Fiction Books

Chapter One. Auntie and her Darling. “Don’t eat too much marmalade, Sydney dear. It may make you bilious.” “Oh, no, auntie dear, I’ll be careful.” “You have a great deal of butter on your bread, dear?” “Yes, auntie; that’s the beauty of it Miller says—” “Who is Miller, Syd dear?” “Our chemistry chap at Loamborough. He shows us how when you mix acids and alkalis together... more...

CHAPTER I THE PARTING OF THE WAYS Baldy knew that something was wrong. His most diverting efforts had failed to gain the usual reward of a caress, or at least a word of understanding; and so, dog-like to express his sympathy, he came close beside his friend and licked his hand. Always, before, this had called attention to the fact that Baldy was ready to share any trouble with the boy—but to-day the... more...

Persia is rich in folk lore. For hundreds and hundreds of years the stories in this book, and many others as well, have been told to the wondering boys and girls of that country, who, as they hear them, picture their native land as one of roses and tulips, where beautiful fairies build their castles in the rosy morn, and black gnomes fly around in the darkness of midnight. A land, too, where the sun... more...

INTRODUCTION A splendid book in which a soul lives so profoundly human and so purely feminine that any words of introduction seem leaden and intrusive. You feel as though you were violating the essential delicacy and powerful life of this soul to comment upon the remarkable revelation of it between the very covers that contain the revelation. Yet, as a modest friend of letters, I should like to express... more...

The want of an introduction to the study of Old-English has long been felt. Vernon's Anglo-Saxon Guide was an admirable book for its time, but has long been completely antiquated. I was therefore obliged to make my Anglo-Saxon Reader a somewhat unsatisfactory compromise between an elementary primer and a manual for advanced students, but I always looked forward to producing a strictly elementary... more...

INTRODUCTION TO CHRONICLES OF THE CANONGATE. The preceding volume of this Collection concluded the last of the pieces originally published under the NOMINIS UMBRA of The Author of Waverley; and the circumstances which rendered it impossible for the writer to continue longer in the possession of his incognito were communicated in 1827, in the Introduction to the first series of Chronicles of the... more...

Even here, on the black terrace before the forgotten mountain retreat of Asti, it was possible to smell the dank stench of burning Memphir, to imagine that the dawn wind bore upward from the pillaged city the faint tortured cries of those whom the barbarians of Klem hunted to their prolonged death. Indeed it was time to leave— Varta, last of the virgin Maidens of Asti, shivered. The scaled and... more...

THERE was a young Samurai of Kyōto who had been reduced to poverty by the ruin of his lord, and found himself obliged to leave his home, and to take service with the Governor of a distant province. Before quitting the capital, this Samurai divorced his wife,—a good and beautiful woman,—under the belief that he could better obtain promotion by another alliance. He then married the daughter of... more...

PREFACE. When detached or individual histories become so numerous that they can neither be easily collected nor perused, the public interest requires a writer capable of arranging and embodying them in the form of a general historical narrative; not, indeed, by a minute detail of their whole contents, but by selecting from each that which appears most interesting and instructive. Hence it mostly... more...

e was intimately and unfavorably known everywhere in the Galaxy, but with special virulence on eight planets in three different solar systems. He was eagerly sought on each; they all wanted to try him and punish him—in each case, by their own laws and customs. This had been going on for 26 terrestrial years, which means from minus ten to plus 280 in some of the others. The only place that didn't... more...