eBooks

The American On a brilliant day in May, in the year 1868, a gentleman was reclining at his ease on the great circular divan which at that period occupied the centre of the Salon Carr, in the Museum of the Louvre. This commodious ottoman...

Roderick Hudson Mallet had made his arrangements to sail for Europe on the first of September, and having in the interval a fortnight to spare, he determined to spend it with his cousin Cecilia, the widow of a nephew of his father. He was...

The Phantom of the Opera The Opera ghost really existed. He was not, as was long believed, a creature of the imagination of the artists, the superstition of the managers, or a product of the absurd and impressionable brains of the young ladies of...

The Picture of Dorian Gray The artist is the creator of beautiful things. To reveal art and conceal the artist is arts aim. The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things. The highest...

The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu I pushed my writing aside and tilted the lamp-shade, as footsteps sounded on the landing. The next moment I had jumped to my feet, for a tall, lean man, with his square-cut, clean-shaven face sun-baked to the hue of...

The Haunted Bookshop The faults of the composition are plain to you all. I begin merely in the hope of saying something further of the adventures of ROGER MIFFLIN, whose exploits in "Parnassus on Wheels" some of you have been kind enough to applaud....

Charlotte Temple FOR the perusal of the young and thoughtless of the fair sex, this Tale of Truth is designed; and I could wish my fair readers to consider it as not merely the effusion of Fancy, but as a reality. The circumstances on...

The Haunted Hotel: A Mystery of Modern Venice In the year 1860, the reputation of Doctor Wybrow as a London physician reached its highest point. It was reported on good authority that he was in receipt of one of the largest incomes derived from...

The Well at the World's End: A Tale Long ago there was a little land, over which ruled a regulus or kinglet, who was called King Peter, though his kingdom was but little. He had four sons whose names were Blaise, Hugh, Gregory and...

The History and Practice of the Art of Photography This etext was created by Gregory Walker, in Austin, Texas, for the Digital Daguerreian Archive Project--electronic texts from the dawn of photography. Internet: gwalker@netcom.com CompuServe: 73577,677 The location of the illustrations in the text are...

American Hand Book of the Daguerreotype There is not an Amateur or practical Daguerreotypist, who has not felt the want of a manualHand Book, giving concise and reliable information for the processes, and preparations of the Agents employed in his practice. Since portraits by...

Summer A girl came out of lawyer Royall's house, at the end of the one street of North Dormer, and stood on the doorstep. It was the beginning of a June afternoon. The springlike transparent sky shed a rain of silver sunshine on the...

McTeague: A Story of San Francisco It was Sunday, and, according to his custom on that day, McTeague took his dinner at two in the afternoon at the car conductors' coffee-joint on Polk Street. He had a thick gray soup; heavy, underdone meat, very...

Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea The year 1866 was signalised by a remarkable incident, a mysterious and puzzling phenomenon, which doubtless no one has yet forgotten. Not to mention rumours which agitated the maritime population and excited the public mind, even in the...

Flower Fables The summer moon shone brightly down upon the sleeping earth, while far away from mortal eyes danced the Fairy folk. Fire-flies hung in bright clusters on the dewy leaves, that waved in the cool night-wind; and the flowers stood gazing, in very...

Take Me for a Ride: Coming of Age in a Destructive CultWhile his portrait of a charismatic leaders slide into madness is gripping, perhaps more important here is Laxers disclosure of some of the motives impelling young people to immerse themselves in cults the...

Sense and Sensibility The family of Dashwood had long been settled in Sussex. Their estate was large, and their residence was at Norland Park, in the centre of their property, where, for many generations, they had lived in so respectable a manner as to...

The Awakening, and Selected Short Stories He could speak a little Spanish, and also a language which nobody understood, unless it was the mocking-bird that hung on the other side of the door, whistling his fluty notes out upon the breeze with maddening persistence....

The Island of Doctor Moreau On February the First 1887, the Lady Vain was lost by collision with a derelict when about the latitude 1 S. and longitude 107 W. On January the Fifth, 1888that is eleven months and four days aftermy uncle, Edward...

Emma Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her. She was the...