Fiction Books

TO THE MEMORY OF A BELOVED SON WHO PASSED FROM EARTH, APRIL 3rd, 1887. I would gaze down the vista of past years,In fancy see to-night,A loved one passed from sight,But whose blest memory my spirit cheers. Shrined in the sacred temple of my soul,He seems again to live,And fond affection give,His mother's heart comfort and console. Perception of the beautiful and bright,In nature and in art,Evolved... more...

"But this painter!" cried Walter Ludlow, with animation. "He not only excels in his peculiar art, but possesses vast acquirements in all other learning and science. He talks Hebrew with Dr. Mather, and gives lectures in anatomy to Dr. Boylston. In a word, he will meet the best instructed man among us, on his own ground. Moreover, he is a polished gentleman—a citizen of the world—yes, a... more...

INTRODUCTION The seven volumes of the first edition of Clarissa were published in three instalments during the twelve months from December 1747 to December 1748. Richardson wrote a Preface for Volume I and a Postscript for Volume VII, and William Warburton supplied an additional Preface for Volume III (or IV).A second edition, consisting merely of a reprint of Volumes I-IV was brought out in 1749. In... more...

FOREWORD. Between the far away past history of the world, and that which lies near to us; in the time when the wisdom of the ancient times was dead and had passed away, and our own days of light had not yet come, there lay a great black gulf in human history, a gulf of ignorance, of superstition, of cruelty, and of wickedness. That time we call the dark or middle ages. Few records remain to us of that... more...

I. O'er royal London, in luxuriant May,While lamps yet twinkled, dawning crept the day.Home from the hell the pale-eyed gamester steals;Home from the ball flash jaded Beauty's wheels;The lean grimalkin, who, since night began,Hath hymn'd to love amidst the wrath of man,Scared from his raptures by the morning star,Flits finely by, and threads the area bar;From fields suburban rolls the... more...

Take half a pound of pure dry nitrate, in powder; put it into a retort that is quite dry; add an equal quantity of highly rectified oil of vitriol, and, distilling the mixture in a moderate sand heat, it will produce a liquor like a yellowish fume; this, when caught in a dry receiver, is Glauber's Spirits of Nitre; probably the preparation, under that name, may be obtained of the chemists, which... more...

FOREWORD For many years lovers of the republic have been warning our people as to the perils of modern city life. In 1800 one person out of thirteen lived in the city; to-day nearly every other citizen lives in a large town, or a great city. The city is the home of wealth, commerce, and finance; the home of music, art, and eloquence. Once each year all the great leaders come for a stay, long or short,... more...

No new edition of Bulfinch's classic work can be considered complete without some notice of the American scholar to whose wide erudition and painstaking care it stands as a perpetual monument. "The Age of Fable" has come to be ranked with older books like "Pilgrim's Progress," "Gulliver's Travels," "The Arabian Nights," "Robinson Crusoe," and five... more...

I Like a man who reenters a closed and darkened house and lies down; lying there, remains conscious of sunlight outside, of bird-calls, and the breeze in the trees, so had Drene entered into the obscurity of himself. Through the chambers of his brain the twilit corridors where cringed his bruised and disfigured soul, there nothing stirring except the automatic pulses which never cease. Sometimes, when... more...

Introduction The tree frogs of the Hyla rubra group are abundant and form a conspicuous element of the Neotropical frog fauna. Representatives of the group occur from lowland México to Argentina; the greatest diversity is reached in the lowlands of southeastern Brazil (Cochran, 1955). The group apparently originated in South America; the endemic Central American species evolved from stocks that... more...