Fiction Books

INTRODUCTORY NOTE. OUT of the darkest depths of life, where vice and crime and misery abound, comes the Byron of the twentieth century, the poet of the vagabond and the proletariat, Maxim Gorky. Not like the beggar, humbly imploring for a crust in the name of the Lord, nor like the jeweller displaying his precious stones to dazzle and tempt the eye, he comes to the world,—nay, in accents of Tyrtaeus... more...

ACT I The SCENE is the pretty drawing-room of a flat. There are two doors, one open into the hall, the other shut and curtained. Through a large bay window, the curtains of which are not yet drawn, the towers of Westminster can be seen darkening in a summer sunset; a grand piano stands across one corner. The man-servant PAYNTER, clean-shaven and discreet, is arranging two tables for Bridge. BURNEY, the... more...

Totem poles are a dime a dozen north of 63° ... but only Ketch, the lying Eskimo, vowed they dropped out of frigid northern skies.Probos Five gazed at the white expanse ahead, trying to determine where his ship would crash. Something was haywire in the fuel system of his Interstar Runabout. He was losing altitude fast, so fast that all five pairs of his eyes couldn't focus on a place to land. Five... more...

Myself, I do not believe this story. Six persons are persuaded of its truth; and the hope of these six is to convince themselves it was an hallucination. Their difficulty is there are six of them. Each one alone perceives clearly that it never could have been. Unfortunately, they are close friends, and cannot get away from one another; and when they meet and look into each other's eyes the thing... more...

On the sixty-third floor of the Empire State Building is, among others of its type, a rather small office consisting of two rooms connected by a stout wooden door. The room into which the office door, which is of opaque glass, opens, is the smaller of the two and serves to house a receptionist, three not-too-comfortable armchairs, and a disorderly, homogeneous mixture of Life's, Look's and... more...

PART ONEMARGERY was sitting under the cherry tree with a certain air of expectancy. She seemed to be waiting for something or some one. Willie Jones's head popped over the back fence and Willie Jones himself, a tin pail in one hand, dropped into the Blair yard and made for the cherry tree. But Margery still gazed earnestly, tensely, into nothing. Willie Jones, evidently, was not the object of her... more...

BETH AT EIGHTEEN. In the good old county of Norfolk, close to the shore of Lake Erie, lies the pretty village of Briarsfield. A village I call it, though in truth it has now advanced almost to the size and dignity of a town. Here, on the brow of the hill to the north of the village (rather a retired spot, one would say, for so busy a man), at the time of which my story treats, stood the residence of... more...

CHAPTER I. PREPARATIONS AND PLANS. "It will be another 'sky cruise,' longer and daintier and lovelier!" exclaimed Jess Bancroft, clapping her hands. "Peggy, you're nothing if not original." "Well, there are automobile tours and sailing trips, and driving parties—" "And railroad journeys and mountain tramps—" interrupted Jess, laughing. "Yes, and... more...

CHAPTER I. EDUCATIONAL TENDENCIES. I was born in a retired but pleasant part of New England, as New England was half a century ago, and as, in many places, despite of its canals, steamboats, railroads, and electromagnetic telegraphs, it still is. Hence I am entitled to the honor of being, in the most emphatic sense, a native of the land of "steady habits." The people with whom I passed my early... more...

Alfred Pendray pushed himself along the corridor of the battleship Shane, holding the flashlight in one hand and using the other hand and his good leg to guide and propel himself by. The beam of the torch reflected queerly from the pastel green walls of the corridor, giving him the uneasy sensation that he was swimming underwater instead of moving through the blasted hulk of a battleship, a thousand... more...