Fiction Books

Slowly, very slowly, the greatest and most beautiful of the Missions of Alta California had risen among the swelling lomas of the valley of the San Juan. Brick by brick and stone by stone the simple Indian laborers, under the tutelage of the Fathers, had reared a structure which, in its way and place, might not unfitly be compared with those great cathedrals of Europe in which we see, as in a parable,... more...

I By various influences and agents the Past is summoned before us, more vivid than a dream. The process seems as magical as those whereof we read in fairy legends, where circles are drawn, wands waved, mystic syllables pronounced. Adjured by these rites, voices speak, or forms and faces shape themselves from nothing. So, through certain influences, not magical at all, our brains are made to flash with... more...

CHAPTER I—THE DESCENT “But you can’t do it, you know,” friends said, to whom I applied for assistance in the matter of sinking myself down into the East End of London.  “You had better see the police for a guide,” they added, on second thought, painfully endeavouring to adjust themselves to the psychological processes of a madman who had come to them with better credentials than brains.... more...

CHAPTER ONE Through the Blue Haze Six months and three days after the Peace of Shanghai was signed and the great War of 1965-1970 declared at an end by an exhausted world, a young man huddled on a park bench in New York, staring miserably at the gravel beneath his badly worn shoes. He had been trained to fill the pilot's seat in the control cabin of a fighting plane and for nothing else. The... more...

CHAPTER I THE SINS OF THE FATHER ARE VISITED ON THE CHILDREN The January afternoon was passing into night, the air was cold and still, so still that not a single twig of the naked beech-trees stirred; on the grass of the meadows lay a thin white rime, half frost, half snow; the firs stood out blackly against a steel-hued sky, and over the tallest of them hung a single star. Past these bordering firs... more...

Chapter 1 I am forced to admit that even though I had traveled a long distance to place Bowen Tyler's manuscript in the hands of his father, I was still a trifle skeptical as to its sincerity, since I could not but recall that it had not been many years since Bowen had been one of the most notorious practical jokers of his alma mater. The truth was that as I sat in the Tyler library at Santa... more...

THE PERFECT TRIBUTE On the morning of November 18, 1863, a special train drew out from Washington, carrying a distinguished company. The presence with them of the Marine Band from the Navy Yard spoke a public occasion to come, and among the travellers there were those who might be gathered only for an occasion of importance. There were judges of the Supreme Court of the United States; there were heads... more...

Is there something wrong with you? Do you fail to fit in with your group? Nervous, anxious, ill-at-ease? Happy about it? Lucky you!Frank Pembroke sat behind the desk of his shabby little office over Lemark's Liquors in downtown Los Angeles and waited for his first customer. He had been in business for a week and as yet had had no callers. Therefore, it was with a mingled sense of excitement and... more...

ROYAL," said the man's mother that evening, "are you still thinking of Fanny Price?" It was in Gramercy Park. As you may or may not know, Gramercy Park is the least noisy spot in the metropolitan Bedlam. Without being unreasonably aristocratic it is sedate and what agents call exclusive. The park itself is essentially that. Its design is rather English. The use is restricted to... more...

The love of travel was a family instinct, and was born with me. My maternal grandfather went to Central Africa—at least, he left us intending to do so, but never came back again. I had a great uncle who voyaged three times round the world, and one sailor uncle who, half a century ago, spent a winter at the North Pole along with Parry and Franklin. Then I had a cousin who was very ambitious of... more...