Fiction Books

INTRODUCTION. The first of the Essays following appeared in "Scribner's Monthly," in July, 1880; and immediately became honored by the attention of the Medical Press throughout the country. The aggressive title of the paper, justified, in great measure, perhaps, the vigor of the criticism bestowed. Again and again the point was raised by reviewers that the problem presented by the title,... more...

Zalen Lindsay stood on the rostrum in the huge new United Worlds auditorium on the shore of Lake Pontchartrain and looked out at an ocean of eye-glasses. Individually they ranged in hue from the rose-tinted spectacles of the Americans to the dark brown of the Soviet bloc. Their shapes and adornments were legion: round, harlequin, diamond, rhomboid, octagonal, square, oval; rimless, gem-studded,... more...

THE PEACE-PIPELONG ago, when our cities were pleasant woodlands and the white man was far beyond the seas, the great Manito, God of all the Indians, descended to the earth. From the red crags of the Great Red Pipestone Quarry he gazed upon the country that he ruled, and a silver river gushed from his footprints and turned to gold as it met the morning sun. The Great Manito stooped to gather some of the... more...

CHAPTER I We get under way. Polynesia's busiest corner. Our ship's company. A patriotic celebration rudely interrupted. In the grip of the elements. Necessary repairs. A night vigil. Land ho! "Is she tight?" asked Captain Ezra Triplett. (We were speaking of my yawl, the Kawa). "As tight as a corset," was my reply. "Good. I'll go." In this short interview I... more...

RÍDAN THE DEVIL Rídan lived alone in a little hut on the borders of the big German plantation at Mulifenua, away down at the lee end of Upolu Island, and every one of his brown-skinned fellow-workers either hated or feared him, and smiled when Burton, the American overseer, would knock him down for being a 'sulky brute.' But no one of them cared to let Rídan see him smile. For to... more...

The great advantage of being the fool of the family—My destiny is decided, and I am consigned to a stockbroker as part of his Majesty’s sea-stock—Unfortunately for me Mr Handycock is a bear, and I get very little dinner. If I cannot narrate a life of adventurous and daring exploits, fortunately I have no heavy crimes to confess: and, if I do not rise in the estimation of the reader for acts of... more...

THE TABLE inlighting is a hell of a way to earn a living. Underhill was furious as he closed the door behind himself. It didn't make much sense to wear a uniform and look like a soldier if people didn't appreciate what you did. He sat down in his chair, laid his head back in the headrest and pulled the helmet down over his forehead. As he waited for the pin-set to warm up, he remembered the... more...

CHAPTER I NEWS With a crunching of the small stones in the gravel drive, the big car swung around to the side entrance of the house, and came to a stop, with a whining, screeching and, generally protesting sound of the brake-bands. A girl, bronzed by the summer sun, let her gloved hands fall from the steering wheel, for she had driven fast, and was tired. The motor ceased its humming, and, with a... more...

CHAPTER I. In a small house, in a back street, in the large manufacturing town of Cottonborough, the young wife of “Cobbler” Horn lay dying. It was the dusk of a wild evening in early winter; and the cruel cough, which could be heard every now and then, in the lulls of the wind, from the room upstairs, gave deepening emphasis to the sad fact that the youthful wife and mother—for such also she... more...

CHAPTER I. The stage coach was invisible in a cloud of its own dust as it lurched and rolled along the alkali flats down the valley, and Sancho, the ranch-keeper, could not make out whether any passengers were on top or not. He had brought a fine binocular to bear just as soon as the shrill voice of Pedro, a swarthy little scamp of a half-breed, announced the dust-cloud sailing over the clump of... more...