Fiction Books

The wagon had come to rest among the trees an hour or two before sunset. It was a covered-in dray, and had been brought to in a little clearing of the scrubby undergrowth. Two horses had drawn it all the way from the coast. Freed of their harness, they stood in the lee of a great gum, their flanks matted with the dust which had caked with the run of sweat on them. The mongrel that had followed at their... more...

Chapter 1: Sixties' stories: Free Goa's first elections By Ben AntaoBesides his stint referred to in this chapter, Benedito Martinho Herculano Antao (b, 1935) worked for the Indian Express in Bombay (1965-66). He then won a journalism award from the World Press Institute, moved to the US for a year's study, work and travel. Later, he spent 10 weeks at the Denver Post (1967), worked for a... more...

CHAPTER I "Oh Shawn!" It was a shrill voice calling from the bank above the river. "You can holler till dark, but I ain't goin' to answer you while a blue-channel cat is nibblin' at this line." Through the short and chubby fingers a stout sea-grass line was running out to the accumulated driftwood in the eddy below the wharf-boat. Suddenly there came a spasmodic jerk of... more...

Prologue. During one of many journeyings through the remote provinces of the Mexican republic, it was my fortune to encounter an old revolutionary officer, in the person of Captain Castaños. From time to time as we travelled together, he was good enough to give me an account of some of the more noted actions of the prolonged and sanguinary war of the Independence; and, among other narratives, one... more...

CHAPTER I Lord Loudwater was paying attention neither to his breakfast nor to the cat Melchisidec. Absorbed in a leader in The Times newspaper, now and again he tugged at his red-brown beard in order to quicken his comprehension of the weighty phrases of the leader-writer; now and again he made noises, chiefly with his nose, expressive of disgust. Lady Loudwater paid no attention to these noises. She... more...

THE WOOD-FOLK. Pan led a merrier life than all the other gods together. He was beloved alike by shepherds and countrymen, and by the fauns and satyrs, birds and beasts, of his own kingdom. The care of flocks and herds was his, and for home he had all the world of woods and waters; he was lord of everything out-of-doors! Yet he felt the burden of it no more than he felt the shadow of a leaf when he... more...

Connal was the name of the King who ruled over Ireland at that time. He had three sons, and, as the fir-trees grow, some crooked and some straight, one of them grew up so wild that in the end the King and the King's Councillor had to let him have his own way in everything. This youth was the King's eldest son and his mother had died before she could be a guide to him. Now after the King and... more...

CHAPTER I Miss Elizabeth Mapp might have been forty, and she had taken advantage of this opportunity by being just a year or two older. Her face was of high vivid colour and was corrugated by chronic rage and curiosity; but these vivifying emotions had preserved to her an astonishing activity of mind and body, which fully accounted for the comparative adolescence with which she would have been credited... more...

I Dr. Howard Archie had just come up from a game of pool with the Jewish clothier and two traveling men who happened to be staying overnight in Moonstone. His offices were in the Duke Block, over the drug store. Larry, the doctor's man, had lit the overhead light in the waiting-room and the double student's lamp on the desk in the study. The isinglass sides of the hard-coal burner were aglow,... more...

BOOK I. FROM THE PAPERS OF COUNT O——— I am about to relate an adventure which to many will appear incredible, but of which I was in great part an eye-witness. The few who are acquainted with a certain political event will, if indeed these pages should happen to find them alive, receive a welcome solution thereof. And, even to the rest of my readers, it will be, perhaps, important as a... more...