Fiction Books

It had been a hard winter along the slopes of the Great Smoky Mountains, and still the towering treeless domes were covered with snow, and the vagrant winds were abroad, rioting among the clifty heights where they held their tryst, or raiding down into the sheltered depths of the Cove, where they seldom intruded. Nevertheless, on this turbulent rush was borne in the fair spring of the year. The... more...

INTRODUCTION. Plants belonging to the natural order Anacardiaci? (Cashew family or Sumach family) are found in all the temperate climates of the world and quite frequently in semi-tropical climates. Many of these plants play important parts in economic botany, yielding dye-stuffs, tanning material, wax, varnish, and drugs. Several species are poisonous. At least three poisonous species of the genus... more...

This is the story of Black Earl Roderick, the story and the song of his pride and of his humbling; of the bitterness of his heart, and of the love that came to it at last; of his threatened destruction, and the strange and wonderful way of his salvation. So shall I begin and tell. He left his gray castle at the dawn of the morning, and with many a knight to bear him company rode, not eager and swift,... more...

CHAPTER I THE WAY OF A MAN Major Anthony Lyveden, D.S.O., was waiting. For the second time in three minutes he glanced anxiously at his wrist and then thrust his hand impatiently into a pocket. When you have worn a wristwatch constantly for nearly six years, Time alone can accustom you to its absence. And at the present moment Major Lyveden's watch was being fitted with a new strap. The pawnbroker... more...

THE GREAT HANLON "You may contradict me as flat as a flounder, Eunice, but that won't alter the facts. There is something in telepathy—there is something in mind-reading—" "If you could read my mind, Aunt Abby, you'd drop that subject.For if you keep on, I may say what I think, and—" "Oh, that won't bother me in the least. I know what you think, but your... more...

CHAPTER I At nine o'clock in the evening the body of the house at the Theatres des Varietes was still all but empty. A few individuals, it is true, were sitting quietly waiting in the balcony and stalls, but these were lost, as it were, among the ranges of seats whose coverings of cardinal velvet loomed in the subdued light of the dimly burning luster. A shadow enveloped the great red splash of... more...

The third night of the Marco Four's landfall on the moonless Altarian planet was a repetition of the two before it, a nine-hour intermission of drowsy, pastoral peace. Navigator Arthur Farrell—it was his turn to stand watch—was sitting at an open-side port with a magnoscanner ready; but in spite of his vigilance he had not exposed a film when the inevitable pre-dawn rainbow began to shimmer... more...

INTRODUCTION. In the summer of 1848 the author of the following tale was a passenger on board a steamboat from New Orleans to Cincinnati. During the passage—one of the most prolonged and uncomfortable in the annals of western river navigation—the plot of this story was arranged. Many of its incidents, and all its descriptions of steamboat life, will be recognized by the voyager of the Mississippi.... more...

CHAPTER I THE BIRTHDAY GIFT 'O I've got a plum-cake, and a feast let us make, Come, school-fellows, come at my call; I assure you 'tis nice, and we'll all have a slice, Here's more than enough for us all.'                               JANE TAYLOR. 'It is come! Felix, it is come!' So cried, shouted, shrieked a chorus, as a street... more...

I. The Silent Bullet "Detectives in fiction nearly always make a great mistake," said Kennedy one evening after our first conversation on crime and science. "They almost invariably antagonize the regular detective force. Now in real life that's impossible—it's fatal." "Yes," I agreed, looking up from reading an account of the failure of a large Wall Street brokerage... more...