing the region known as Middle Tennessee, on the last day of December, 1862, and on the first and second days of January, 1863, a great battle was fought,—a battle that marked the turning point of the Civil War. Stone’s River, as the North designated it, or Murfreesboro,—to give it the Southern name,—has hitherto not been estimated... more...