Classics Books

KING HENRY VIII His Character Holbein has drawn the character and written the history of Henry on the canvas of his great picture. Masterful, cruel, crafty, merciless, courageous, sensual, through-seeing, humorous, mean, matter of fact, worldly-wise, and of indomitable will, Henry the Eighth is perhaps the most outstanding figure in English history. The reason is not far to seek. The genial adventurer... more...

CHAPTER I HENRY PLANTAGENET The history of the English people would have been a great and a noble history whatever king had ruled over the land seven hundred years ago. But the history as we know it, and the mode of government which has actually grown up among us is in fact due to the genius of the great king by whose will England was guided from 1154 to 1189. He was a foreign king who never spoke the... more...

CHAPTER I THE MINISTER'S SON "I wish we were not so terribly poor, Grant," said Mrs. Thornton, in a discouraged tone. "Is there anything new that makes you say so, mother?" answered the boy of fifteen, whom she addressed. "Nothing new, only the same old trouble. Here is a note from Mr.Tudor, the storekeeper." "Let me see it, mother." Grant took a yellow envelope... more...

Tarb Morfatch had read all the information on Terrestrial customs that was available in the Times morgue before she'd left Fizbus. And all through the journey she'd studied her Brief Introduction to Terrestrial Manners and Mores avidly. Perhaps it was a bit overinspirational in spots, but it had facts in it, too. So she knew that, since the natives were non-alate, she was not to take wing on... more...

"It's not enough to have a nudist colony move in next door!" fumed Professor Paulsen. "No, indeed! That wouldn't disrupt things enough. Now, in addition, every ne'er-do-well in the county comes prowling over our farm in order to spy on the naked numbskulls!" Scowling ferociously, the gaunt scientist stamped violently back across the meadow's lush verdure toward the... more...

CHAPTER I YOUTH "I shall always be so great a pedant as to call a man of no learning a man of no education."—Amelia. Henry Fielding was born at Sharpham Park, near Glastonbury, on the 22nd of April 1707. His birth-room, a room known as the Harlequin Chamber, looked out over the roof of a building which once was the private chapel of the abbots of Glastonbury; for Sharpham Park possessed no... more...

CHAPTER I. AFTER OFFICE HOURS IN THE HOUSE OF DUNBAR, DUNBAR, AND BALDERBY. The house of Dunbar, Dunbar, and Balderby, East India bankers, was one of the richest firms in the city of London--so rich that it would be quite in vain to endeavour to describe the amount of its wealth. It was something fabulous, people said. The offices were situated in a dingy and narrow thoroughfare leading out of King... more...

CHAPTER I I DISCOVER THE PRINTING-OFFICE For years my sister Harriet and I confined our relationships with the neighbouring town of Hempfield to the Biblical "yea, yea" and "nay, nay," not knowing how much we missed, and used its friendly people as one might use an inanimate plough or an insensate rolling-pin, as mere implements or adjuncts in the provision of food or clothing for our... more...

CHAPTER I THE HUT ON THE CLIFF No well informed resident of Millsburgh, when referring to the principal industry of his little manufacturing city, ever says "the mills"—it is always "the Mill." The reason for this common habit of mind is that one mill so overshadows all others, and so dominates the industrial and civic life of this community, that in the people's thought it... more...

CHAPTER I HELEN It had been a great day for the children at Hope Center the closing day of school, the last of the term, the last of the week. The larger boys and girls had spent the morning decorating the "big" room, which was to be the assembly-room. At the Center they were still quite primitive. There were many old or rather elderly people very much opposed to "putting on airs." Boys... more...