Fantasy Books

THE BEGINNING Philip Haldane and his sister lived in a little red-roofed house in a little red-roofed town. They had a little garden and a little balcony, and a little stable with a little pony in it—and a little cart for the pony to draw; a little canary hung in a little cage in the little bow-window, and the neat little servant kept everything as bright and clean as a little new pin. Philip had no... more...

1. The Way to Butterfield "Please, miss," said the shaggy man, "can you tell me the road to Butterfield?" Dorothy looked him over. Yes, he was shaggy, all right, but there was a twinkle in his eye that seemed pleasant. "Oh yes," she replied; "I can tell you. But it isn't this road at all." "No?" "You cross the ten-acre lot, follow the lane to the... more...

CHAPTER 1 "Hello," said the boy. "Hello," answered Trot, looking up surprised. "Where did you come from?" "Philadelphia," said he. "Dear me," said Trot, "you're a long way from home, then." "'Bout as far as I can get, in this country," the boy replied, gazing out over the water. "Isn't this the Pacific Ocean?" "Of... more...

CHAPTER I: OF THOSE THREE WHO CAME TO THE HOUSE OF THE RAVEN It has been told that there was once a young man of free kindred and whose name was Hallblithe: he was fair, strong, and not untried in battle; he was of the House of the Raven of old time. This man loved an exceeding fair damsel called the Hostage, who was of the House of the Rose, wherein it was right and due that the men of the Raven... more...

CHAPTER I. THE BEGINNING OF A MARVELOUS JOURNEY. “Dick! Dick! Wake up, I want to tell you something.” Marjorie stood outside the boy’s bedroom door, and called in as loud a whisper as she dared, fearing lest she should awaken the rest of the household. There was a scuffle and a patter of bare feet inside, and Dick appeared at the door rubbing his eyes, evidently only half awake. “What’s... more...

Chapter One The Tin Woodman sat on his glittering tin throne in the handsome tin hall of his splendid tin castle in the Winkie Country of the Land of Oz. Beside him, in a chair of woven straw, sat his best friend, the Scarecrow of Oz. At times they spoke to one another of curious things they had seen and strange adventures they had known since first they two had met and become comrades. But at times... more...

I.May that triumphant Lord protect us, who as he stands in mysterious meditation, bathed in twilight, motionless, and ashy pale, with the crystal moon in his yellow hair, appears to the host of worshippers on his left, a woman, and to those on his right, a man.There lived of old, on the edge of the desert, a rájá of the race of the sun. And like that sun reflected at midday in the glassy depths of... more...

Chapter One "Seems to me," said Cap'n Bill, as he sat beside Trot under the big acacia tree, looking out over the blue ocean, "seems to me, Trot, as how the more we know, the more we find we don't know." "I can't quite make that out, Cap'n Bill," answered the little girl in a serious voice, after a moment's thought, during which her eyes followed those... more...

THE MOON STRICKEN It so fell that one dark evening in the month of June I was belated in the Bernese Oberland. Dusk overtook me toiling along the great Chamounix Road, and in the heart of a most desolate gorge, whose towering snow-flung walls seemed—as the day sucked inwards to a point secret as a leech's mouth—to close about me like a monstrous amphitheatre of ghosts. The rutted road, dipping... more...

PREFACE oes anybody remember the opera of The Inca, and that heartbreaking episode where the Court Undertaker, in a morbid desire to increase his professional skill, deliberately accomplishes the destruction of his middle-aged relatives in order to inter them for the sake of practise? If I recollect, his dismal confession runs something like this: “It was in a bleak November When I slew them, I... more...