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Preface: When the venture has been made of dealing with historical events and characters, it always seems fair towards the reader to avow what liberties have been taken, and how much of the sketch is founded on history. In the present case, it is scarcely necessary to do more than refer to the almost unique relations that subsisted between Henry V. and his prisoner, James I. of Scotland; who lived with him throughout his reign on the terms of friend rather than of captive, and was absolutely sheltered by this imprisonment throughout his nonage and early youth from the frightful violence and presumption of the nobles of his kingdom....

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Excerpt: Chapter 1. How Beaumains came to King Arthur?s Court and demanded three petitions of King Arthur. When Arthur held his Round Table most plenour, it fortuned that he commanded that the high feast of Pentecost should be holden at a city and a castle, the which in those days was called Kynke Kenadonne, upon the sands that marched nigh Wales. So ever the king had a custom that at the feast of Pentecost in especial, afore other feasts in the year, he would not go that day to meat until he had heard or seen of a great marvel....

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Excerpt: CHAPTER 1. Fellow Travelers. In the autumn of the year, Darkness and Night were creeping up to the highest ridges of the Alps. It was vintage time in the valleys on the Swiss side of the Pass of the Great Saint Bernard, and along the banks of the Lake of Geneva....

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CONTENTS BOOK THE SECOND: RICHES 1. Fellow Travellers 2. Mrs General 3. On the Road 4. A Letter from Little Dorrit 5. Something Wrong Somewhere 6. Something Right Somewhere 7. Mostly, Prunes and Prism 8. The Dowager Mrs Gowan is reminded that ?It Never Does? 9. Appearance and Disappearance 10. The Dreams of Mrs Flintwinch thicken 11. A Letter from Little Dorrit 12. In which a Great Patriotic Conference is holden 13. The Progress of an Epidemic 14. Taking Advice 15. No just Cause or Impediment why these Two Persons should not be joined together 16. Getting on 17. Missing 18. A Castle in the Air 19. The Storming of the Castle in the Air 20. Introduces the next 21. The History of a Self-Tormentor 22. Who Passes by this Road so late? 23. Mistress Affery makes a Conditional Promise, respecting her Dreams 24. The Evening of a Long Day 25. The Chief Butler Resigns the Seals of Office 26. Reaping the Whirlwind 27. The Pupil of the Marshalsea 28. An Appearance in the Marshalsea 29. A Plea in the Marshalsea 30. Closing in...

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Excerpt: Chapter 1. Part The First. Once upon a time, it matters little when, and in stalwart England, it matters little where, a fierce battle was fought. It was fought upon a long summer day when the waving grass was green. Many a wild flower formed by the Almighty Hand to be a perfumed goblet for the dew, felt its enameled cup filled high with blood that day, and shrinking dropped. Many an insect deriving its delicate color from harmless leaves and herbs, was stained anew that day by dying men, and marked its frightened way with an unnatural track. The painted butterfly took blood into the air upon the edges of its wings. The stream ran red....

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Introduction: A certain degree of success, real or supposed, in the delineation of Queen Mary, naturally induced the author to attempt something similar respecting ?her sister and her foe,? the celebrated Elizabeth. He will not, however, pretend to have approached the task with the same feelings; for the candid Robertson himself confesses having felt the prejudices with which a Scottishman is tempted to regard the subject; and what so liberal a historian avows, a poor romance-writer dares not disown. But he hopes the influence of a prejudice, almost as natural to him as his native air, will not be found to have greatly affected the sketch he has attempted of England?s Elizabeth....

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Excerpt: Plashwater Weir Mill Lock looked tranquil and pretty on an evening in the summer time. A soft air stirred the leaves of the fresh green trees, and passed like a smooth shadow over the river, and like a smoother shadow over the yielding grass. The voice of the falling water, like the voices of the sea and the wind, were as an outer memory to a contemplative listener; but not particularly so to Mr. Riderhood, who sat on one of the blunt wooden levers of his lock-gates, dozing. Wine must be got into a butt by some agency before it can be drawn out; and the wine of sentiment never having been got into Mr. Riderhood by any agency, nothing in nature tapped him....

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Excerpt: 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....

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Excerpt: She walks in beauty She walks in beauty, like the night Of cloudless climes and starry skies; And all that?s best of dark and bright Meet in her aspect and her eyes: Thus mellowed to that tender light Which heaven to gaudy day denies....

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Contents SHE WALKS IN BEAUTY.........................................3 ON THIS DAY I COMPLETE MY THIRTY-SIXTH YEAR ....................................................................3 TO CAROLINE ........................................................5 FAREWELL TO THE MUSE ...................................6 ?And wilt thou weep when I am low?? .......................7 OSSIAN?S ADDRESS TO THE SUN IN ?CARTHON? .........................................................8 ?DEAR DOCTOR, I HAVE READ YOUR PLAY? ...9 ?So we?ll go no more a roving? .................................11 ?And thou art dead, as young and fair? ...................12 THE DESTRUCTION OF SENNACHERIB ..........14 DARKNESS ..............................................................15 WHEN WE TWO PARTED ....................................17 TRANSLATION FROM ANACREON ...................18 TO CAROLINE .......................................................19 EPISTLE TO AUGUSTA ........................................20 ODE TO NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE ................23 AND THOU ART DEAD, AS YOUNG AND FAIR ......................................................................

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Excerpt: The Turn of the Screw by Henry James.

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Excerpt: Chapter 1. A South Sea Bridal. I saw that island first when it was neither night nor morning. The moon was to the west, setting, but still broad and bright. To the east, and right amidships of the dawn, which was all pink, the daystar sparkled like a diamond. The land breeze blew in our faces, and smelt strong of wild lime and vanilla: other things besides, but these were the most plain; and the chill of it set me sneezing. I should say I had been for years on a low island near the line, living for the most part solitary among natives. Here was a fresh experience: even the tongue would be quite strange to me; and the look of these woods and mountains, and the rare smell of them, renewed my blood....

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Contents THE BEACH OF FALESA............................................ 4 THE BOTTLE IMP...................................................... 68 THE ISLE OF VOICES............................................... 95...

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Excerpt: Chapter 1. The word of the LORD that came to Micah the Morasthite in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, which he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem -- 2. Hear, all ye people; hearken, O earth, and all that therein is: and let the Lord GOD be witness against you, the LORD from his holy temple -- 3. For, behold, the LORD cometh forth out of his place, and will come down, and tread upon the high places of the earth....

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Excerpt: Within the Tides by Joseph Conrad.

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Contents of Within the Tides THE PLANTER OF MALATA......................................................................4 THE PARTNER ............................................................................................66 THE INN OF THE TWO WITCHES?A FIND ........................................95 BECAUSE OF THE DOLLARS ............................................................... 119...

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Excerpt: The Palimpsest Review is the student literary publication for the Pennsylvania State University campuses outside the University Park main campus. All the short stories and poems published herein are the products of students enrolled on those campuses during the academic year prior to the semester of publication....

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Contents From the Editor?s Desk.....................................................5 Len Robert?s Making Metaphor Work: Seeing, Feeling, Hearing the Poem .........................................................8 Luisa Berti (Judge?s Selection for Best Poem) Salt Water .....10 Kari L. Strickler I Stopped ..............................................11 Rebecca Werner 3 Days in Heaven/Hell .........................12 Russ Chadwick A Blue You .............................................14 Jared Andrukanis A Closer Look .....................................15 Laura M. Noah For Better and For Worse ........................21 Robin Imhoff To Piss You Off .........................................26 Lisa Marie Black Ironic Dreams ......................................27 William Zeruth Basketball .............................................39 Ryan Romano Little Boys ................................................40 Aneesh Khushman The Curse of Basuk ...........................41 Stephanie Frederick Johnston Priceless ...........................46 Matt Mosley Searching For It ..........................................48 Melissa Fisher Th...

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Excerpt: The Morte Darthur was finished, as the epilogue tells us, in the ninth year of Edward IV., i.e. between March 4, 1469 and the same date in 1470. It is thus, fitly enough, the last important English book written before the introduction of printing into this country, and since no manuscript of it has come down to us it is also the first English classic for our knowledge of which we are entirely dependent on a printed text. Caxton?s story of how the book was brought to him and he was induced to print it may be read farther on in his own preface. From this we learn also that he was not only the printer of the book, but to some extent its editor also, dividing Malory?s work into twentyone books, splitting up the books into chapters, by no means skilfully, and supplying the ?Rubrish? or chapter-headings. It may be added that Caxton?s preface contains, moreover, a brief criticism which, on the points on which it touches, is still the soundest and most sympathetic that has been written....

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Excerpt: The ion is the shortest, or nearly the shortest, of all the writings which bear the name of Plato, and is not authenticated by any early external testimony. The grace and beauty of this little work supply the only, and perhaps a sufficient, proof of its genuineness. The plan is simple; the dramatic interest consists entirely in the contrast between the irony of Socrates and the transparent vanity and childlike enthusiasm of the rhapsode Ion. The theme of the Dialogue may possibly have been suggested by the passage of Xenophon?s Memorabilia in which the rhapsodists are described by Euthydemus as ?very precise about the exact words of Homer, but very idiotic themselves.?...

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Excerpt: Before the reader is introduced to the modest country medical practitioner who is to be the chief personage of the following tale, it will be well that he should be made acquainted with some particulars as to the locality in which, and the neighbors among whom, our doctor followed his profession....

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Excerpt: Lucien had gone to Paris; and David Sechard, with the courage and intelligence of the ox which painters give the Evangelist for accompanying symbol, set himself to make the large fortune for which he had wished that evening down by the Charente, when he sat with Eve by the weir, and she gave him her hand and her heart. He wanted to make the money quickly, and less for himself than for Eve?s sake and Lucien?s....

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Excerpt: The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells.

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Excerpt: The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane.

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Excerpt: Several of us, all more or less connected with the sea, were dining in a small river-hostelry not more than thirty miles from London, and less than twenty from that shallow and dangerous puddle to which our coasting men give the grandiose name of ?German Ocean.? And through the wide windows we had a view of the Thames; an enfilading view down the Lower Hope Reach. But the dinner was execrable, and all the feast was for the eyes....