General Books

ALPHONSE DAUDET Tartarin of TarasconAlphonse Daudet, the celebrated French novelist, was born at Nimes on May 13, 1840, and as a youth of seventeen went to Paris, where he began as a poet at eighteen, and at twenty-two made his first efforts in the drama. He soon found his feet as a contributor to the leading journals of the day and a successful writer for the stage. He was thirty-two when he wrote... more...

I The girl leaned forward impulsively from the leisurely moving victoria and looked back at the automobile which whizzed by the carriage, along the maple-lined road leading from Washington to Chevy Chase; then she as suddenly resumed her former position when she discovered that the young man, who was the only occupant of the motor-car, had slowed down and was gazing back at her. "How... more...

CHAPTER I. IT was only just light enough to discern the five human forms in the dimness of the garret; the rays of the moon having to find their way through the deep window-embrasures of the keep. Less illumination would have sufficed to disclose the ancient character of the garret, with its low ceiling, and the graduated mouldings of the cornice, giving the effect of a shallow dome. The house stood... more...

MAXWELL GRAY The Silence of Dean MaitlandMary Gleed Tuttiett, the gifted lady who writes under the pseudonym of "Maxwell Gray," was born at Newport, Isle of Wight. The daughter of Mr. F.B. Tuttiett, M.R.C.S., she began her literary career by contributing essays, poems, articles, and short stones to various periodicals. With the appearance of "The Silence of Dean Maitland," in 1886,... more...

Chapter I The Philadelphia into which Frank Algernon Cowperwood was born was a city of two hundred and fifty thousand and more. It was set with handsome parks, notable buildings, and crowded with historic memories. Many of the things that we and he knew later were not then in existence—the telegraph, telephone, express company, ocean steamer, city delivery of mails. There were no postage-stamps or... more...

CHAPTER I.   Sam Lyman. In more than one of the sleepy neighborhoods that lay about the drowsy town of Old Ebenezer, Sam Lyman had lolled and dreamed. He had come out of the keen air of Vermont, and for a time he was looked upon as a marvel of energy, but the soft atmosphere of a southwestern state soothed the Yankee worry out of his walk, and made him content to sit in the shade, to wait for the... more...

Don Antonio de Isunza and Don Juan de Gamboa, gentlemen of high birth and excellent sense, both of the same age, and very intimate friends, being students together at Salamanca, determined to abandon their studies and proceed to Flanders. To this resolution they were incited by the fervour of youth, their desire to see the world, and their conviction that the profession of arms, so becoming to all, is... more...

CHAPTER I Even in college Alfred Hardy was a young man of fixed ideas and high ideals and proud of it. His friend, Jimmy Jinks, had few ideas and no ideals, and was glad of it, and before half of their first college term had passed, Jimmy had ridded himself of all such worries as making up his own mind or directing his own morals. Alfred did all these things so much better, argued Jimmy, furthermore,... more...

CHAPTER I THE WEAVING OF THE SHUTTLE No man knew when the Shuttle began its slow and heavy weaving from shore to shore, that it was held and guided by the great hand of Fate. Fate alone saw the meaning of the web it wove, the might of it, and its place in the making of a world's history. Men thought but little of either web or weaving, calling them by other names and lighter ones, for the time... more...

CHAPTER I The old stucco house sat back in a garden, or what must once have been a garden, when that part of the Austrian city had been a royal game preserve. Tradition had it that the Empress Maria Theresa had used the building as a hunting-lodge, and undoubtedly there was something royal in the proportions of the salon. With all the candles lighted in the great glass chandelier, and no sidelights, so... more...