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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....

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Excerpt: The Wings of the Dove by Henry James.

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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)...

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Fiction, Holiday

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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)...

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Fiction, Mystery

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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)...

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Short stories, Fiction

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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....

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

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

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

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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...

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

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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)...

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Mystery

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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....

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

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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....

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

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Excerpt: He was working on the edge of the common, beyond the small brook that ran in the dip at the bottom of the garden, carrying the garden path in continuation from the plank bridge on to the common. He had cut the rough turf and bracken, leaving the grey, dryish soil bare. But he was worried because he could not get the path straight, there was a pleat between his brows. He had set up his sticks, and taken the sights between the big pine trees, but for some reason everything seemed wrong. He looked again, straining his keen blue eyes, that had a touch of the Viking in them, through the shadowy pine trees as through a doorway, at the greengrassed garden-path rising from the shadow of alders by the log bridge up to the sunlit flowers. Tall white and purple columbines, and the butt-end of the old Hampshire cottage that crouched near the earth amid flowers, blossoming in the bit of shaggy wildness round about....

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Contents England, My England ........................................................................................................................ 4 Tickets, Please .................................................................................................................................. 35 The Blind Man ................................................................................................................................. 47 Monkey Nuts .................................................................................................................................... 66 Wintry Peacock ................................................................................................................................ 79 You Touched Me............................................................................................................................... 93 Samson and Delilah........................................................................................................................110 The Primrose Path ........................................................................................................

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Excerpt: El Verdugo by Honore de Balzac, translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley.

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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)...

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Fiction, Romance

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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 )...

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Children

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After his father’s death Gerard Roylake returns from Germany to take up his inheritance at Trimley Deen. On one evening he meets his childhood friend, Cristel Toller. They fall in love, but there is a crux. A deaf man, called The Lodger is obsessed with Cristel. He invites Gerard to tea with evil intentions… and Gerard accepts the invitation. The book is written in the first person and tells the story from Gerard's point of view. (Summary by Diana Majlinger)...

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Literature, Fiction