Description Details
It was before the Idiot's marriage, and in the days when he was nothing more than a plain boarder in Mrs. Smithers-Pedagog's High-class Home for Single Gentlemen, that he put what the School-master termed his alleged mind on plans for the amelioration of the condition of the civilized. This humorous story by the editor of Puck magazine describes how the Idiot sets out to improve the lot of civilized man through his inventions - the lot of barbarian man already being well tended to by missionaries and other do-gooders. (Introduction by peac) CAST: Narrator - peac The Idiot - Algy Pug Mr. Pedagog(aka The Schoolmaster) - Adam Bratcher Mrs. Smithers Pedagog - TriciaG The Doctor - Raken The Bibliomaiac - Availle Mr. Poet - Matthew Reece Mr. Whitechoker(aka The Minister) - Aidan Brack The Genial Old Gentleman who occasionally imbibed - om123 Edited by - peac...

Description Details
Meet Molly: a quirky, spirited twenty-five-year old, widowed for 6 years, living in picturesque Hillsboro with her aunt amidst gossipy neighbors, on a strict diet, and in serious boy trouble. There's Arthur, her childhood sweetheart; then, there's the enigmatic, charming Judge Wade; and of course, there's her cousin Tom; and then, her infuriating neighbor, John Moore... But who will melt her heart? It is Arthur's return, and his seemingly simple request of wanting to see her in the same blue dress she wore when he left, that throws everything into turmoil... Sometimes, one can only find some solace in one's garden. Narrated in a refreshingly modern and playful style by none other than Molly herself, this book is the British magazine version; there’s a significantly different American novel version. (Summary by Elli, Julie VW and Stav Nisser)...

Excerpt Details
Fiction, Romance

Excerpt Details
Excerpt: Chapter 1. The Betrothal. Pere Merlier?s Mill, one beautiful summer evening, was arranged for a grand fete. In the courtyard were three tables, placed end to end, which awaited the guests. Everyone knew that Francoise, Merlier?s daughter, was that night to be betrothed to Dominique, a young man who was accused of idleness but whom the fair sex for three leagues around gazed at with sparkling eyes, such a fine appearance had he....

Excerpt Details
Excerpt: The Wings of the Dove by Henry James.

Description Details
The small town of Shelby is shaken by a brutal murder. A man by the name of Etheridge was found beaten to death. A local inn-keeper, is convicted and executed for the crime. Many years later, a woman in purple shows up at the house of Ostrander, the respected judge who had sentenced the inn-keeper to be executed. This mysterious woman turns out to be the wife of the convicted man, but she does not believe he was guilty. She visits the Judge, to challenge him on his verdict. He listens to her plea, but reaffirms his belief in her husbands guilt. Having nowhere to go, Deborah is given the position of maid, which she secretly uses to obtain proof of her husband's innocence and the identity of the real killer. However, the initial evidence that Deborah collects points in troubling new directions. (Summary by Elaine Webb)...

Excerpt Details
Mystery

Description Details
I am going to tell you something about a little girl who was always saying and doing funny things, and very often getting into trouble. Her name was Prudy Parlin, and she and her sister Susy, three years older, lived in Portland, in the State of Maine, though every summer they went to Willowbrook, to visit their grandmother. (From chapter 1 )...

Excerpt Details
Children

Description Details
Henry James considered The Ambassadors his best, or perhaps his best-wrought, novel. It plays on the great Jamesian theme of the American abroad, who finds himself in an older, and some would say richer, culture that that of the United States, with its attractions and dangers. Here the protagonist is Lambert Strether, a man in his fifties, editor of a small literary magazine in Woollett, Massachusetts, who arrives in Europe on a mission undertaken at the urging of his patron, Mrs. Newsome, to bring back her son Chadwick. That young man appears to be enjoying his time in Paris rather more than seems good for him, at least to those older and wiser. The novel, however, is perhaps really about Strether's education in this new land, and one of his teachers is the city of Paris -- a real Paris, not an idealized one, but from which Strether has much to learn. Chad Newsome, of course is there too, and so are a scattering of other Americans, his old friend Waymarsh and his new acquaintance Maria Gostrey among them. Had Strether his life to live over again, knowing what he has now learned,. how different would it be? and what are the lessons ...

Description Details
This is a gentle Christmas story, whose message is that if we didn't already have Christmas, we'd find a way to invent it. It's hard times in Old Trail Town as the Season of Giving approaches. The factory that employs most of the town is closed and not likely to re-open, and town merchants fear that people will try to shop on credit. Unwilling to carry the debt, the merchants work out a scheme to get everybody in town to agree not to have Christmas that year. What happens next proves that Christmas can't be banned from the hearts of those who truly believe in it. (Summary by Christine Dufour)...

Excerpt Details
Fiction, Holiday

Description Details
The many adventures of Professor Craig Kennedy were chronicled by Arthur B. Reeve (October 15, 1880 - August 9, 1936). Reeve was an American mystery writer who created 82 Craig Kennedy mystery stories. The stories have a very Sherlock Holmes type feel, In fact Kennedy has been referred to as the American Sherlock Holmes. Along with his reporter friend, Walter Jameson, Kennedy solves many crimes and unveils mysteries using science. This book contains twelve of Professor Kennedy's adventures. The interesting thing about these stories is Kennedy uses newly discovered science from his time period, which we take for granted today. The title story features the use of special inks. One which disappears in sunlight and one which appears in sunlight, so that the text on a note found in possession of a murder victim changes completely, making it almost impossible for Kennedy to track down the killer. Each story features a fascinating look at life in the early 20th century, and even includes some action along the way. (Introduction by Elliott Miller)...

Excerpt Details
Fiction, Mystery

Description Details
This sparkling collection of 7 short stories by Ferber includes some that are considered her all time best like The Woman Who Tried To be Good and The Maternal Feminine. Writing for and about women, Edna Ferber touches the very heart and soul of what it means to be human; to make good choices and bad; to be weak and strong. This was a very popular book when published in 1913 (Summary by phil chenevert)...

Excerpt Details
Short stories, Fiction

Description Details
Heart of Darkness is a novella written by Joseph Conrad. Before its 1903 publication, it appeared as a three-part series (1899) in Blackwood's Magazine. It was classified by the Modern Library website editors as one of the 100 best novels and part of the Western canon. The story centres on Charles Marlow, who narrates most of the book. He is an Englishman who takes a foreign assignment from a Belgian trading company as a river-boat captain in Africa. Heart of Darkness exposes the dark side of European colonization while exploring the three levels of darkness that the protagonist, Marlow, encounters: the darkness of the Congo wilderness, the darkness of the Europeans' cruel treatment of the African natives, and the unfathomable darkness within every human being for committing heinous acts of evil. Although Conrad does not give the name of the river, at the time of writing the Congo Free State, the location of the large and important Congo River, was a private colony of Belgium's King Leopold II. In the story, Marlow is employed to transport ivory downriver. However, his more pressing assignment is to return Kurtz, another ivory trade...

Excerpt Details
Adventure, Fiction, Literature

Excerpt Details
Excerpt: Chapter 1. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God -- 2. The same was in the beginning with God -- 3. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made -- 4. In him was life; and the life was the light of men -- 5. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not -- 6. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John....

Excerpt Details
Excerpt: Miss Sarah Jack, of Spanish Town, Jamaica by Anthony Trollope.

Excerpt Details
Excerpt: The Village Rector by Honore de Balzac, translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley.

Excerpt Details
Excerpt: Songs of Travel and other verses by Robert Louis Stevenson.

Table of Contents Details
Contents* I - THE VAGABOND (To an air of Schubert) ........................................................................................................... 5 II - YOUTH AND LOVE - I ....................................................................................................................................... 6 III - YOUTH AND LOVE - II .................................................................................................................................... 6 XII - WE HAVE LOVED OF YORE (To an air of Diabelli) .................................................................................. 10 XIII - MATER TRIUMPHANS ............................................................................................................................... 10 XVI (To the tune of Wandering Willie) .................................................................................................................... 12 XVII - WINTER ........................................................................................................................................................ 12 XIX ? TO DR. HAKE (On receiving a Copy of Ver...

Excerpt Details
Excerpt: A Romance of the South Seas by Herman Melville.

Excerpt Details
Excerpt: The school at which young Charley Hexam had first learned from a book--the streets being, for pupils of his degree, the great Preparatory Establishment in which very much that is never unlearned is learned without and before book--was a miserable loft in an unsavoury yard. Its atmosphere was oppressive and disagreeable; it was crowded, noisy, and confusing; half the pupils dropped asleep, or fell into a state of waking stupefaction; the other half kept them in either condition by maintaining a monotonous droning noise, as if they were performing, out of time and tune, on a ruder sort of bagpipe. The teachers, animated solely by good intentions, had no idea of execution, and a lamentable jumble was the upshot of their kind endeavours....

Excerpt Details
Excerpt: The Pickwick Papers, Volume Two by Charles Dickens.

Excerpt Details
Excerpt: 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 roofs of the village, and on the pastures and larchwoods surrounding it. A little wind moved among the round white clouds on the shoulders of the hills, driving their shadows across the fields and down the grassy road that takes the name of street when it passes through North Dormer....

Excerpt Details
Excerpt: This Electronic Book Is a Publication of the Pennsylvania State university's Electronic Classic Series, Jim Manis, Faculty Editor.