Action & Adventure Books

CHAPTER I. Two Young Friends. At the mouth of the great river of Canton lies a maze of islands large and small, of which the most important is Hongkong on account of its fine harbor. More than half a century ago the English seized upon this island and forced the Chinese to cede it to them. Then it was little more than a barren rock with a low swampy shore on which were a few villages inhabited by poor... more...

1. HOW THE BRIGADIER CAME TO THE CASTLE OF GLOOM[] You do very well, my friends, to treat me with some little reverence, for in honouring me you are honouring both France and yourselves. It is not merely an old, grey-moustached officer whom you see eating his omelette or draining his glass, but it is a fragment of history. In me you see one of the last of those wonderful men, the men who were veterans... more...

THE MAHATMA* [*] Mahatma, "great-souled." "One of a class of persons withpreter-natural powers, imagined to exist in India andThibet."—New English Dictionary. Everyone has seen a hare, either crouched or running in the fields, or hanging dead in a poulterer's shop, or lastly pathetic, even dreadful-looking and in this form almost indistinguishable from a skinned cat, on the... more...

THE LIFE OF Daniel De Foe was descended from a respectable family in the county of Northampton, and born in London, about the year 1663. His father, James Foe, was a butcher, in the parish of St. Giles's, Cripplegate, and a protestant dissenter. Why the subject of this memoir prefixed the De to his family name cannot now be ascertained, nor did he at any period of his life think it necessary to... more...

Oh, what land is the Land of Dream? —WILLIAM BLAKE. I lived, then, in the great world once, in an old, roomy house beside a little wood of larches, with an aunt of the name of Sophia. My father and mother died a few days before my fourth birthday, so that I can conjure up only fleeting glimpses of their faces by which to remember what love was then lost to me. Both were youthful at death, but my Aunt... more...

Chapter I "Magnifique!" ejaculated the Countess de Coude, beneath her breath. "Eh?" questioned the count, turning toward his young wife. "What is it that is magnificent?" and the count bent his eyes in various directions in quest of the object of her admiration. "Oh, nothing at all, my dear," replied the countess, a slight flush momentarily coloring her already pink... more...

CHAPTER I DINNER TIME As The Aloha rode gently to her buoy among the crafts in the harbour, St. George longed to proclaim in the megaphone's monstrous parody upon capital letters: "Cat-boats and house-boats and yawls, look here. You're bound to observe that this is my steam yacht. I own her—do you see? She belongs to me, St. George, who never before owned so much as a piece of... more...

Chapter I It is imperative that now at once, while these stupendous events are still clear in my mind, I should set them down with that exactness of detail which time may blur. But even as I do so, I am overwhelmed by the wonder of the fact that it should be our little group of the "Lost World"—Professor Challenger, Professor Summerlee, Lord John Roxton, and myself—who have passed through... more...

CHAPTER 1 The Rassendylls—With a Word on the Elphbergs "I wonder when in the world you're going to do anything, Rudolf?" said my brother's wife. "My dear Rose," I answered, laying down my egg-spoon, "why in the world should I do anything? My position is a comfortable one. I have an income nearly sufficient for my wants (no one's income is ever quite sufficient, you... more...

This tale is founded upon two sagas, which have been translated literally and without attempt to accord their discrepancies by York Powell and Vigfussen in their invaluable Origines Icelandicae. As well as those versions I have had another authority to help me, in Laing's Sea-Kings of Norway. I have blent the two accounts into one, and put forward the result with this word of explanation, which I... more...