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...

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. John Hardy had lived with his mother at Hardy Place. His father had died when he was six years of age, and there was consequently a long minority of fifteen years. The greatest influence in John Hardy's life was a trout stream that ran winding through an English landscape for four miles in the Hardys' property. John Hardy fished it as a schoolboy, and it was the greatest triumph he... more...

CHAPTER I Early life—Leaving home—I meet Jensen—I go pearling—Daily routine—Submarine beauties—A fortune in pearls—Seized by an octopus—Shark-killing extraordinary—Trading with the natives—Impending trouble—Preparing for the attack—Baffling the savages. I was born in or near Paris, in the year 1844.  My father was a fairly prosperous man of business—a general merchant, to be... more...

CHAPTER I. SOME OPINIONS AND A WEDDING "I, Bertram, take thee, Billy," chanted the white-robed clergyman. "'I, Bertram, take thee, Billy,'" echoed the tall young bridegroom, his eyes gravely tender. "To my wedded wife." "'To my wedded wife.'" The bridegroom's voice shook a little. "To have and to hold from this day forward." "'To... more...

Richard Herrick was a young man with a gentle disposition, much money, and no sense of humor. His object in life was to marry Miss Catherweight. For three years she had tried to persuade him this could not be, and finally, in order to convince him, married some one else. When the woman he loves marries another man, the rejected one is popularly supposed to take to drink or to foreign travel. Statistics... more...

I.—Ab initio. The name of the father of Ginx's Baby was Ginx. By a not unexceptional coincidence, its mother was Mrs. Ginx. The gender of Ginx's Baby was masculine. On the day when our hero was born, Mr. and Mrs. Ginx were living at Number Five, Rosemary Street, in the City of Westminster. The being then and there brought into the world was not the only human entity to which the title of... more...

A POOR MAN'S TALE OF A PATENT I AM not used to writing for print. What working-man, that never labours less (some Mondays, and Christmas Time and Easter Time excepted) than twelve or fourteen hours a day, is? But I have been asked to put down, plain, what I have got to say; and so I take pen-and-ink, and do it to the best of my power, hoping defects will find excuse. I was born nigh London, but... more...

CHAPTER I As I sat on a bench in Madison Square after half past eleven in the evening, at the end of one of those mild days that sometimes occur in New York even at the beginning of December, a dog came trotting up to me, stopped at my feet, and whined. There is nothing remarkable in having a strange dog run to one nor in seeing the creature rise on its hind legs and paw at you for notice and a caress.... more...