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Introduction: The Dolliver Romance. In ?The Dolliver Romance,? only three chapters of which the author lived to complete, we get an intimation as to what would have been the ultimate form given to that romance founded on the Elixir of Life, for which ?Septimius Felton? was the preliminary study. Having abandoned this study, and apparently forsaken the whole scheme in 1862, Hawthorne was moved to renew his meditation upon it in the following year; and as the plan of the romance had now seemingly developed to his satisfaction, he listened to the publisher?s proposal that it should begin its course as a serial story in the ?Atlantic Monthly? for January, 1864--the first instance in which he had attempted such a mode of publication....

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Contents INTRODUCTORY NOTE ................................................................................................................ 4 A SCENE FROM THE DOLLIVER ROMANCE ......................................................................... 7 ANOTHER SCENE FROM THE DOLLIVER ROMANCE...................................................... 21 ANOTHER FRAGMENT OF THE DOLLIVER ROMANCE................................................... 30...

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Excerpt: Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.

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Excerpt: At a dimly remote period in the history of Brabant, communication between the Island of Cadzand and the Flemish coast was kept up by a boat which carried passengers from one shore to the other. Middelburg, the chief town in the island, destined to become so famous in the annals of Protestantism, at that time only numbered some two or three hundred hearths; and the prosperous town of Ostend was an obscure haven, a straggling village where pirates dwelt in security among the fishermen and the few poor merchants who lived in the place....

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Excerpt: Night and Day by Virginia Woolf.

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Excerpt: About thirty years ago Miss Maria Ward, of Huntingdon, with only seven thousand pounds, had the good luck to captivate Sir Thomas Bertram, of Mansfield Park, in the county of Northampton, and to be thereby raised to the rank of a baronet?s lady, with all the comforts and consequences of an handsome house and large income. All Huntingdon exclaimed on the greatness of the match, and her uncle, the lawyer, himself, allowed her to be at least three thousand pounds short of any equitable claim to it....

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Excerpt: Swan Song by Anton Checkov, translated by Marian Fell.

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Contents INTRODUCTION ...........................................................................................4 Chronological List of the Principal Works of Anton Tchekoff..................10 The Swan Song .............................................................................................. 11...

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Excerpt: At sunrise on a first of April there appeared, suddenly as Manco Capac at the lake Titicaca, a man in cream-colors, at the water-side in the city of St. Louis. His cheek was fair, his chin downy, his hair flaxen, his hat a white fur one, with a long fleecy nap. He had neither trunk, valise, carpet-bag, nor parcel. No porter followed him. He was unaccompanied by friends. From the shrugged shoulders, titters, whispers, wonderings of the crowd, it was plain that he was, in the extremest sense of the word, a stranger....

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Excerpt: The Two Brothers by Honore de Balzac, translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley.

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Excerpt: The Waste Land by Thomas) Stearns) Eliot.

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Excerpt: Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas by Herman Melville.

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Excerpt: The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James.

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Excerpt: Fables by Robert Louis Stevenson.

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Contents I. ? THE PERSONS OF THE TALE. ............................................................................................................................ 4 II. ? THE SINKING SHIP. ............................................................................................................................................ 7 III ? THE TWO MATCHES. ........................................................................................................................................ 9 IV. ? THE SICK MAN AND THE FIREMAN. ........................................................................................................... 10 V. ? THE DEVIL AND THE INNKEEPER. ............................................................................................................... 11 VI. ? THE PENITENT................................................................................................................................................ 11 VII. ? THE YELLOW PAINT. .................................................................................................................................... 12 VIII. ? THE HOUSE OF ELD. .........

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Excerpt: The Prince and the Page by Charlotte M. Yonge.

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Preface: What is exaggeration to one class of minds and perceptions, is plain truth to another. That which is commonly called a long-sight, perceives in a prospect innumerable features and bearings non-existent to a short-sighted person. I sometimes ask myself whether there may occasionally be a difference of this kind between some writers and some readers; whether it is always the writer who colors highly, or whether it is now and then the reader whose eye for color is a little dull?...

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Excerpt: The Moon and Sixpence by Somerset Maugham.

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Excerpt: It is nearly eight years since this book was first published. I present it, unaltered, in the Cheap Edition; and such of my opinions as it expresses, are quite unaltered too. My readers have opportunities of judging for themselves whether the influences and tendencies which I distrust in America, have any existence not in my imagination. They can examine for themselves whether there has been anything in the public career of that country during these past eight years, or whether there is anything in its present position, at home or abroad, which suggests that those influences and tendencies really do exist....

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Excerpt: I mentioned to Mr. Spenlow in the morning, that I wanted leave of absence for a short time; and as I was not in the receipt of any salary, and consequently was not obnoxious to the implacable Jorkins, there was no difficulty about it. I took that opportunity, with my voice sticking in my throat, and my sight failing as I uttered the words, to express my hope that Miss Spenlow was quite well; to which Mr. Spenlow replied, with no more emotion than if he had been speaking of an ordinary human being, that he was much obliged to me, and she was very well....

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Excerpt: Stray Pearls: Memoirs of Margaret De Ribaumont, Viscountess of Bellaise by Charlotte M. Yonge.

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Excerpt: ORLANDO. As I remember, Adam, it was upon this fashion bequeathed me by will but poor a thousand crowns, and, as thou sayest, charged my brother, on his blessing, to breed me well: and there begins my sadness. My brother Jaques he keeps at school, and report speaks goldenly of his profit: for my part, he keeps me rustically at home, or, to speak more properly, stays me here at home unkept; for call you that keeping for a gentleman of my birth, that differs not from the stalling of an ox? His horses are bred better....

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Excerpt: The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad.