Historical Books

CHAPTER I THE KEY The May sun was shining on Michillimackinac, and I, Armand de Montlivet, was walking the strip of beach in front of the French garrison. I did not belong to Michillimackinac. I had come in only the day before with two canoes and four men, and I was bound for the beaver lands further west. A halt was necessary, for the trip had been severe, and remembering that it was necessity, and... more...

CHAPTER I Hugh McVey was born in a little hole of a town stuck on a mud bank on the western shore of the Mississippi River in the State of Missouri. It was a miserable place in which to be born. With the exception of a narrow strip of black mud along the river, the land for ten miles back from the town—called in derision by river men "Mudcat Landing"—was almost entirely worthless and... more...

NONCOMBATANTS About five o’clock that evening a Rhode Island battery clanked through the village and parked six dusty guns in a pasture occupied by some astonished cows. A little later the cavalry arrived, riding slowly up the tree-shaded street, escorted by every darky and every dog in the country-side. The clothing of this regiment was a little out of the ordinary. Instead of the usual campaign... more...

VANNA IS BID FOR Not easily would you have found a girl more winning in a tender sort than Giovanna Scarpa of Verona at one and twenty, fair-haired and flushed, delicately shaped, tall and pliant, as she then was. She had to suffer her hours of ill report, but passes for near a saint now, in consequence of certain miracles and theophanies done on her account, which it is my business to declare; before... more...

CHAPTER I. GREENWATER BROAD LOOK back, my memory, through the dim labyrinth of the past, through the mingling joys and sorrows of twenty years. Rise again, my boyhood's days, by the winding green shores of the little lake. Come to me once more, my child-love, in the innocent beauty of your first ten years of life. Let us live again, my angel, as we lived in our first paradise, before sin and... more...

I was born in London on the eighteenth of June, 1815. The battle of Waterloo was being fought as I entered this world. Thousands were giving up their lives at the moment that life was being bestowed upon me. My father was in that great battle. Would he ever return? My mother was but eighteen years of age. Anxiety for his safety, the exhaustion of giving me life prostrated her delicate constitution. She... more...

THE LITTLE GIRL "How would you like to go to New York to live, little girl?" The little girl looked up into her father's face to see if he was "making fun." He did sometimes. He was beginning to go down the hill of middle life, a rather stout personage with a fair, florid complexion, brown hair, rough and curly, and a border of beard shaved well away from his mouth. Both beard and... more...

Introduction of Divers Parties and a Red-Herring. It was in the month of January, 1699, that a one-masted vessel, with black sides, was running along the coast near Beachy Head, at the rate of about five miles per hour. The wind was from the northward and blew keenly, the vessel was under easy sail, and the water was smooth. It was now broad daylight, and the sun rose clear of clouds and vapour; but he... more...

We must ask pardon of the public for offering it this book, and give it due warning of what it will find therein. The public loves fictitious novels! this is a true novel. It loves books which make a pretence of introducing their readers to fashionable society: this book deals with the life of the street. It loves little indecent books, memoirs of courtesans, alcove confessions, erotic obscenity, the... more...

CHAPTER I A quaint old Japanese garden lay smiling under the sunshine of a morning in early spring. The sun, having flooded the outside world with dazzling light, seemed to sink to a tender radiance as it wooed leaf and bud into new life and loveliness. It loosened the tiny rivulet from the icy fingers of winter, and sped it merrily on its way to a miniature lake, where shining goldfish darted here and... more...