Historical Books

A PILGRIM IN THE FAR WEST. The Peak was superb that morning, big and strong, and glittering with snow. Little Mrs. Nancy Tarbell turned, after shutting and locking the door of her cottage, and looked down the street, at the end of which the friendly giant stood out against a clear blue sky. The cottonwood trees on either side of the road were just coming into leaf, and their extended branches framed in... more...

TO J. T. M., WHO KNOWS THE STORY OF THE BLACK COLONEL Chapters and Contents I. WE MEET IN THE PASS II. TRAPPED BY THE RED-COATS III. OVER THE HILLS OF HOME IV. THE OPENING ROAD V. A CAIRN OF REMEMBRANCE VI. THE FINGER OF FATE VII. A PARLEY AND A SURPRISE VIII. THE CONQUERING HERO IX. 'TWIXT NIGHT AND MORN X. THE WAY OF A WOMAN XI. THE CRACK OF THUNDER XII. RAIDERS OF THE DARK XIII. THE WOUND OF... more...

CHAPTER I THE PRISON AT CÆSAREA It was but two hours after midnight, yet many were wakeful in Cæsarea on the Syrian coast. Herod Agrippa, King of all Palestine—by grace of the Romans—now at the very apex of his power, celebrated a festival in honour of the Emperor Claudius, to which had flocked all the mightiest in the land and tens of thousands of the people. The city was full of them, their... more...

CHAPTER I. THE RICH CHARLOTTE. The room had three occupants, two were men, the third a woman. The men were middle-aged and gray-haired, the woman on the contrary was in the prime of youth; she was finely made, and well proportioned. Her face was perhaps rather too pale, but the eyes and brow were noble, and the sensitive mouth showed indications of heart as well as intellect. The girl, or rather young... more...

CHAPTER I. A GREAT CHANGE. HALF a dozen boys were gathered in one of the studies at Shrewsbury. A packed portmanteau and the general state of litter on the floor was sufficient to show that it was the last day of term. "Well, I am awfully sorry you are going, Bullen; we shall all miss you. You would certainly have been in the football team next term; it is a nuisance altogether." "It is a... more...

CHAPTER I—AFTER A STORMY LIFE. To hear people talking about North Devon, and the savage part called Exmoor, you might almost think that there never was any place in the world so beautiful, or any living men so wonderful. It is not my intention to make little of them, for they would be the last to permit it; neither do I feel ill will against them for the pangs they allowed me to suffer; for I dare... more...

MRS. ZANT AND THE GHOST. I. THE course of this narrative describes the return of a disembodied spirit to earth, and leads the reader on new and strange ground. Not in the obscurity of midnight, but in the searching light of day, did the supernatural influence assert itself. Neither revealed by a vision, nor announced by a voice, it reached mortal knowledge through the sense which is least easily... more...

In the days when New York's traffic moved at the pace of the drooping horse-car, when society applauded Christine Nilsson at the Academy of Music and basked in the sunsets of the Hudson River School on the walls of the National Academy of Design, an inconspicuous shop with a single show-window was intimately and favourably known to the feminine population of the quarter bordering on Stuyvesant... more...

AN INCIDENT The dinner hour of Scotland Sixty Years Since was two o'clock. It was therefore about four o'clock of a delightful autumn afternoon that Mr. Gilfillan commenced his march, in hopes, although Stirling was eighteen miles distant, he might be able, by becoming a borrower of the night for an hour or two, to reach it that evening. He therefore put forth his strength, and marched... more...

GENERAL PREFACE TO THE WAVERLEY NOVELS And must I ravel outMy weaved-up follies?                       Richard II, Act IV. Having undertaken to give an Introductory Account of the compositions which are here offered to the public, with Notes and Illustrations, the Author, under whose name they are now for the first time collected, feels that he has the delicate task of speaking... more...