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Editorial Wild Oats
Mark Twain 试读
Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835-1910), better known by the pen name Mark Twain, was an American humorist, satirist, lecturer and writer. Twain is most noted for his novels The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885). He is also known for his quotations. His first important work, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, was published in 1865. His next publication was The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, which drew on his youth in Hannibal. The character of Tom Sawyer was modeled on twain as a child, with traces of two schoolmates, John Briggs and Will Bowen. His next major published work, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, solidified him as a noteworthy American writer. Some have called it the first Great American Novel. Finn was an offshoot from Tom Sawyer and proved to have a more serious tone than its predecessor. The main premise behind Huckleberry Finn is the young boy's belief in the right thing to do even though the majority of society believes that it was wrong.
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Jack Winters Gridiron Chums
Mark Overton 试读
Mark Overton wrote The American Boys Sports Series. These books touched on almost every sport of interest to boys. The books cover baseball, football, skating, rowing, hockey, ice-boating, sailing, camping, and fishing. Jack was the new boy in town. He appeared to be a born leader. An excerpt reads," Jack Winters was really something of a newcomer in Chester, but he had hardly landed in the old town than something seemed to awaken for Jack made up his mind it was a shame that, with so much good material floating around loose, Chester could not emulate the example of the neighboring towns of Harmony and Marshall, and do something. There were those who said Jack's coming was to Chester like the cake of yeast set in a pan of dough, for things soon began to happen.
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W. A. G.s Tale
Margaret Turnbull 试读
We were right in the middle of this, and Aunty May was a little red-faced, and her hair was kind of wild, when we heard somebody laugh, and there was the painter-man down by the river, laughing as hard as he could laugh; and Aunty Edith trying to look severe at Aunty May and not able to, on account of her looking so comical. She had a black smudge from the end of the beanpole, which had been in a bonfire, across her forehead. You see she had just jumped the farthest, and was hollering, "Glug-Glug."
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Baby Mine
Margaret Mayo 试读
The first year of a baby's life is a wondrous time, with each day bringing new changes and emotions. This journal goes above and beyond the traditional baby book, recognizing the journey that mother and child embark on together. Guided prompts throughout allow a new mom to record all the precious moments of baby's development, and also to reflect on what these milestones stir within her. There's also room to add pictures and other mementos.
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Vanguards of the Plains A Romance of the Old Santa Fe Trail
Margaret Hill McCarter 试读
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.
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Saint Augustin
Louis Bertrand 试读
To hunt, to ride horseback, now and then to go on parade, to look after his small-holders and agricultural slaves, to drive one of those bargains in which African cunning triumphs--such were the employments of Patricius. In short, he drifted through life on his little demesne. Sometimes this indolent man was overcome by a sudden passion for work; or again he was seized by furious rages. He was violent and brutal. At such moments he struck out right and left. He would even have hit his wife or flogged the skin off her back if the quietude of this woman, her dignity and Christian mildness, had not overawed him. Let us not judge this kind of conduct by our own; we shall never understand it.
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Uncle Noahs Christmas Inspiration
Leona Dalrymple 试读
Leona Dalrymple (Mrs. C. Acton Wilson) (1884-? ) was an American author. In 1914, she won a prize of $10,000 for her novel, Diane of the Green Van (1914). Among her other stories are The Colonel's Maid (1910), Traumerei (1912), Uncle Noah's Christmas Inspiration (1913), The Lovable Meddler (1915), Jimsy; The Christmas Kid (1915), When the Yule-Log Burns: A Christmas Story (1916), Kenny (1917)... She also wrote short stories for magazines and moving picture scenarios.
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Dan Merrithew
Lawrence PerryJ. V. McFall 试读
It came to be a wild night. The tumbling blue-black clouds of late afternoon fulfilled their promise of evil things for the dark. There were fierce pounding hours when the wrath of the sea seemed centred upon the Hydrographer and her lumbering barges.'
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A Counter-Blaste to Tobacco
King of England James IEdmund Goldsmid 试读
James VI and I (James Stuart) (1566-1625) was King of Scots, King of England, and King of Ireland. He was the first to style himself King of Great Britain. He was a talented scholar, writing works such as Daemonologie (1597), The True Law of Free Monarchies (1598), Basilikon Doron (1599), and A Counter-Blaste to Tobacco (1604). King James was known by the epithet "the wisest fool in Christendom."
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Familiar Letters on Chemistry
Justus Liebig 试读
Until very recently it was supposed that the physical qualities of bodies, i.e. hardness, colour, density, transparency, and still more their chemical properties, must depend upon the nature of their elements, or upon their composition. It was tacitly received as a principle, that two bodies containing the same elements in the same proportion, must of necessity possess the same properties. We could not imagine an exact identity of composition giving rise to two bodies entirely different in their sensible appearance and chemical relations.
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A Course of Lectures on the Principles of Domestic Economy and Cookery
Juliet Corson 试读
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.
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Jackanapes, Daddy Darwins Dovecot and Other Stories
Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing 试读
Illustrated children's book first published in 1879 by the prolific author of children's stories. Her tales, which have hardly been excelled in sympathetic insight into childlife, still enjoy undiminished popularity.
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Madam Crowls Ghost and the Dead Sexton
Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu 试读
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.
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Daniel Boone The Pioneer of Kentucky
John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott 试读
Daniel Boone was gentle, kindly, modest, peace-loving, absolutely fearless, strong as a bear and active as a panther his life was lived in danger, almost perpetual hardship and exposure yet he died in his bed at almost 90 years of age. This outstanding American's story is one that will inspire any young person today.
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Val dArno
John Ruskin 试读
Returning to our door at Pisa, we shall find these general questions as to the distribution of ornament much confused with others as to its time and style. We are at once, for instance, brought to a pause as to the degree in which the ornamentation was once carried out in the doors themselves. Their surfaces were, however, I doubt not, once recipients of the most elaborate...
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Paradise Regained
John Milton 试读
Following the fall of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden in Milton's "Paradise Lost," Milton turns his attention to the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness by Satan in "Paradise Regained." In this work, a sequel to "Paradise Lost," Satan tests Jesus in a similar way to Eve in the Garden of Eden. However, Jesus is not seduced by the promises of Satan and passes his test. "Paradise Regained" is a poetic and intriguing tale that follows along in the spirit of Milton's masterpiece "Paradise Lost."
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Saints Progress
John Galsworthy 试读
John Galsworthy OM ( 14 August 1867 - 31 January 1933) was an English novelist and playwright. Notable works include The Forsyte Saga (1906-1921) and its sequels, A Modern Comedy and End of the Chapter. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1932. -wikipedia
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Palamon and Arcite
John Dryden 试读
While Arcite lives in bliss, the story turns Where hopeless Palamon in prison mourns. For six long years immured, the captive knight Had dragged his chains, and scarcely seen the light: Lost liberty and love at once he bore.
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Wake-Robin
John Burroughs 试读
1871. Volume One of Twenty Three, Riverby Edition. John Burroughs emerged from an obscure boyhood in the Catskill Mountains to write more than thirty books, create the genre of the nature essay, and become the preeminent nature writer of his day. Through his essays in books and popular magazines, John Burroughs taught countless Americans to appreciate nature. His first book, Wake-Robin, is mainly a book about about the Birds, or more properly an invitation to the study of Ornithology, and the purpose of the author will be carried out in proportion as it awakens and stimulates the interest of the reader in this branch of Natural History. Contents: The Return of the Birds In the Hemlocks The Adirondacks Birds'-Nests Spring at the Capital Birch Browsings The Bluebird and The Invitation. See other titles by this author available from Kessinger Publishing.
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Idle Ideas in 1905
Jerome K. Jerome 试读
Jerome Klapka Jerome (1859-1927) was an English author, best known for the humourous travelogue Three Men in a Boat (1889). In 1877, he decided to try his hand at acting, under the stage name Harold Crichton. He joined a repertory troupe who tried to produce plays on a shoestring budget, often drawing on the meager resources of the actors themselves to purchase costumes and props. He tried to become a journalist, writing essays, satires and short stories, but most of these were rejected. Over the next few years he was a school teacher, a packer, and a solicitor's clerk. Finally, in 1885, he had some success with On the Stage-and Off, a humourous book, the publication of which opened the door for more plays and essays.
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T. Haviland Hicks Senior
J. Raymond Elderdice 试读
Big Butch Brewster captain and full-back of the Bannister College football squad his behemoth bulk swathed in heavy blankets and crowded into a narrow bunk shifted his vast tonnage restlessly.
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Echoes of the War
James Matthew Barrie 试读
Three nice old ladies and a criminal, who is even nicer, are discussing the war over a cup of tea. The criminal, who is the hostess, calls it a dish of tea, which shows that she comes from Caledonia but that is not her crime. They are all London charwomen, but three of them, including the hostess, are what are called professionally 'charwomen and' or simply 'ands.' An 'and' is also a caretaker when required her name is entered as such in ink in a registry book, financial transactions take place across a counter between her and the registrar, and altogether she is of a very different social status from one who, like Mrs. Haggerty, is a charwoman but nothing else. Mrs. Haggerty, though present, is not at the party by invitation having seen Mrs. Dowey buying the winkles, she followed her downstairs, so has shuffled into the play and sat down in it against our wish. We would remove her by force, or at least print her name in small letters, were it not that she takes offence very readily and says that nobody respects her. So, as you have slipped in, you sit there, Mrs. Haggerty but keep quiet.
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Quality Street A Comedy
James Matthew Barrie 试读
A comedy play. The scene is the blue and white room in the house of Misses Susan and Phoebe Throssel in Quality Street and in this little country town there is a satisfaction about living in Quality Street which even religion cannot give. Through the bowed window at the back we have a glimpse of the street. It is pleasantly broad and grass-grown, and is linked to the outer world by one demure shop, whose door rings a bell every time it opens and shuts. Thus by merely peeping, every one in Quality Street can know at once who has been buying a Whimsy cake, and usually why. This bell is the most familiar sound of Quality Street. Now and again ladies pass in their pattens, a maid perhaps protecting them with an umbrella, for flakes of snow are falling discreetly. Gentlemen in the street are an event but, see, just as we raise the curtain, there goes the recruiting sergeant to remind us that we are in the period of the Napoleonic wars. If he were to look in at the window of the blue and white room all the ladies there assembled would draw themselves up they know him for a rude fellow who smiles at the approach of maiden ladies and continues to smile after they have passed. However, he lowers his head to-day so that they shall not see him, his present design being converse with the Misses Throssel's maid . . .
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Keeping up with Lizzie
Irving Bacheller 试读
Bacheller's novels are primarily concerned with early American life in the North Country of New York State. In 1900 his novel Eben Holden, A Tale of the North Country, proved a major success. According to the New York Times it was the 4th best-selling novel in the United States that year.
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Young Barbarians
Ian Maclaren 试读
Muirtown Seminary was an imposing building[1] of the classical order, facing the north meadow and commanding from its upper windows a fine view of the river Tay running rapidly and cleanly upon its gravel bed. Behind the front building was the paved court where the boys played casual games in the breaks of five minutes between the hours of study, and this court had an entrance from a narrow back street along which, in snow time, a detachment of the enemy from the other schools might steal any hour and take us by disastrous surprise.
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Umboo, the Elephant
Howard Roger Garis 试读
"Oh, my But it's hot It is just too hot for anything " cried Chako, one of the monkeys in the circus cage. "It is hotter under this tent than ever it was in the jungle Whew " and he hung by his tail and swung to and fro from a wooden bar. "In the jungle we could find a pool of water where we could keep cool," said another monkey, who was poking around the floor of the cage, hoping he could find a peanut. But there were only shells. "I wish I could go back to the jungle," he chattered. "What did you come away from the jungle for, if you don't like it in this circus " asked Woo-Uff, the big yellow lion, who lay on his back in his cage, his legs stuck up in the air, for he was cooler that way. "Why did you come from the jungle, Chako "
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Facing the World
Horatio Alger 试读
Here's a letter for you, Harry, said George Howard. "I was passing the hotel on my way home from school when Abner Potts called out to me from the piazza, and asked me to bring it." The speaker was a bright, round-faced boy of ten. The boy whom he addressed was five or six years older. Only a week previous he had lost his father, and as the family consisted only of these two, he was left, so far as near relatives were concerned, alone in the world.
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Jacks Ward
Horatio Alger 试读
The Horatio Alger myth has worked itself deeply into American culture. Even those who have never read one of his stories and many who could not identify him have come to believe that honest, industrious adolescents can easily rise from poverty to respectability. That conviction has reinforced notions of capitalism and the Protestant work ethic. It has also strengthened a sense ...
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Pamela Giraud
Honoré de Balzac 试读
A Play in Five Acts set during the Napoleonic plots under Louis XVIII. (1815-1824). By the French author, who, along with Flaubert, is generally regarded as a founding-father of realism in European fiction. His large output of works, collectively entitled The Human Comedy (La Comedie Humaine), consists of 95 finished works (stories, novels and essays) and 48 unfinished works. His stories are an attempt to comprehend and depict the realities of life in contemporary bourgeois France. They are placed in a variety of settings, with characters reappearing in multiple stories.
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Unconscious Comedians
Honoré de Balzac 试读
One morning as he ate his breakfast and cursed his fate, he picked up a newspaper savagely. The following lines, ending an article, struck Gazonal as if the mysterious voice which speaks to gamblers before they win had sounded in his ear: "Our celebrated landscape painter, Leon de Lora, lately returned from Italy, will exhibit several pictures at the Salon; thus the exhibition promises, as we see, to be most brilliant."
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Dame Care
Hermann Sudermann 试读
1891. Sudermann, one of the leading writers of the German naturalist movement, achieved popularity through his psychological novel Dame Care. The book begins: Just when Meyerhofer's estate was to be sold by auction, his third son Paul was born. That was a hard time indeed. Frau Elsbeth, with her haggard face and melancholy smile, lay in her big four-post bed, with the cradle of the newborn child near her, and listened to every noise that reached her in her sad sickroom from the yard and house. See other titles by this author available from Kessinger Publishing.
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I and My Chimney
Herman Melville 试读
I and my chimney, two grey-headed old smokers, reside in the country. We are, I may say, old settlers here; particularly my old chimney, which settles more and more every day.
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East Lynne
Henry Wood 试读
In an easy-chair of the spacious and handsome library of his town-house, sat William, Earl of Mount Severn. His hair was gray, the smoothness of his expansive brow was defaced by premature wrinkles, and his once attractive face bore the pale, unmistakable look of dissipation.
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Nada the Lily
Henry Rider Haggard 试读
For I will call you by the name that for fifty years has been honoured by every tribe between Zambesi and Cape Agulbas,--I greet you!Sompseu, my father, I have written a book that tells of men and matters of which you know the most of any who still look upon the light; therefore, I set your name within that book and, such as it is, I offer it to you.
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Queen Shebas Ring
Henry Rider Haggard 试读
The discovery of a ring, given to the Queen of Sheba by King Solomon himself, launches this tale of romance and adventure from master storyteller H. Rider Haggard, the author of King Solomon's Mines. Action is surprisingly brisk, characters are generally likeable, and the ending is not surprising but still satisfying.
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Handbook of the Trees of New England
Henry M. (Henry Mason) BrooksLorin Low Dame 试读
"There is no lack of good manuals of botany in this country. There still seems place for an adequately illustrated book of convenient size for field use. The larger manuals, moreover, cover extensive regions and sometimes fail by reason of their universality to give a definite idea of plants as they grow within more limited areas. New England marks a meeting place of the Canadian and Alleghanian floras. Many southern plants, long after they have abandoned more elevated situations northward, continue to advance up the valleys of the Connecticut and Merrimac rivers, in which they ultimately disappear entirely or else reappear in the valley of the St. Lawrence while many northern plants pushing southward maintain a more or less precarious existence upon the mountain summits or in the cold swamps of New England, and sometimes follow along the mountain ridges to the middle or southern states."
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Madame De Mauves
Henry James 试读
"Introduce me to Madame de Mauves," he answered, "and Saint-Germain will quite satisfy me." All he had learned was the lady's name and residence. Longmore's further enquiries were arrested by the arrival of a young lady with a bandbox but he went away with the promise of a note of introduction, to be immediately dispatched to him at Saint-Germain. He then waited a week, but the note never came. . . .
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Pandora
Henry James 试读
Work by the prolific American-born author and literary critic of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He spent much of his life in Europe and became a British subject shortly before his death. He is primarily known for novels, novellas and short stories based on themes of consciousness and morality.
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Vane of the Timberlands
Harold Bindloss 试读
A light breeze scented with the smell of the firs was blowing down the inlet and the tiny ripples it chased across the water splashed musically against the bows of the canoe. They met her end-on sparkling in the warm sunset light gurgled about her sides and trailed away astern in two divergent lines as the paddles flashed and fell.
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Damn! A Book of Calumny
Henry Louis Mencken 试读
This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.
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Balcony Stories
Grace E. King1st World Library1stworld Library 试读
Collection of stories by the American author of Louisiana stories, history, and biography, who was a leader in historical and literary activities.
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Vain Fortune
George Moore 试读
Hubert Price, a struggling young playwright with one moderate success under his belt, is bequeathed a legacy by his uncle. His focus on repeating his theatrical success, and his love for the beautiful Julia, blinds him to the tragic, obsessive …
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Yollop
George Barr McCutcheon 试读
Instead of obeying Cassius beckoned to him. Then followed a long, whispered conference between lawyer and client, at the end of which the former, visibly annoyed, declared that the defendant had decided not to testify. The Court indicated that it was optional with the prisoner and asked if the counsel desired to introduce any further testimony. Counsel for the defense announced that his client's decision had altered his plans and that he was forced to rest his case. The Assistant District Attorney stated that he had two witnesses to examine in rebuttal.
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A Columbus of Space
Garrett Putman Serviss 试读
We simply listened in silence for what could we say The facts were more eloquent than any words, and called for no commentary. Here we "were," out in the middle of space and "there" was the earth, hanging on nothing, like a summer cloud. At least we knew where we were if we didn't quite understand how we had got there. . . .
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Gala-days
Gail Hamilton 试读
Once there was a great noise in our house,—a thumping and battering and grating. It was my own self dragging my big trunk down from the garret. I did it myself because I wanted it done. If I had said, "Halicarnassus, will you fetch my trunk down?" he would have asked me what trunk? and what did I want of it? and would not the other one be better? and couldn't I wait till after dinner?—and so the trunk would probably have had a three-days journey from garret to basement.
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Jack Archer
George Alfred Henty 试读
Purchase one of 1st World Library's Classic Books and help support our free internet library of downloadable eBooks. Visit us online at www.1stWorldLibrary.ORG - - The first day of term cannot be considered a cheerful occasion. As the boys arrive on the previous evening, they have so much to tell each other, are so full of what they have been doing, that the chatter and laughter are as great as upon the night preceding the breaking-up. In the morning, however, all this is changed. As they take their places at their desks and open their books, a dull, heavy feeling takes possession of the boys, and the full consciousness that they are at the beginning of another half year's work weighs heavily on their minds. It is true enough that the half year will have its play, too, its matches, with their rivalry and excitement. But at present it is the long routine of lessons which is most prominent in the minds of the lads who are sitting on the long benches of the King's School, Canterbury.
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Under Drakes Flag A Tale of the Spanish Main
George Alfred Henty 试读
With 30 pages of additional articles, references, and bibliographies of recommended reading. The high seas adventures of Sir Francis Drake, as he sails The Golden Hind into dangerous encounters with Spanish ships, and privateers. Henty places Ned Hearne, a young Devonshire lad, aboard Drake's ship where they set out to sail around the world. Ned and his newfound companions, join in some wild exploits on the Spanish Main, are washed ashore on an island, and then become embroiled in the first successful insurrection against Spain in the western islands.
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A Chosen Few Short Stories
Frank Richard Stockton 试读
The stories contained in this little volume were chosen, by virtue of a sort of literary civil-service examination, in order that they might be grouped together as a representative class of the author’s best-known work in this line.Several of these stories have points of peculiar interest to the author. For instance, “Negative Gravity” was composed in Switzerland when the author was temporarily confined to the house in full view of unreachable Alps.
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Nan of Music Mountain
Frank H 试读
Frank Hamilton Spearman (1859-1937) was an American author. He was known for his books in the Western fiction genre and especially for his fiction and non-fiction works on the topic of railroads. Although he wrote prolifically about railroads, his actual career was that of a bank president in McCook, Nebraska and did not work for a railroad. Spearman was also a devout Roman Catholic convert and held political views best described as protolibertarian, both of which beliefs are also reflected in his novels. His Western novel Whispering Smith (1906) was made into a movie on three separate occasions, in 1915, 1927 and 1947. His works include: The Nerve of Foley and Other Railroad Stories (1900), Held for Others: Being Stories of Railroad Life (1901), Doctor Bryson (1902), The Daughter of a Magnate (1903), The Strategy of Great Railroads (1904), The Close of the Day (1904), Robert Kimberly (1911), The Mountain Divide (1912), Merrilie Dawes (1913), Nan of Music Mountain (1916), Laramie Holds the Range (1921), The Marriage Verdict (1923), Selwood of Sleepy Cat (1925), Flambeau Jim (1927), Spanish Lover (1930) and Hell's Desert (1933).
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Racketty-Packetty House
Frances Hodgson Burnett 试读
From the writer of The Secret Garden and A Little Princess comes the story of how Queen Crosspatch and her band of fairies help to save the Racketty-Packetty House. With classic illustrations by Harrison Cady, "Racketty-Packetty House" is Frances Hodgson Burnett's whimsical tale of wonder with a positive message that will enchant and delight young readers.
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Observations By Mr. Dooley
Finley Peter Dunne 试读
Large format paper back for easy reading. Satirical observations of a fictional, honest, Irish-American street philosopher……
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Gaslight Sonatas
Fannie Hurst 试读
In the early 1920s, Fannie Hurst's enormous popularity made her the highest-paid writer in America. She conquered the literary scene at the same time the silent movie industry began to emerge as a tremendously profitable and popular form of entertainment. Abe C. Ravitz parallels Hurst's growing acclaim with the evolution of silent films, from which she borrowed ideas and techniques that furthered her career. Ravitz notes that Hurst was amazingly adept at anticipating what the public wanted. Sensing that the national interest was shifting from rural to urban subjects, Hurst set her immigrant tales and her "woiking goil" tales in urban America. In her early stories, she tried to bridge the gap between Old World and New World citizens, each somewhat fearful and suspicious of the other. She wrote of love and ethnicity--bringing the Jewish Mother to prominence--of race relations and prejudice, of the woman alone in her quest for selfhood. Ravitz argues, in fact, that her socially oriented tales and her portraits of women in the city clearly identify her as a forerunner of contemporary feminism.
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Back Home
Eugene Wood 试读
Shining star Oliver Jeffers is back with this star spangled inter-galactic adventure tale in space! Now available in gorgeous miniature hardback edition.One day a boy finds an aeroplane in his cupboard. Up, up, up and away he flies, high into the sky. Whizzing past clouds, stars and planets until suddenly, he runs out of petrol!Miles from earth, the boy crashes into the moon and waits. Just as he is beginning to get cold and lonely, a friendly martian appears from the darkness, also with a broken aircraft.Together they come up with a super plan to float the boy back down to earth to collect his toolbox.Can the boy find his way back home safely and will he ever make it back up to the moon to rescue his friend?
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A Comedy of Masks A Nove
Ernest Christopher Dowson 试读
Me in the old days with his confounded cavalry bluster I rather think I will look him up: and I'll dine with him three times a week if he likes. Meanwhile, it's time for me to go and meet old Rainham, and take him round to Brodo- nowski's. What a ripping sunset " And he strolled light-heartedly through Grosvenor Square, the smoke of his cigarette fading away behind him. CHAPTER IV. When Rainham pushed back the door of the dim little restaurant in Turk Street, Soho, he stood a moment, blinking his eyes a little in the sudden change from the bright summer sunshine, before he assured himself that his friend had not yet arrived. Half a dozen men were sitting about smoking or discussing various drinks.
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J. Cole
Emma Gellibrand 试读
As I turned the handle of the heavy iron gate, I looked down at the front kitchen window. A man stood in the kitchen, and he looked up and saw me--such a horrible-looking ruffian, too. Fear lent wings to my feet, and I flew up the road. The watchman was just entering the park from the opposite end he saw me, and sounded his whistle the policeman turned and ran towards me. I was too exhausted to speak, and he caught me, just as, having gasped Thieves at 50 (the number of our house), I fell forward in a dead swoon.
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La debacle
Emile Zola 试读
La Débâcle est un roman d’Émile Zola publié en 1892, le dix-neuvième volume de la série les Rougon-Macquart, dont il constitue la conclusion historique. Pendant la guerre de 1870, deux soldats se lient d'amitié ; Jean Macquart, incarnation des solides valeurs rurales, et Maurice Levasseur, intellectuel qui rêve d'un cataclysme où s'anéantirait le monde corrompu - et le lecteur va les suivre jusqu'à ce que la Commune les sépare et dramatiquement les voie s'affronter. Mais si Zola choisit, bien au-delà de leur opposition symbolique, de les mêler à d'innombrables autres figures, c'est qu'il veut écrire le roman des masses et nous montrer une nation tout entière meurtrie par l'Histoire. Il juxtapose donc des scènes de combat et de vie civile, montre sans fard toutes les souffrances des corps, et jour après jour déroule sous nos yeux la douloureuse chronique qui va conduire à l'humiliation de Sedan. La Débâcle que Zola fait paraître en 1892, avant de clore Les Rougon-Macquart par un ultime roman, est le seul de ses livres dont le sujet soit un événement historique, le seul aussi qui soit consacré à la guerre. En abordant la crise la plus grave de l'histoire récente de la France, il adopte pour la dernière fois une vision tragique, mais nous donne à comprendre que sans doute la défaite fut un mal nécessaire. Après quoi Le Docteur Pascal pourra interpréter la totalité de la fresque romanesque comme une célébration de la vie.