Free eBooks - Literary Collections

Total eBooks in selected subject: 689 on 69 pages.

Black Oxen
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BLACK OXEN I "Talk. Talk. Talk.… Good lines and no action … said all … not even promising first act … eighth failure and season more than half over … rather be a playwright and fail than a critic compelled to listen to has-beens and would-bes trying to put over bad plays.… Oh, for just one more great first-night … if there's a spirit ... more...
On the Frontier
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PROLOGUE It was noon of the 10th of August, 1838. The monotonous coast line between Monterey and San Diego had set its hard outlines against the steady glare of the Californian sky and the metallic glitter of the Pacific Ocean. The weary succession of rounded, dome-like hills obliterated all sense of distance; the rare whaling vessel or still rarer trader, drifting past, saw no change in these rusty ... more...
A Mortal Antipathy: first opening of the new portfolio
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Holmes, Oliver Wendell

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

Holmes, Oliver Wendell
Essayist, novelist, and poet, was born of good Dutch and English stock at Cambridge, Massachusetts, the seat of Harvard, where he graduated in 1829. He studied law, then medicine, first at home, latterly in Paris, whence he returned in 1835, and practised in his native town. In 1838 he was appointed Prof. of Anatomy and Physiology at Dartmouth College, from which he was in 1847 transferred to a similar chair at Harvard. Up to 1857 he had done little in literature: his first book of poems, containing “The Last Leaf,” had been published But in that year the Atlantic Monthly was started with Lowell for ed., and H. was engaged as a principal contributor. In it ...
INTRODUCTION. "And why the New Portfolio, I would ask?" Pray, do you remember, when there was an accession to the nursery in which you have a special interest, whether the new-comer was commonly spoken of as a baby? Was it not, on the contrary, invariably, under all conditions, in all companies, by the whole household, spoken of as the baby? And was the small receptacle provided for it commonly spoken of as ... more...
The Monikins
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Cooper, James Fenimore

Cooper, James Fenimore

Cooper, James Fenimore
Novelist, born at Burlington, New Jersey, and educated at Yale College, he in 1808 entered the U.S. Navy, in which he remained for 3 years, an experience which was of immense future value to him as an author. It was not until 1821 that his first novel, Precaution, appeared. Its want of success did not discourage him, and in the next year (1822), he produced The Spy, which at once gained him a high place as a story-teller. He wrote over 30 novels, of which may be mentioned The Pioneers (1823), The Pilot (1823), The Last of the Mohicans (1826), The Prairie (1826), The Red Rover (1831), The Bravo (1840), The Pathfinder, The Deerslayer (1841), The Two Admirals (1842), and ...
INTRODUCTION. It is not improbable that some of those who read this book, may feel a wish to know in what manner I became possessed of the manuscript. Such a desire is too just and natural to be thwarted, and the tale shall be told as briefly as possible. During the summer of 1828, while travelling among those valleys of Switzerland which lie between the two great ranges of the Alps, and in which both the ... more...
A Phyllis of the Sierras
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CHAPTER I. Where the great highway of the Sierras nears the summit, and the pines begin to show sterile reaches of rock and waste in their drawn-up files, there are signs of occasional departures from the main road, as if the weary traveller had at times succumbed to the long ascent, and turned aside for rest and breath again. The tired eyes of many a dusty passenger on the old overland coach have gazed ... more...
The Midnight Passenger : a novel
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CHAPTER I. THE DANUBE PICTURE. There was no air of uncertainty upon the handsome countenance ofMr. Randall Clayton as he stepped out of the elevator of a sedateFourteenth Street business building and approvingly sniffed theApril morning breeze. On this particular Saturday of ninety-seven, the shopping multitude was already pouring from the Scylla of Simpson, Crawford & Simpson's on Sixth ... more...
The Queen of the Pirate Isle
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I first knew her as the Queen of the Pirate Isle. To the best of my recollection she had no reasonable right to that title. She was only nine years old, inclined to plumpness and good humor, deprecated violence, and had never been to sea. Need it be added that she did NOT live in an island and that her name was Polly? Perhaps I ought to explain that she had already known other experiences of a purely ... more...
Little Journey in the World
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INTRODUCTORY SKETCH The title naturally suggested for this story was "A Dead Soul," but it was discarded because of the similarity to that of the famous novel by Nikolai Gogol—"Dead Souls"—though the motive has nothing in common with that used by the Russian novelist. Gogol exposed an extensive fraud practiced by the sale, in connection with lands, of the names of "serfs" (called souls) not ... more...
Susy, a story of the Plains
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CHAPTER I. Where the San Leandro turnpike stretches its dusty, hot, and interminable length along the valley, at a point where the heat and dust have become intolerable, the monotonous expanse of wild oats on either side illimitable, and the distant horizon apparently remoter than ever, it suddenly slips between a stunted thicket or hedge of "scrub oaks," which until that moment had been undistinguishable ... more...
The Story of a Mine
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CHAPTER I WHO SOUGHT IT It was a steep trail leading over the Monterey Coast Range. Concho was very tired, Concho was very dusty, Concho was very much disgusted. To Concho's mind there was but one relief for these insurmountable difficulties, and that lay in a leathern bottle slung over the machillas of his saddle. Concho raised the bottle to his lips, took a long draught, made a wry face, and ejaculated: ... more...