1872FAIRY TALES OF HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSENTHE SUNBEAM AND THE CAPTIVEby Hans Christian AndersenIT is autumn. We stand on the ramparts, and look out over the sea.We look at the numerous ships, and at the Swedish coast on theopposite side of the sound, rising far above the surface of the waterswhich mirror the glow of the evening sky. Behind us the wood issharply defined; mighty trees surround us, and the yellow leavesflutter down from the branches. Below, at the foot of the wall, standsa gloomy looking building enclosed in palisades. The space betweenis dark and narrow, but still more dismal m
IN WHICH PHILEAS FOGG AND PASSEPARTOUT ACCEPT EACH OTHER, THE ONE AS MASTER, THE OTHER AS MAN.Mr Phileas Fogg lived, in 1872, at No. 7, Saville Row, Burlington Gardens, the house in which Sheridan died in 1814. He was one of the most noticeable members of the Reform Club, though he seemed always to avoid attracting attention; an enigmatical personage, about whom little was known, except that he was a polished man of the world. People said that he resembled Byron, - at least that his head was Byronic; but he was a bearded, tranquil Byron, who might live on a thousand years without growing old.
The Last of the Plainsmenby Zane GreyPREFATORY NOTEBuffalo Jones needs no introduction to American sportsmen, but to these of my readers who are unacquainted with him a few words may not be amiss.He was born sixty-two years ago on the Illinois prairie, and he has devoted practically all of his life to the pursuit of wild animals. It has been a pursuit which owed its unflagging energy and indomitable purpose to a singular passion, almost an obsession, to capture alive, not to kill. He has caught and broken the will of every well-known wild beast native to western North America. Killing was rep
Our specific charge in this unofficial mission has been to search the uninhabited worlds to find another source of the precious spice melange, upon which so much of the Imperium depends. We have documented the journeys of many of our Navigators and Steersmen, searching hundreds of planets. To date, however, we have had no success. The only source of melange in the Known Universe remains the desert world of Arrakis. The Guild, CHOAM, and all other dependents must continue in thrall of the Harkonnen monopoly. However, the value of exploring outlying territories for new planetary systems and ne
If anything exists, it is inprehensible. If anything was prehensible, it would be inmunicable. - Gorgias PART ONENOTHING EXISTS 1 Two hours ago the Railway Expressman delivered the crated, newly published International Encyclopedia of Fine Arts to my Palm Beach apartment. I signed for the set, turned the thermostat of the air-conditioner up three degrees, found a clawhammer in the kitchen, and broke open the crate. Twenty-four beautiful buckram-bound volumes, eggshell paper, decide edged. Six laborious years in preparation, more than twenty-five hundred illustrations- 436
HIS NAME WAS THORNE. In the ancient language of the runes, it had been longer-Thornevald. But when he became a blood drinker, his name had been changed to Thorne. And Thorne he remained now, centuries later, as he lay in his cave in the ice, dreaming. When he had first e to the frozen land, he had hoped he would sleep eternally. But now and then the thirst for blood awakened him and using the Cloud Gift, he rose into the air, and went in search of the Snow Hunters. He fed off them, careful never to take too much blood from any one so that none died on account of him. And when he neede
Like an uncoiling serpent, a line of fighting chariots wound swiftly down the gut of the valley. From where he clung to the dashboard of the leading chariot the boy looked up at the cliffs that hemmed them in. The sheer rock was pierced by the openings to the tombs of the old people that honeybed the cliff. The dark pits stared down at him like the implacable eyes of a legion of djinn. Prince Nefer Memnon shuddered and looked away, furtively making the sign to avert evil with his left hand. Over his shoulder he glanced back down the column and saw that from the following chariot Taita
December 6, 1996 Epworth Heights Luddington, Michigan My Dearest Kay, 1 am sitting on the porch, staring out at Lake Michigan as a sharp wind reminds me I need to cut my hair. 1 am remembering when we were here last, both of us abandoning who and what we are for one precious moment in the history of our time. Kay, I need you to listen to me. You are reading this because I am dead When I decided to write it, 1 asked Senator Lord to deliver it to you in person in the early part of December, a year after my death. I know how hard Christmas has always been for you, and now it must be unbear
The Moon and SixpenceThe Moon and Sixpenceby W. Somerset MaughamAuthor of "Of Human Bondage"1- Page 2-The Moon and SixpenceChapter II confess that when first I made acquaintance with Charles StricklandI never for a moment discerned that there was in him anything out of theordinary. Yet now few will be found to deny his greatness. I do not...
FAIRY TALES OF HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSENUNDER THE WILLOW-TREEby Hans Christian AndersenTHE region round the little town of Kjoge is very bleak andcold. The town lies on the sea shore, which is always beautiful; buthere it might be more beautiful than it is, for on every side thefields are flat, and it is a long way to the forest. But whenpersons reside in a place and get used to it, they can always findsomething beautiful in it,- something for which they long, even in themost charming spot in the world which is not home. It must be owned...
NICIAS?-413 B.C.by Plutarchtranslated by John DrydenCRASSUS, in my opinion, may most properly be set against Nicias, andthe Parthian disaster compared with that in Sicily. But here it willbe well for me to entreat the reader, in all courtesy, not to thinkthat I contend with Thucydides in matters so pathetically, vividly,and eloquently, beyond all imitation, and even beyond himself,expressed by him; nor to believe me guilty of the like folly with...
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS A debt of gratitude to Emily Bestler, Jason Kaufman, Ben Kaplan, and everyone at Pocket Books for their belief in this project. To my friend and agent, Jake Elwell, for his enthusiasm and unflagging effort. To the legendary George Wieser, for convincing me to write novels. To my dear friend Irv Sittler, for facilitating my audience with the Pope, secreting me into parts of Vatican City few ever see, and making my time in Rome unforgettable. To one of the most ingenious and gifted artists alive, John Langdon, who rose brilliantly to my impossible challenge and created the amb
Book One Chapter 01 Behind every great fortune there is a crime. BALZAC Amerigo Bonasera sat in New York Criminal Court Number 3 and waited for justice; vengeance on the men who had so cruelly hurt his daughter, who had tried to dishonor her. The judge, a formidably heavy-featured man, rolled up the sleeves of his black robe as if to physically chastise the two young men standing before the bench. His face was cold with majestic contempt. But there was something false in all this that Amerigo Bonasera sensed but did not yet understand. "You acted like the worst kind of degenerates," the
The red sun balances on the highest ramparts of the mountains, and in its waning light, the foothills appear to be ablaze. A cool breeze blows down out of the sun and fans through the tall dry grass, which streams like waves of golden fire along the slopes toward the rich and shadowed valley. In the knee-high grass, he stands with his hands in the pockets of his denim jacket, studying the vineyards below. The vines were pruned during the winter. The new growing season has just begun. The colorful wild mustard that flourished between the rows during the colder months has been chopped back and
It was the same old rigmarole. Sometimes I found it amusing; sometimes it only bored me; sometimes it gave me a pronounced pain, especially when I had had more of Wolfe than was good for either of us. This time it was fairly funny at first, but it developed along regrettable lines. Mr. Jasper Pine, president of Naylor-Kerr, Inc., 914 William Street, down where a thirty-story building is a shanty, wanted Nero Wolfe to e to see him about something. I explained patiently, all about Wolfe being too lazy, too big and fat, and too much of a genius, to let himself be evoked. When Mr. Pine phoned