Arthur's Classic Novels: Complete Fairy Tales


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Fairy Tales and Children's Stories


Fairy Tales

The Violet Fairy Book   edited by Andrew Lang
Long, long ago there stood in the midst of a country covered with lakes a vast stretch of moorland called the Tontlawald, on which no man ever dared set foot. From time to time a few bold spirits had been drawn by curiosity to its borders

The Junior Classics   by William Patten
The first sound he heard was that of the owl, at which he was greatly terrified, and, quickly descending the tree he had climbed, he ran with alarm to the lodge. "Noko! noko! grandmother!" he cried. "I have heard a monedo."

Twenty Two Goblins   by Arthur W. Ryder
So when the night came, the mighty king remembered his promise to the monk, and at dusk he wrapped his head in a black veil, took his sword in his hand, and went to the great cemetery without being seen. When he got there, he looked about, and saw the monk standing under the fig-tree and making a magic circle.

The Blue Fairy Book  
So the gardener allowed himself to be persuaded, and went away with the messengers, taking his wife and his son with him; and the King, delighted to have found a real gardener

The Brown Fairy Book  
At the place where the prince intended to hunt he saw a most beautiful deer. He ordered that it should not be killed, but trapped or captured with a noose. The deer looked about for a place where he might escape from the ring of the beaters, and spied one unwatched close to the prince himself. It bounded high and leaped right over his head

The Crimson Fairy Book   edited by Andrew Lang
The prince went on his way, and a little further on he found another hut in which lived an old man. On being questioned the old man said he knew nothing, but begged the prince to stay overnight

Donegal Fairy Stories   by Seumas MacManus
The Amadan's step-mother was always afraid of him beating her children, he was growing so big and strong. So to keep him from growing and to weaken him, she had him fed on dough made of raw meal and water, and for that he was called "The Amadan of the Dough." But instead of getting weaker, it was getting stronger the Amadan was on this fare, and he was able to thrash all of his step-brothers together.

Dream Days   by Kenneth Grahame
But Selina sat on where she was, her chin on her fists; and her fancies whirled and drifted, here and there, in curls and eddies, along with the smoke she was watching. As the quick- footed dusk of the short October day stepped lightly over the garden, little red tongues of fire might be seen to leap and vanish in the smoke.

Old Hungarian Fairy Tales  
Now Uletka was excessively curious, and often she would wander round the tower and turn the handle of the door, and fret because she always found it locked. She dared not ask her father any more about it, for she had done so once, and then she thought that she never had seen her dear, kind father so angry before.

Silver Pennies  by Blanche Jennings Thompson
Have you watched the fairies when the rain is done Spreading out their little wings to dry them in the sun ?
I have, I have! Isn't it fun?
Have you heard the fairies all among the limes
Singing little fairy tunes to little fairy rhyrmes ?

The Rose and the Ring  
He is so absorbed in the perusal of the King of Crim Tartary's letter, that he allows his eggs to get cold, and leaves his august muffins untasted.

The Sea Fairies
This was about the time Trot was born, and the old sailor became very fond of the baby girl. Her real name was Mayre, but when she grew big enough to walk, she took so many busy little steps every day that both her mother and Cap'n Bill nicknamed her "Trot," and so she was thereafter mostly called.

American Fairy Tales
No one intended to leave Martha alone that afternoon, but it happened that everyone was called away, for one reason or another. Mrs. McFarland was attending the weekly card party held by the Women's Anti-Gambling League.

English Fairy Stories   by Flora Annie Steel
So, rising at dawn of day, he buckled on his armor, laced his helmet, and with the sword Ascalon in his hand, mounted Bayard, and rode into the Valley of the Dragon. Now on the way he met a procession of old women weeping and wailing and in their midst the most beauteous damsel he had ever seen.

Japanese Legends about Supernatural Sweethearts.  by D. L. Ashliman
The journey was more tiring than they expected, for they did not know much about traveling, and halfway between the two towns there arose a mountain which had to be climbed. It took them a long time and a great many hops to reach the top, but there they were at last, and what was the surprise of each to see another frog before him!

Flower Fables   by Louisa May Alcott
"I will tell you," replied little Violet, the tears gathering in her soft eyes. "Our good Queen is ever striving to keep the dear flowers from the power of the cruel Frost-King; many ways she tried, but all have failed.

The Heroes, or Greek Fairy Tales For My Children   by Charles Kingsley
Their names were Acrisius and Proetus, and they lived in the pleasant vale of Argos, far away in Hellas. They had fruitful meadows and vineyards, sheep and oxen, great herds of horses feeding down in Lerna Fen, and all that men could need to make them blest: and yet they were wretched

Grimms' Fairy Tales   by the Brothers Grimm
Time passed on; and as the eldest son did not come back, and no tidings were heard of him, the second son set out, and the same thing happened to him. He met the fox, who gave him the good advice: but when he came to the two inns

Hauff's Fairy Tales   by Cicely McDonnell
Hardly had the Caliph Casid breakfasted the following morning ere the Grand Vizier appeared ready for the appointed walk. The Caliph put the snuff-box safely in his sash, and bidding his followers remain in the city, set out alone with the Grand Vizier.

Andersen's Fairy Tales  
Time passed merrily in the large town which was his capital; strangers arrived every day at the court. One day, two rogues, calling themselves weavers, made their appearance. They gave out that they knew how to weave stuffs of the most beautiful colors

King of the Golden River   by John Ruskin
In a secluded and mountainous part of Stiria there was in old time a valley of the most surprising and luxuriant fertility. It was surrounded on all sides by steep and rocky mountains rising into peaks which were always covered with snow and from which a number of torrents descended in constant cataracts.

Old Mother West Wind   by Thornton W. Burgess
When she reached the Green Meadows Old Mother West Wind opened her bag, turned it upside down and shook it. Out tumbled all the Merry Little Breezes and began to spin round and round for very joy, for you see they were to lay in the Green Meadows all day long

The Lilac Fairy Book   edited by Andrew Lang
When the Shifty Lad thought that the hour had nearly come for the sermon to be over, he hid himself in some bushes in a little path that led straight to his mother's house, and, as she passed along, thinking of all the good things she had heard, a voice shouted close to her ear 'Robbery! Robbery! Robbery!'

The Mermaid Wife   by D. L. Ashliman
The Shetlander's love for his merwife was unbounded, but his affection was coldly returned. The lady would often steal alone to the desert strand, and, on a signal being given, a large seal would make his appearance, with whom she would hold, in an unknown tongue, an anxious conference.

The Midas Collection   by D. L. Ashliman
Weeks passed away, and there sprang up in the hole an elder tree which had three stems, all as straight as poplars. Some shepherds, tending their flocks near by, noticed the tree growing there, and one of them cut down a stem to make flutes of; but, directly he began to play, the flute would do nothing but sing

Midwife for the Elves   collected by D. L. Ashliman
The latter refused to eat, in spite of Vitra's reassuring persuasion, and further refused the money which the troll-wife pressed upon her. Vitra then sent her home, bidding her look on the table when next she entered her cowherd hut and see what she would find there.

The Monkey's Heart   by D. L. Ashliman
In years gone by, a dragon living in the great sea saw that his wife's health was not good. He, seeing her color fade away, said, "My dear, what shall I get you to eat?"

The Master Key   by L. Frank Baum
He fitted up the little back room in the attic as his workshop, and from thence a net-work of wires soon ran throughout the house. Not only had every outside door its electric bell, but every window was fitted with a burglar alarm

The Olive Fairy Book   edited by Andrew Lang
'Do not think me mad, O Excellency,' she began, 'though I know I must seem like it. But I have a son who, since his eyes have rested on the veiled face of the princess, has not left me in peace day or night till I consented to come to the palace, and to ask your Excellency for your daughter's hand.

The Orange Fairy Book   edited by Andrew Lang
Then he said to his mother: 'Rest gently, my mother, for I go to make a home for myself and become a hero.' Then, entering his hut he took Nu-endo, his iron hammer, and throwing the sack over his shoulder, he went away.

Princess Nobody   A Tale of Fairyland
Then, one day, came a tremendous knock at the Palace gates. Out rushed the Porter, and saw a little Dwarf, in a red cap, and a red cloak, riding a green Frog.

The Red Fairy Book   edited by Andrew Lang
It was well known for full twenty miles round that there lived in the castle of Beloeil twelve princesses of wonderful beauty, and as proud as they were beautiful, and who were besides so very sensitive and of such truly royal blood, that they would have felt at once the presence of a pea in their beds, even if the mattresses had been laid over it.

Red Indian Fairy Book  
He bore her swiftly upward, and with fast wing left even the wind behind. Onward he flew, then suddenly descended and plunged into a roaring cataract. And there Ahneah the Rose Flower was nearly lost in the swirl of the mad torrent.

Irish Fairy Tales   by James Stephens
But the Ulster gentleman refused Finnian admittance. He barricaded his house, he shuttered his windows, and in a gloom of indignation and protest he continued the practices of ten thousand years, and would not hearken to Finnian calling at the window or to Time knocking at his door.

Rewards And Fairies   by Rudyard Kipling
The result was that from time to time, and in different places on the farm and in the fields and in the country about, they saw and talked to some rather interesting people. One of these, for instance, was a Knight of the Norman Conquest

The Blue Moon   by Laurence Housman
Nillywill learned that she must wed with one of her own rank who was a stranger to her save for his name and his renown as the lord of a neighbouring country; there was no help for her, since she was a princess

The Beam   Jacob Ludwig Grimm and Wilhelm Carl Grimm
After some time the girl's wedding-day came, and she was decked out, and went in a great procession over the fields to the place where the church was.

The Book Of The Thousand Nights And A Night   by Richard F. Burton
"How have I slain thy son?" and he answered, "When thou atest dates and threwest away the stones they struck my son full in the breast as he was walking by, so that he died forthwith."

Celtic Fairy Tales     by Joseph Jacobs
"Oh, Coran of the many spells," he said, " and of the cunning magic, I call upon thy aid. A task is upon me too great for all my skill and wit, greater than any laid upon me since I seized the kingship.

Myths and Legends of California and the Old Southwest     by Katharine Berry Judson
From his flesh, the Sun-father created the Seed-stuff of worlds, and he himself rested upon the waters. And these two, the Four-fold-containing Earth-mother and the All-covering Sky-father, the surpassing beings, with power of changing their forms even as smoke changes in the wind, were the father and mother of the soul beings.

More Celtic Fairy Tales     by Joseph Jacobs
So the messengers brought word to Lir that Dearg the king would give him a foster-child of his foster-children. Lir thought well of it, and set out next day with fifty chariots from the Hill of the White Field.

Many Swans     by Amy Lowell
When the Goose Moon rose and walked upon a pale sky, and water made a noise once more beneath the ice on the river, his heart was sick with longing for the great good of the sun. One Winter again had passed, one Winter like the last.

Japanese Fairy Tales     by Yei Theodora Ozaki
At first Hidesato could not help feeling alarmed at the sight of this horrible reptile lying in his path, for he must either turn back or walk right over its body. He was a brave man, however, and putting aside all fear went forward dauntlessly.

British Goblins     by Wirt Sikes
That isolated cape which forms the county of Pembroke was looked upon as a land of mystery by the rest of Wales long after it had been settled by the Flemings in 1113.

Fairy Legends and Traditions     by Thomas Crofton Croker
Carroll O'Daly used to go roving about from one place to another, and the fear of nothing stopped him; he would as soon pass an churchyard or a regular fairy ground, at any hour of the night, as go from one room into another without ever making the sign of the cross, or saying, " Good luck attend you, gentlemen."

Tales From Two Hemispheres     by Hjalmar Hjorth Boysen
Halfdan Bjerk was a tall, slender-limbed youth of very delicate frame; he had a pair of wonderfully candid, unreflecting blue eyes, a smooth, clear, beardless face, and soft, wavy light hair, which was pushed back from his forehead without parting. His mouth and chin were well cut, but their lines were, perhaps, rather weak for a man.

Manx Fairy Tales     by Sophia Morrison

The Folk Lore Of The Isle Of Man     By A. W. Moore

Fairy Legends and Traditions     by Thomas Crofton Croker

Legendary Fictions of the Irish Celts     by Patrick Kennedy

Chukchee Mythology     by Waldemar Bogoras

A Flowering Tree and Other Oral Tales from India     A. K. Ramanujan

Roumanian Fairy Tales and Legends     by Mrs. E. B. Mawr

My Book of Favorite Fairy Tales     by Capt. Edric Vredenburg

Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks     by William Elliot Griffis

Aino Folk-Tales     by Basil Hall Chamberlain


L. Frank Baum

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
Dorothy lived in the midst of the great Kansas prairies, with Uncle Henry, who was a farmer, and Aunt Em, who was the farmer's wife. Their house was small, for the lumber to build it had to be carried by wagon many miles. There were four walls, a floor and a roof, which made one room; and this room contained a rusty looking cookstove, a cupboard for the dishes, a table, three or four chairs, and the beds.

Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz  by L. Frank Baum
At once a little girl rose from her seat and walked to the door of the car, carrying a wicker suit-case in one hand and a round bird-cage covered up with newspapers in the other, while a parasol was tucked under her arm.

The Patchwork Girl of Oz
The old Munchkin turned and looked at Ojo. He had kindly eyes, but he hadn't smiled or laughed in so long that the boy had forgotten that Unc Nunkie could look any other way than solemn. And Unc never spoke any more words than he was obliged to, so his little nephew, who lived alone with him, had learned to understand a great deal from one word.

Sky Island by L. Frank Baum
Trot wasn't very big herself, but the boy was not quite as big as Trot. He was thin, with a rather pale complexion, and his blue eyes were round and earnest. He wore a blouse waist, a short jacket, and knickerbockers.

The Sea Fairies
This was about the time Trot was born, and the old sailor became very fond of the baby girl. Her real name was Mayre, but when she grew big enough to walk, she took so many busy little steps every day that both her mother and Cap'n Bill nicknamed her "Trot," and so she was thereafter mostly called.

The Road to Oz by L. Frank Baum
The shaggy man waited. He had an oat-straw in his mouth, which he chewed slowly as if it tasted good; but it didn't. There was an apple-tree beside the house, and some apples had fallen to the ground. The shaggy man thought they would taste better than the oat-straw, so he walked over to get some.

The Royal Book Of Oz
The Professor, whose College of Art and Athletic Perfection is in the southwestern part of the Munchkin country, is the biggest bug in Oz, or in anyplace else, for that matter. He has made education painless by substituting school pills for books. His students take Latin, history and spelling pills; they swallow knowledge of every kind with ease and pleasure and spend the rest of their time in sport. No wonder he is so well thought of in Oz! No wonder he thinks so well of himself!

Ozma of Oz   by L. Frank Baum
At the time the wind began to blow, a ship was sailing far out upon the waters. When the waves began to tumble and toss and to grow bigger and bigger the ship rolled up and down, and tipped sidewise--first one way and then the other

The Master Key  
"Electricity," said the old gentleman, sagely, "is destined to become the motive power of the world. The future advance of civilization will be along electrical lines. Our boy may become a great inventor and astonish the world with his wonderful creations."

The Marvelous Land of Oz  
Tip was made to carry wood from the forest, that the old woman might boil her pot. He also worked in the corn-fields, hoeing and husking; and he fed the pigs and milked the four-horned cow that was Mombi's especial pride.

The Magic of Oz  
On the east edge of the Land of Oz, in the Munchkin Country, is a big, tall hill called Mount Munch. One one side, the bottom of this hill just touches the Deadly Sandy Desert that separates the Fairyland of Oz from all the rest of the world, but on the other side, the hill touches the beautiful, fertile Country of the Munchkins.

The Emerald City of Oz by L. Frank Baum
the King stormed and raved all by himself, walking up and down in his jewel-studded cavern and getting angrier all the time. Then he remembered that it was no fun being angry unless he had some one to frighten and make miserable, and he rushed to his big gong and made it clatter as loud as he could.

Glinda of Oz
Glinda looked at the records several times each day, and Dorothy, whenever she visited the Sorceress, loved to look in the Book and see what was happening everywhere.

The Tin Woodman of Oz
The Tin Woodman sat on his glittering tin throne in the handsome tin hall of his splendid tin castle in the Winkie Country of the Land of Oz. Beside him, in a chair of woven straw, sat his best friend, the Scarecrow of Oz.

John Dough and the Cherub
People loved to come to the Grogrande Bakery. When one opened the door an exquisite fragrance of newly baked bread and cakes greeted the nostrils; and, if you were not hungry when you entered, you were sure to become so when you examined and smelled the delicious pies and doughnuts and gingerbread and buns with which the shelves and show-cases were stocked. There were trays of French candies, too;

The Enchanted Island of Yew
Those who peopled the world in the old days, having nothing but their hands to depend on, were to a certain extent helpless, and so the fairies were sorry for them and ministered to their wants patiently and frankly, often showing themselves to those they befriended.

American Fairy Tales
No one intended to leave Martha alone that afternoon, but it happened that everyone was called away, for one reason or another. Mrs. McFarland was attending the weekly card party held by the Women's Anti-Gambling League.

The Lost Princess of Oz
Dorothy was not the only girl from the outside world who had been welcomed to Oz and lived in the royal palace. There was another named Betsy Bobbin, whose adventures had led her to seek refuge with Ozma

Rinkitink In Oz
If you have a map of the Land of Oz handy, you will find that the great Nonestic Ocean washes the shores of the Kingdom of Rinkitink, between which and the Land of Oz lies a strip of the country of the Nome King and a Sandy Desert.

The Scarecrow of Oz
"I know; it looks that way at first sight," said the sailor, nodding his head; "but those as knows the least have a habit of thinkin' they know all there is to know, while them as knows the most admits what a turr'ble big world this is. It's the knowing ones that realize one lifetime ain't long enough to git more'n a few dips o' the oars of knowledge."

Tik-Tok of Oz
Away up in the mountains, in a far corner of the beautiful fairyland of Oz, lies a small valley which is named Oogaboo, and in this valley lived a few people who were usually happy and contented and never cared to wander over the mountain pass into the more settled parts of the land.

The Life and Adventures of Santa Clause
Have you heard of the great Forest of Burzee? Nurse used to sing of it when I was a child. She sang of the big tree-trunks, standing close together, with their roots intertwining below the earth and their branches intertwining above it; of their rough coating of bark and queer, gnarled limbs; of the bushy foliage that roofed the entire forest, save where the sunbeams found a path through which to touch the ground in little spots and to cast weird and curious shadows over the mosses, the lichens and the drifts of dried leaves.

A Kidnapped Santa Claus
It is called the Laughing Valley because everything there is happy and gay. The brook chuckles to itself as it leaps rollicking between its green banks; the wind whistles merrily in the trees; the sunbeams dance lightly over the soft grass, and the violets and wild flowers look smilingly up from their green nests.


R. M. Ballantyne Stories for Youth

Coral Island   by R. M. Ballantyne
Now, while engaged in the coasting trade, I fell in with many seamen who had travelled to almost every quarter of the globe; and I freely confess that my heart glowed ardently within me as they recounted their wild adventures in foreign lands

Ungava   A Tale Of Esquimau Land
The ringing tones died away, and nought was heard save the rustling of the leafy canopy overhead, as the young man, whose shout had thus rudely disturbed the surrounding echoes, leaned on the muzzle of a long rifle, and stood motionless as a statue, his right foot resting on the trunk of a fallen tree, and his head bent slightly to one side, as if listening for a reply.

[T]he happiness and greatness, the rank and station, the pleasure and peace, of an individual have never consisted in his personal wealth, but rather in his excellent character, his high resolve, the breadth of his learning, and his ability to solve difficult problems.
(Abdu'l-Baha, The Secret of Divine Civilization, p. 23 )

The Dog Crusoe   by R. M. Ballantyne
The Mustang Valley settlement advanced prosperously, despite one or two attacks made upon it by the savages, who were, however, firmly repelled. Dick Varley had now become a man, and his pup Crusoe had become a full-grown dog. The 'silver rifle', as Dick's weapon had come to be named, was well known among the hunters and the Redskins of the borderlands, and in Dick's hands its bullets were as deadly as its owner's eye was quick and true.

The Young Furtraders   by R. M. Ballantyne
As Charley gave utterance to this unalterable resolution, he rose from the bit of blue ice, and taking Kate by the hand, led her over the frozen river, climbed up the bank on the opposite side -- an operation of some difficulty, owing to the snow, which had been drifted so deeply during a late storm that the usual track was almost obliterated -- and turning into a path that lost itself among the willows, they speedily disappeared.

Hudson's Bay   Every-Day Life In The Wilds Of North America
The country, as I said before, is flat and swampy, and the only objects that rise very prominently above the rest, and catch the wandering eye, are a lofty "out-look" of wood, painted black, from which to look out for the arrival of the ship; and a flag-staff, from which on Sundays the snowy folds of St George's flag flutter in the breeze.

World of Ice  
John Buzzby stood on the pier of the seaport town of Grayton watching the active operations of the crew of a whaling ship which was on the point of starting for the ice-bound seas of the frozen regions, and making sundry remarks to a stout, fair-haired boy of fifteen

The Young Trawler  
On a certain breezy morning in October -- not many years ago -- a wilderness of foam rioted wildly over those dangerous sands which lie off the port of Yarmouth, where the Evening Star, fishing smack, was getting ready for sea.

Black Ivory  
That would not have been a pleasant announcement to the captain of the 'Aurora' at any time, but its unpleasantness was vastly increased by the fact that it greeted him near the termination of what had been, up to that point of time, an exceedingly prosperous voyage.

The Battle and the Breeze  
Bill Bowls was the most amiable, gentle, kindly, and modest fellow that ever trod the deck of a man-of-war. He was also one of the most lion-hearted men in the Navy.

Battles with the Sea  
No intervals of peace mark the course of this war. Cessations of hostilities there are for brief periods, but no treaties of peace. "War to the knife" is its character. Quarter is neither given nor sought. Our foe is unfeeling, unrelenting. He wastes no time in diplomatic preliminaries

Chasing the Sun  
But those who knew Fred Temple well used to say that there was a great deal more in him than appeared at first sight. Sometimes a sudden flush of the brow, or a gleam of his eyes, told of hidden fires within.

Up in the Clouds  
Man has envied the birds since the world began. Who has not watched, with something more than admiration, the easy gyrations of the sea-mew, and listened, with something more than delight, to the song of the soaring lark?

The Battery and the Boiler  
The gale in which little Robin Wright was thus launched upon the sea of Time blew the sails of that emigrant ship -- the Seahorse -- to ribbons.

Black Ivory  
One of the men made some remark to another, who, from his Oriental dress, was easily recognised by Harold as one of the Arab traders of the coast. His men appeared to be half-castes.

Blue Lights  
There is a dividing ridge in the great northern wilderness of America, whereon lies a lakelet of not more than twenty yards in diameter. It is of crystal clearness and profound depth, and on the still evenings of the Indian summer its surface forms a perfect mirror, which might serve as a toilet-glass for a Redskin princess.

The Cannibal Islands  
More than a hundred years ago, there lived a man who dwelt in a mud cottage in the county of York; his name was Cook. He was a poor, honest laborer -- a farm servant. This man was the father of that James Cook who lived to be a captain in the British Navy

Fighting the Whales  
There are few things in this world that have filled me with so much astonishment as the fact that man can kill a whale! That a fish, more than sixty feet long, and thirty feet round the body; with the bulk of three hundred fat oxen rolled into one

The Lively Poll  
His fleet of nearly two hundred fishing-smacks lay bobbing about one fine autumn evening on the North Sea. The vessels cruised round each other, out and in, hither and thither, in all positions, now on this tack

Silver Lake  
Robin's parlour was also his dining-room, and his drawing-room, besides being his bedroom and his kitchen. In fact, it was the only room in his wooden hut, except a small apartment, opening off it, which was a workshop and lumber-room.

Jeff Benson  
The son Jeffrey was a free-and-easy, hearty, good-natured lad, with an overgrown and handsome person, an enthusiastic spirit, a strong will, and a thorough belief in his own ability to achieve anything to which he chose to set his mind.

The Crew of the Water Wagtail  
Undoubtedly Paul Burns would have scorned to draw back, for he was a "hero of romance;" an enthusiast of the deepest dye, with an inquiring mind, a sanguine disposition, and a fervent belief in all things great and good and grand.

Away in the Wilderness  
The man wore the leathern coat and leggings of a North American hunter, or trapper, or backwoodsman; and well did he deserve all these titles, for Jasper Derry was known to his friends as the best hunter, the most successful trapper, and the boldest man in the backwoods.

Charlie to the Rescue  
From a very early period of life little Charlie manifested an intense desire, purpose, and capacity for what may be called his life-work of rescuing human beings from trouble and danger.

The Eagle Cliff  
From the earliest records of history we learn that man has ever been envious of the birds, and of all other winged creatures. He has longed and striven to fly. He has also signally failed to do so.

The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands  
It was a chill November evening, when this light arose, in the year -- well, it matters not what year. We have good reasons, reader, for shrouding this point in mystery. It may have been recently; it may have been "long, long ago.

The Garret and the Garden  
Fun, mischief, intelligence, precocity sat enthroned on the countenance of that small boy, and suffering wrinkled his young brow.

The Gorilla Hunters  
I was ruminating, as I frequently do, on the pleasant memories of bygone days, especially the happy days that I spent long ago among the coral islands of the Pacific, when a tap at the door aroused me.

Hunting the Lions  
Go abroad among the barbarians of the earth, to China, for instance, and ask who is yonder thick-set, broad-chested man, with the hearty expression of face, and the splendid eastern uniform, and you will be told that he is Too Foo, the commander-in-chief of the Imperial forces in that department.

Hunted and Harried  
On a brilliant summer morning in the last quarter of the seventeenth century a small troop of horsemen crossed the ford of the river Cairn, in Dumfriesshire, not far from the spot where stands the little church of Irongray, and, gaining the road on the western bank of the stream

The Iron Horse  
Talk of earthquakes! not all the earthquakes that have rumbled in Ecuador or toppled over the spires and dwellings of Peru could compare, in the matter of dogged pertinacity, with that earthquake which diurnally and hourly shocked little Gertie's dwelling

The Island Queen  
The only objects within the circle of the horizon that presented the appearance of solidity were an albatross sailing in the air, and a little boat floating on the sea.

Jarwin and Cuffy  
and there was plenty of life -- animal as well as vegetable -- to be seen on land and sea, and in the warm, hazy atmosphere. But there were no indications of man's presence in that beautiful scene.

The Lifeboat  
The neighbourhood around that street was emphatically dirty and noisy. There were powerful smells of tallow and tar in the atmosphere, suggestive of shipping and commerce. Narrow lanes opened off the main street affording access to wharves and warehouses

The Lighthouse  
A breeze had been expected, but, in defiance of expectation, it had not come, so the boatmen were obliged to use their oars. They used them well, however, insomuch that the land ere long appeared like a blue line on the horizon,

The Madman and the Pirate  
A beautiful island lying like a gem on the breast of the great Pacific -- a coral reef surrounding, and a calm lagoon within, on the glass-like surface of which rests a most piratical-looking schooner.

Martin Rattler  
Martin Rattler was a very bad boy. At least his aunt, Mrs Dorothy Grumbit, said so; and certainly she ought to have known, if anybody should, for Martin lived with her, and was, as she herself expressed it, "the bane of her existence

My Doggie and I  
My doggie is unquestionably the most charming, and, in every way, delightful doggie that ever was born. My sister has a baby, about which she raves in somewhat similar terms, but of course that is ridiculous

The Norsemen in the West  
Having gained the top of the ridge they peeped over and beheld a hamlet nestled at the foot of a frowning cliff; and at the head of a smiling inlet.

Over the Rocky Mountains  
When a youth returns to his native land, after a long absence which commenced with his running away to sea, he may perhaps experience some anxieties on nearing the old home

The Pioneers  
men have been labouring with more or less energy and success to ascertain the form and character of the earth; a grand, glorious labour it has been; resulting in blessings innumerable to mankind

The Prairie Chief  
The only ornament which he allowed himself was the white wing of a ptarmigan. Hence his name. This symbol of purity was bound to his forehead by a band of red cloth wrought with the quills of the porcupine.

Post Haste  
The tumble-down cottage was near the sea, not far from a little bay named Howlin Cove. Though little it was a tremendous bay, with mighty cliffs landward, and jutting ledges on either side, and forbidding rocks at the entrance

The Red Eric  
As the black straw hat made no reply, the captain looked up at the ceiling, but not meeting with any response from that quarter, he looked out at the window and encountered the gaze of a seaman flattening his nose on a pane of glass, and looking in.

The Story of the Rock  
"Just look at 'im, John," she replied, pointing to the small culprit, who stood looking guilty and drenched with muddy water from hands to shoulders and toes to nose. "Look at 'im: see what mischief he's always gittin' into."

In the Track of the Troops  
Time, however, while it did not abate my thirst for knowledge, developed my constructive powers. I became a mechanician and an inventor.

Twice Bought  
It matters not," returned Tom, angrily. "I have made up my mind to get back from that big thief Gashford what he has stolen from me, for it is certain that he cheated at play, though I could not prove it at the time.

Away in the Wilderness  
Having gained the top of the hillock, Jasper placed the butt of his long gun on the ground, and, crossing his hands over the muzzle, stood there for some time so motionless

The Crew of the Water Wagtail  
There were forty of them, all told, including the cook and the cabin-boy. We do not include Paul Burns or Oliver Trench, because the former was naturalist to the expedition -- a sort of semi-scientific freelance; and the latter, besides being the master's, or skipper's, son

The Big Otter  
This leading of the way through the trackless wilderness in snow averaging four feet deep is harder work than one might suppose. It could not be done at all without the aid of snow-shoes

Other Ballantyne Books  


Best Stories for Youth

The Princess Bride A Movie Script
Buttercup's emptiness consumed her. Although the law of the land gave Humperdinck the right to choose his bride, she did not love him. Despite Humperdinck's reassurance that she would grow to love him, the only joy she found was in her daily ride.

The Coral Island:   A Tale of the Pacific Ocean by R. M. Ballantyne
I was a boy when I went through the wonderful adventures herein set down. With the memory of my boyish feelings strong upon me, I present my book specially to boys, in the earnest hope that they may derive valuable information, much pleasure, great profit, and unbounded amusement from its pages.

The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood   by Howard Pyle
Not only Robin himself but all the band were outlaws and dwelled apart from other men, yet they were beloved by the country people round about, for no one ever came to jolly Robin for help in time of need and went away again with an empty fist.

The Last of the Mohicans    by James F. Cooper
It was a feature peculiar to the colonial wars of North America, that the toils and dangers of the wilderness were to be encountered before the adverse hosts could meet. A wide and apparently an impervious boundary of forests severed the possessions of the hostile provinces of France and England. The hardy colonist, and the trained European who fought at his side, frequently expended months in struggling against the rapids of the streams, or in effecting the rugged passes of the mountains, in quest of an opportunity to exhibit their courage in a more martial conflict.

Around The World In Eighty Days   by Jules Verne
He was so exact that he was never in a hurry, was always ready, and was economical alike of his steps and his motions. He never took one step too many, and always went to his destination by the shortest cut; he made no superfluous gestures, and was never seen to be moved or agitated. He was the most deliberate person in the world, yet always reached his destination at the exact moment.

Camilla   A Picture Of Youth by Fanny Burney
In vain may Fortune wave her many-coloured banner, alternately regaling and dismaying, with hues that seem glowing with all the creation's felicities, or with tints that appear stained with ingredients of unmixt horrors

Heart of the West   by O. Henry
Webb Yeager pushed back his flat-brimmed Stetson, and made further disorder in his straw-coloured hair. The tonsorial recourse being without avail, he followed the liquid example of the more resourceful Baldy.

At the Back of the North Wind   by George MacDonald
I HAVE been asked to tell you about the back of the north wind. An old Greek writer mentions a people who lived there, and were so comfortable that they could not bear it any longer, and drowned themselves. My story is not the same as his.

Treasure Island   by Robert Louis Stevenson
I remember him as if it were yesterday, as he came plodding to the inn door, his sea-chest following behind him in a hand-barrow--a tall, strong, heavy, nut-brown man, his tarry pigtail falling over the shoulder of his soiled blue coat, his hands ragged and scarred, with black, broken nails, and the sabre cut across one cheek, a dirty, livid white.

Lorna Doone   by R. D. Blackmore
Now the cause of my leaving Tiverton school, and the way of it, were as follows. On the 29th day of November, in the year of our Lord 1673, the very day when I was twelve years old, and had spent all my substance in sweetmeats, with which I made treat to the little boys, till the large boys ran in and took them

The Story of Doctor Dolittle  by Hugh Lofting
So it was agreed that the monkey, Chee-Chee, was to do the cooking and mending; the dog was to sweep the floors; the duck was to dust and make the beds; the owl, Too-Too, was to keep the accounts, and the pig was to do the gardening. They made Polynesia, the parrot, housekeeper and laundress, because she was the oldest.

Heidi  by Johanna Spyri
From the old and pleasantly situated village of Mayenfeld, a footpath winds through green and shady meadows to the foot of the mountains, which on this side look down from their stern and lofty heights upon the valley below. The land grows gradually wilder as the path ascends, and the climber has not gone far before he begins to inhale the fragrance of the short grass and sturdy mountain-plants

Moby Dick   by Herman Melville (1819-1891)
Call me Ishmael. Some years ago--never mind how long precisely --having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen, and regulating the circulation.

Evangeline   A Tale of Acadie by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
THIS is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks, Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight, Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic, Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms. Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced neighboring ocean Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest.

The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle  by Hugh Lofting
ALL that I have written so far about Doctor Dolittle I heard long after it happened from those who had known him-- indeed a great deal of it took place before I was born. But I now come to set down that part of the great man's life which I myself saw and took part in.

Two Years Before the Mast   Personal Narrative of Life at Sea by Richard Henry Dana, Jr.
The fourteenth of August was the day fixed upon for the sailing of the brig Pilgrim on her voyage from Boston round Cape Horn to the western coast of North America. As she was to get under weigh early in the afternoon, I made my appearance on board at twelve o'clock, in full sea-rig, and with my chest, containing an outfit for a two or three year voyage

The Wind in the Willows  by Kenneth Grahame
The Mole had been working very hard all the morning, spring- cleaning his little home. First with brooms, then with dusters; then on ladders and steps and chairs, with a brush and a pail of whitewash; till he had dust in his throat and eyes, and splashes of whitewash all over his black fur, and an aching back and weary arms.

Wieland     Or The Transformation An American Tale   by Charles Brockden Brown
I feel little reluctance in complying with your request. You know not fully the cause of my sorrows. You are a stranger to the depth of my distresses. Hence your efforts at consolation must necessarily fail.

The Good Soldier     by Ford Madox Ford
When we all first met, Captain Ashburnham, home on sick leave from an India to which he was never to return, was thirty-three; Mrs Ashburnham -- Leonora -- was thirty-one. I was thirty-six and poor Florence thirty.

Animal Farm     by George Orwell
With the ring of light from his lantern dancing from side to side, he lurched across the yard, kicked off his boots at the back door, drew himself a last glass of beer from the barrel in the scullery, and made his way up to bed, where Mrs. Jones was already snoring.

Robinson Crusoe   by Daniel Defoe
All this while the storm increased, and the sea went very high, though nothing like what I have seen many times since; no, nor what I saw a few days after; but it was enough to affect me then, who was but a young sailor, and had never known anything of the matter.

Silver Pennies  by Blanche Jennings Thompson
Have you watched the fairies when the rain is done Spreading out their little wings to dry them in the sun ?
I have, I have! Isn't it fun?
Have you heard the fairies all among the limes
Singing little fairy tunes to little fairy rhyrmes ?

The Three Musketeers  Vol.I  by Alexandre Dumas
There were nobles, who made war against each other; there was the king, who made war against the cardinal; there was Spain, which made war against the king. Then, in addition to these concealed or public, secret or open wars, there were robbers, mendicants, Huguenots, wolves, and scoundrels, who made war upon everybody.

The Moonstone  by Wilkie Collins
There can be no doubt that this strange family story of ours ought to be told. And I think, Betteredge, Mr. Bruff and I together have hit on the right way of telling it.

Rebecca Of Sunnybrook Farm  by Kate Douglas Wiggin
The old stage coach was rumbling along the dusty road that runs from Maplewood to Riverboro. The day was as warm as midsummer, though it was only the middle of May, and Mr. Jeremiah Cobb was favoring the horses as much as possible, yet never losing sight of the fact that he carried the mail.

Pinocchio: The Adventures Of A Puppet   by Carlo Collodi
I cannot say how it came about, but the fact is, that one fine day this piece of wood was lying in the shop of an old carpenter of the name of Master Antonio. He was, however, called by everybody Master Cherry, on account of the end of his nose, which was always as red and polished as a ripe cherry.

The Arabian Nights  by Richard F. Burton
But when the night was half-spent he bethought him that he had forgotten in his palace somewhat which he should have brought with him, so he returned privily and entered his apartments, where he found the Queen, his wife, asleep on his own carpet bed embracing with both arms a black cook of loathsome aspect and foul with kitchen grease and grime.

Tarzan of the Apes  by Edgar Rice Burroughs
And so the Colonial Office appointed John Clayton to a new post in British West Africa, but his confidential instructions centered on a thorough investigation of the unfair treatment of black British subjects by the officers of a friendly European power. Why he was sent, is, however, of little moment to this story, for he never made an investigation, nor, in fact, did he ever reach his destination.

The Secret Garden   by Frances Hodgson Burnett
When Mary Lennox was sent to Misselthwaite Manor to live with her uncle everybody said she was the most disagreeable-looking child ever seen. It was true, too. She had a little thin face and a little thin body, thin light hair and a sour expression.

Blind Tom   by Rebecca Harding Davis
One night, sometime in the summer of that year, Mr. Oliver's family were wakened by the sound of music in the drawing-room: not only the simple airs, but the most difficult exercises usually played by his daughters, were repeated again and again, the touch of the musician being timid, but singularly true and delicate. Going down, they found Tom, who had been left asleep in the hall, seated at the piano in an ecstasy of delight, breaking out at the end of each successful fugue into shouts of laughter, kicking his heels and clapping his hands. This was the first time he had touched the piano.

Cyrano de Bergerac   by Edmond Rostand
A play

The Count of Monte Cristo   by Alexandre Dumas [Pere]
On the 24th of February, 1810, the look-out at Notre-Dame de la Garde signalled the three-master, the Pharaon from Smyrna, Trieste, and Naples.
As usual, a pilot put off immediately, and rounding the Château d'If, got on board the vessel between Cape Morgion and Rion island.
Immediately, and according to custom, the ramparts of Fort Saint-Jean were covered with spectators; it is always an event at Marseilles for a ship to come into port, especially when this ship, like the Pharaon, has been built, rigged, and laden at the old Phocee docks, and belongs to an owner of the city.


Boy's Own

Heidi  by Johanna Spyri
From the old and pleasantly situated village of Mayenfeld, a footpath winds through green and shady meadows to the foot of the mountains, which on this side look down from their stern and lofty heights upon the valley below. The land grows gradually wilder as the path ascends, and the climber has not gone far before he begins to inhale the fragrance of the short grass and sturdy mountain-plants

Moby Dick   by Herman Melville (1819-1891)
Call me Ishmael. Some years ago--never mind how long precisely --having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen, and regulating the circulation.

Evangeline   A Tale of Acadie by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
THIS is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks, Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight, Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic, Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms. Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced neighboring ocean Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest.

The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle  by Hugh Lofting
ALL that I have written so far about Doctor Dolittle I heard long after it happened from those who had known him-- indeed a great deal of it took place before I was born. But I now come to set down that part of the great man's life which I myself saw and took part in.

Two Years Before the Mast   Personal Narrative of Life at Sea by Richard Henry Dana, Jr.
The fourteenth of August was the day fixed upon for the sailing of the brig Pilgrim on her voyage from Boston round Cape Horn to the western coast of North America. As she was to get under weigh early in the afternoon, I made my appearance on board at twelve o'clock, in full sea-rig, and with my chest, containing an outfit for a two or three year voyage

The Patrol Of The Sun Dance Trail     by Ralph Connor
High up on the hillside in the midst of a rugged group of jack pines the Union Jack shook out its folds gallantly in the breeze that swept down the Kicking Horse Pass. That gallant flag marked the headquarters of Superintendent Strong, of the North West Mounted Police

Treasure Island   by Robert Louis Stevenson
I remember him as if it were yesterday, as he came plodding to the inn door, his sea-chest following behind him in a hand-barrow--a tall, strong, heavy, nut-brown man, his tarry pigtail falling over the shoulder of his soiled blue coat, his hands ragged and scarred, with black, broken nails, and the sabre cut across one cheek, a dirty, livid white.

Corporal Cameron Of The North West Mounted Police
  by Ralph Connor
Agony, reproach, entreaty, vibrated in the clear young voice that rang out over the Inverleith grounds. The Scottish line was sagging!--that line invincible in two years of International conflict, the line upon which Ireland and England had broken their pride. Sagging!

Bears and Dacoites   A Tale of the Ghauts    by G.A. Henty
Mrs. Lyons showed me the bear she has got tied up in their compound, and it is the most wretched little thing not bigger than Rover, papa's retriever, and it's full-grown. I thought bears were great fierce creatures, and this poor little thing seemed so restless and unhappy that I thought it quite a shame not to let it go.

The Young Carthaginian   by G.A. Henty
The council of a hundred was divided into twenty subcommittees, each containing five members. Each of these committees was charged with the control of a department -- the army, the navy, the finances, the roads and communications, agriculture, religion

By England's Aid   The Freeing of the Netherlands     by G.A. Henty
From the first the people of England would gladly have joined in the fray, and made common cause with their co-religionists; but the queen and her counsellors had been restrained by weighty considerations from embarking in such a struggle.

In Freedom's Cause   by G.A. Henty
On a spur jutting out from the side of the hill stood Glen Cairn Castle, whose master the villagers had for generations regarded as their lord.

With Lee in Virginia   by G.A. Henty
Vincent Wingfield was the son of an English officer, who, making a tour in the States, had fallen in love with and won the hand of Winifred Cornish, a rich Virginian heiress, and one of the belles of Richmond.

The Lion of the North   by G.A. Henty
two horsemen rode down the opposite side of the valley and halted at the water's edge. The prospect was not a pleasant one. The river was sixty or seventy feet wide, and in the centre the water swept along in a raging current.

The Cruise of the Shining Light   by Norman Duncan
My uncle, I confess, had indeed a hint too much of the cunning and furtive about both gait and glance to escape remark in strange places.

The Boy Scouts in Front of Warsaw   by Colonel George Durston
Warsaw the brilliant, Warsaw the Beautiful, the best beloved of her adoring people, had fallen. Torn by bombs, wrecked by great shells, devastated by hordes of alien invaders, she lay in ruins.

The Boy Scout Aviators   by Colonel George Durston
"Of course it is! You've got the idea I'm driving at, Dick. And you can depend on it that General Baden-Powell had that in his mind's eye all the time, too. He doesn't want us to be military and aggressive, but he does want the Empire to have a lot of fellows on call who are hard and fit, so that they can defend themselves and the country.

Retired Veteran   by Henry C. Tinsley
I have often heard people lament ill-health because, they say, sickness loses to a man friends. On the contrary, I hold that it brings him many new and unexpected ones.

The Boy Scounts on a Submarine   by Captain John Blaine
Elinor Pomeroy laid down her knitting and slowly walked around the house. The barking of the three big dogs had been on a joyous tone. A young man was racing up the long front drive, the dogs leaping and bounding around him.

The Boy Scouts of the Air on Lost Island   by Gordon Stuart
Three boys stood impatiently kicking the dew off the tall grass in Ring's back yard, only pausing from their scanning of the beclouded, dawn-hinting sky to peer through the lightening dusk toward the clump of cedars that hid the Fulton house.

The Adventures of a Boy Reporter   by Harry Steele Morrison
he youngsters themselves were busy behind the barn, building a hut down near the railway track. There were six of them altogether, the three extra ones, besides Archie Dunn and the Sullivan boys, having come from across the railway to play for the day.

Air Service Boys in the Big Battle   by Charles Amory Beach
Experts are needed to see to it that the machine and the aviator are in perfect trim, leaving for the airman himself the trying and difficult task, sometimes, of flying upside down, while he is making observations of the enemy with one eye, and fighting off a Boche with the other -- ready to kill or be killed.

On the Pampas   by G.A. Henty
Mr. Hardy spoke cheerfully, but his wife saw at once that it was with an effort that he did so. She put down the work upon which she was engaged, and moved her chair nearer to his by the fire.

The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings   by Edgar B. P. Darlington
You only think you can. Besides, that's not a cartwheel; that's a double somersault. It's a real stunt, let me tell you. Why, I can do a cartwheel myself. But up in the air like that

The Circus Boys Across The Continent   by Edgar B. P. Darlington
"Me, serious? Why, I never cracked a smile. Isn't anything to smile at. Besides, do you know, since I've been in the circus business, every time I want to laugh I check myself so suddenly that it hurts?"

The Circus Boys In Dixie Land   by Edgar B. P. Darlington
"Wild West show, a regular Buffalo Bill outfit, with wild Indians, cowboys, bucking ponies and whoop! whoop! Hi-yi-yi! You know?"

The Circus Boys On the Mississippi   by Edgar B. P. Darlington
"You must be a mind reader, Phil Forrest," grumbled Teddy, digging his heel into the soft turf of the circus lot. "Can you read my mind? If you can, what am I thinking about now?"

The Circus Boys on the Plains   by Edgar B. P. Darlington
The night was not ideal for a circus performance. However, the showmen uttered no protest, going about their business as methodically as if the air were warm and balmy, the moon and stars shining down over the scene complacently.


On the Frontier

The Purple Land   By W. H. Hudson
So much was I occupied towards the end of that vacant period with these recollections that I remembered how, before quitting these shores, the thought had come to me that during some quiet interval in my life I would go over it all again, and write the history of my rambles for others to read in the future.

Afoot in England   by W. H. Hudson
It was green open country in the west of England -- very far west, although on the east side of the Tamar -- in a beautiful spot remote from railroads and large towns

Green Mansions   by W. H. Hudson
I do not descant on his love for simple folk and simple things, his championship of the weak, and the revolt against the cagings and cruelties of life, whether to men or birds or beasts

Far Away and Long Ago   by W. H. Hudson
The picture that most often presents itself is of the cattle coming home in the evening; the green quiet plain extending away from the gate to the horizon; the western sky flushed with sunset hues, and the herd of four or five hundred cattle trotting homewards with loud lowings and bellowings, raising a great cloud of dust with their hoofs

Tales of the Pampas   by W. H. Hudson
he looked what he was, a man among men, a head taller than most, with the strength of an ox; but the wind had blown a little sprinkling of white ashes into his great beard and his hair, which grew to his shoulders like the mane of a black horse.

The Pipe of Mystery   by G.A. Henty
and the elder boys and girls now gathered round their uncle, Colonel Harley, and asked him for a story -- above all, a ghost story.

In The Reign Of Terror   by G.A. Henty
Well, they won't eat him, my dear. The French Assembly, or the National Assembly, or whatever it ought to be called, has certainly been passing laws limiting the power of the king and abolishing many of the rights and privileges of the nobility and clergy

Saint George for England   by G.A. Henty
It was a bitterly cold night in the month of November, 1330. The rain was pouring heavily, when a woman, with child in her arms, entered the little village of Southwark. She had evidently come from a distance, for her dress was travel-stained and muddy.

The Dragon And The Raven   by G.A. Henty
A low hut built of turf roughly thatched with rushes and standing on the highest spot of some slightly raised ground. It was surrounded by a tangled growth of bushes and low trees, through which a narrow and winding path gave admission to the narrow space on which the hut stood.

A Knight of the White Cross   by G.A. Henty
The journey was performed without incident. During their passage across the south of France, Gervaise's perfect knowledge of the language gained for him a great advantage over his companions, and enabled him to be of much use to Sir Guy.

The Foreigner   by Ralph Connor
By hundreds and tens of hundreds they stream in and through this hospitable city, Saxon and Celt and Slav, each eager on his own quest, each paying his toll to the new land as he comes and goes, for good or for ill, but whether more for good than for ill only God knows.

Winter Adventures of Three Boys   by Egerton Ryerson Young
While a wintry storm was raging outside, in the month of November, three happy, excited boys were gathered around the breakfast table in a cozy home in a far North Land.

Three Boys in the Wild North Land   by Egerton Ryerson Young
Thus excitedly and rapidly did Mr Ross address a trio of sunburnt, happy boys, who, with all the assurance of a joyous welcome, had burst in upon him in his comfortable, well-built home

Wrecked but not Ruined   by Ballantyne
This group of buildings was, at the time we write of, an outpost of the fur-traders, those hardy pioneers of civilization, to whom, chiefly, we are indebted for opening up the way into the northern wilderness of America.

Glengarry Schooldays   by Ralph Connor
an enchanted land, peopled, not by fairies, elves, and other shadowy beings of fancy, but with living things, squirrels, and chipmunks, and weasels, chattering ground-hogs, thumping rabbits, and stealthy foxes, not to speak of a host of flying things, from the little gray-bird that twittered its happy nonsense all day, to the big-eyed owl that hooted solemnly when the moon came out.

The Major   by Ralph Connor
But the boy stood fascinated by the bird so gallantly facing his day. His mother's words awoke in him a strange feeling. "A brave heart and a bright song" -- so the knights in the brave days of old, according to his Stories of the Round Table,

The Prospector   by Ralph Connor
She was determined to draw her unhappy visitor from his shell. But her most brilliant efforts were in vain. Poor Shock remained hopelessly engaged with his hands and feet, and replied at unexpected places, in explosive monosyllables at once ludicrous and disconcerting.

The Sky Pilot   by Ralph Connor
There are valleys so wide that the farther side melts into the horizon, and uplands so vast as to suggest the unbroken prairie. Nearer the mountains the valleys dip deep and ever deeper till they narrow into canyons through which mountain torrents pour their blue-gray waters from glaciers that lie glistening between the white peaks far away.

The Sky Pilot In No Man's Land   by Ralph Connor
High upon a rock, poised like a bird for flight, stark naked, his satin skin shining like gold and silver in the rising sun, stood a youth, tall, slim of body, not fully developed but with muscles promising, in their faultless, gently swelling outline, strength and suppleness to an unusual degree.

The Doctor   by Ralph Connor
Two hours later, down from the dusty sideroad, a girl swinging a milk pail in her hand turned into the mill lane. As she stepped from the glare and dust of the highroad into the lane, it seemed as if Nature had been waiting to find in her the touch that makes perfect; so truly, in all her fresh daintiness, did she seem a bit of that green shady lane with its sweet fragrance and its fresh beauty.

To Him That Hath   by Ralph Connor
"You, a Canadian, and our best player -- at least, you used to be -- to allow yourself to be beaten by a -- a -- " she glanced at his opponent with a defiant smile -- "a foreigner."

Beyond the Black River   by Robert E. Howard
Crouching behind a thick stem, his sword quivering in his fingers, he saw the bushes part, and a tall figure stepped leisurely into the trail. The traveller stared in surprise. The stranger was clad like himself in regard to boots and breeks, though the latter were of silk instead of leather.

Wings in the Night   by Robert E. Howard
Solomon Kane leaned on his strangely carved staff and gazed in scowling perplexity at the mystery which spread silently before him.

The Valley of the Worm   by Robert E. Howard
As I lie here awaiting death, which creeps slowly upon me like a blind slug, my dreams are filled with glittering visions and the pageantry of glory.

Skulls in the Stars   by Robert E. Howard
There are two roads to Torkertown. One, the shorter and more direct route, leads across a barren upland moor, and the other, which is much longer, winds its tortuous way in and out among the hummocks and quagmires of the swamps, skirting the low hills to the east.

Rogues in the House   by Robert E. Howard
At a court festival, Nabonidus, the Red Priest, who was the real ruler of the city, touched Murilo, the young aristocrat, courteously on the arm. Murilo turned to meet the priest's enigmatic gaze, and to wonder at the hidden meaning therein.

Red Nails   by Robert E. Howard
The woman on the horse reined in her weary steed. It stood with its legs wide-braced, its head drooping, as if it found even the weight of the gold-tassled, red-leather bridle too heavy. The woman drew a booted foot out of the silver stirrup and swung down from the gilt-worked saddle. She made the reins fast to the fork of a sapling, and turned about, hands on her hips, to survey her surroundings.

Pigeons from Hell   by Robert E. Howard
Dreaming, he had seemed to relive his past few waking hours, in accurate detail. The dream had begun, abruptly, as he and John Branner came in sight of the house where they now lay.

The Moon of Skulls   by Robert E. Howard
A great black shadow lay across the land, cleaving the red flame of the red sunset. To the man who toiled up the jungle trail it loomed like a symbol of death and horror, a menace brooding and terrible, like the shadow of a stealthy assassin flung upon some candle-lit wall.

Jewels of Gwahlur   by Robert E. Howard
Now the summit was not far above him, and he observed, only a few feet above his head, a break in the sheer stone of the cliff. An instant later he had reached it -- a small cavern, just below the edge of the rim. As his head rose above the lip of its floor, he grunted. He clung there, his elbows hooked over the lip.

The Man From Glengarry   by Ralph Connor
Dan Murphy was mightily pleased with himself and with the bit of the world about him, for there lay his winter's cut of logs in the river below him snug and secure and held tight by a boom across the mouth, just where it flowed into the Nation. In a few days he would have his crib made, and his outfit ready to start for the Ottawa mills.

Black Rock   by Ralph Connor
Big Sandy M'Naughton, a Canadian Highlander from Glengarry, rose up in wrath. 'Bill Keefe,' said he, with deliberate emphasis, 'you'll just keep your dirty tongue off the minister; and as for your pay, it's little he sees of it, or any one else, except Mike Slavin, when you're too dry to wait for some one to treat you, or perhaps Father Ryan, when the fear of hell-fire is on to you.'

The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, Vol 5  

The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation Vol 6  

The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation Vol 4  

Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean   by E. Hamilton Currey

The Cruise of the Alerte   by E.F. Knight

The Bridge To France   by Edward N. Hurley

Captain John Smith   by Charles Dudley Warner

Elizabethan Sea Dogs   by William Wood

The Hour of the Dragon   by Robert E. Howard
Inside the chamber was tense silence, and the wavering of the shadows, while four pairs of eyes, burning with intensity, were fixed on the long green case across which cryptic hieroglyphics writhed, as if lent life and movement by the unsteady light.

The Hills of the Dead   by Robert E. Howard
The other was an Englishman, and his name was Solomon Kane. He was tall and broad-shouldered, clad in black close garments, the garb of the Puritan.

Hawk of Basti   by Robert E. Howard
Kane's cold eyes roved among the trees; one lean iron hand hardened on the carved, sharp- pointed stave he carried, the other hovered near one of the long flintlock pistols he wore.

The Footfalls Within   by Robert E. Howard
Kane noted the chain galls on her limbs, the deep crisscrossed sears on her back, the mark of the yoke on her neck. His cold eyes deepened strangely, showing chill glints and lights like clouds passing across depths of ice.

The Devil in Iron   by Robert E. Howard
The fisherman loosened his knife in its scabbard. The gesture was instinctive, for what he feared was nothing a knife could slay, not even the saw-edged crescent blade of the Yuetshi that could disembowel a man with an upward stroke.

The Children of Asshur   by Robert E. Howard
Some sort of a conflict was taking place in the native village in which he had sought refuge from the storm, and It sounded much like a raid in force.

Shadows In Zamboula   by Robert E. Howard
The speaker's voice quivered with earnestness and his lean, black-nailed fingers clawed at Conan's mightily-muscled arm as he croaked his warning. He was a wiry, sunburnt man with a straggling black beard, and his ragged garments prolcaimed him a nomad.

The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane   Earl of Dundonald

The Naval Pioneers of Australia   by Louis Becke

Sailing Alone Around The World   by Joshua Slocum

Sailing   by E.F. Knight

South   by Sir Ernest Shackleton

Books by William Henry Giles Kingston  

Books by Reverend Egerton R. Young  

Books by George Manville Fenn  

The Story of the Champions of the Round Table  

The Rover Boys at College   by Edward Stratemeyer

The Rover Boys In The Mountains   by Edward Stratemeyer

The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle   by Edward Stratemeyer

The Rover Boys in Camp   by Edward Stratemeyer

The Rover Boys on the River   by Edward Stratemeyer

The Rover Boys on Land and Sea   by Edward Stratemeyer

The Rover Boys in the Air   by Edward Stratemeyer

The Rover Boys In New York   by Edward Stratemeyer

The Rover Boys on the Great Lakes   by Edward Stratemeyer

The Rover Boys in the Jungle   by Edward Stratemeyer

The Rover Boys on the Ocean   by Edward Stratemeyer

The Rover Boys at School   by Edward Stratemeyer

The Rover Boys Out West   by Edward Stratemeyer

The Rover Boys in Business   by Edward Stratemeyer

True to Himself   by Edward Stratemeyer

Richard Dare's Venture   by Edward Stratemeyer

On the Trail of Pontiac   by Edward Stratemeyer

Young Captain Jack   by by Horatio Alger and Arthur M. Winfield

Dave Porter at Star Ranch   by Edward Stratemeyer

The Mystery At Putnam Hall   by Arthur M. Winfield



Rudyard Kipling

Just So Stories   

The Jungle Book  by Rudyard Kipling
It was seven o'clock of a very warm evening in the Seeonee hills when Father Wolf woke up from his day's rest, scratched himself, yawned, and spread out his paws one after the other to get rid of the sleepy feeling in their tips.

Kim
A Red Bull and a Colonel on a horse will come, but first, my father said, will come the two men making ready the ground for these matters. That is how my father said they always did; and it is always so when men work magic.

Volume I  Departmental Ditties And Other Verses Rudyard Kipling

Volume II  Ballads And Barrack-Room Ballads by Rudyard Kipling

Volume III  The Phantom 'rickshaw And Other Ghost Stories by Rudyard Kipling

Volume IV  Under The Deodars by Rudyard Kipling

Volume V  Plain Tales From The Hills by Rudyard Kipling

Volume VI  The Light that Failed by Rudyard Kipling

Volume VII  The Story Of The Gadsbys by Rudyard Kipling

Volume VIII   from Mine Own People by Rudyard Kipling

Thy Servant a Dog   

The Naulahka (1892)   A Story of West and East

Verses 1889-1896   

The Story of the Gadsby   

Stalky & Co.   

Songs from Books   

Soldiers Three   

Soldiers Three [Stories]   Part II

Sea Warfare   

Plain Tales from the Hills   

The Phantom 'Rickshaw and Other Ghost Stories   

The Light That Failed   

A Diversity of Creatures   


Jack London

Adventure
With the automatic swiftness of a wild animal the black gathered himself to spring. The anger of a wild animal was in his eyes; but he saw the white man's hand dropping to the pistol in his belt. The spring was never made. The tensed body relaxed, and the black, stooping over the corpse, helped carry it out. This time there was no muttering.

Before Adam
Often, before I learned, did I wonder whence came the multitudes of pictures that thronged my dreams; for they were pictures the like of which I had never seen in real wake-a-day life. They tormented my childhood, making of my dreams a procession of nightmares and a little later convincing me that I was different from my kind, a creature unnatural and accursed.

White Fang
Dark spruce forest frowned on either side the frozen waterway. The trees had been stripped by a recent wind of their white covering of frost, and they seemed to lean towards each other, black and ominous, in the fading light. A vast silence reigned over the land. The land itself was a desolation, lifeless, without movement, so lone and cold that the spirit of it was not even that of sadness.

Burning Daylight by Jack London
At the bar, which ranged along one side of the large chinked-log room, leaned half a dozen men, two of whom were discussing the relative merits of spruce-tea and lime-juice as remedies for scurvy. They argued with an air of depression and with intervals of morose silence. The other men scarcely heeded them. In a row, against the opposite wall, were the gambling games. The crap-table was deserted. One lone man was playing at the faro-table.

The Call of the Wild
Buck did not read the newspapers, or he would have known that trouble was brewing, not alone for himself, but for every tide- water dog, strong of muscle and with warm, long hair, from Puget Sound to San Diego. Because men, groping in the Arctic darkness, had found a yellow metal, and because steamship and transportation companies were booming the find, thousands of men were rushing into the Northland.

The Cruise of the Snark
It began in the swimming pool at Glen Ellen. Between swims it was our wont to come out and lie in the sand and let our skins breathe the warm air and soak in the sunshine. Roscoe was a yachtsman. I had followed the sea a bit. It was inevitable that we should talk about boats. We talked about small boats, and the seaworthiness of small boats. We instanced Captain Slocum and his three years' voyage around the world in the Spray.

The Sea Wolf by Jack London
I scarcely know where to begin, though I sometimes facetiously place the cause of it all to Charley Furuseth's credit. He kept a summer cottage in Mill Valley, under the shadow of Mount Tamalpais, and never occupied it except when he loafed through the winter mouths and read Nietzsche and Schopenhauer to rest his brain. When summer came on, he elected to sweat out a hot and dusty existence in the city and to toil incessantly.

The Faith of Men
A Relic of the Pliocene, A Hyperborean Brew, Too Much Gold, The One Thousand Dozen, The Marriage of Lit-lit, Batard, The Story of Jees Uck
I wash my hands of him at the start. I cannot father his tales, nor will I be responsible for them. I make these preliminary reservations, observe, as a guard upon my own integrity. I possess a certain definite position in a small way, also a wife; and for the good name of the community that honours my existence with its approval, and for the sake of her posterity and mine, I cannot take the chances I once did, nor foster probabilities with the careless improvidence of youth.

When God Laughs and Other Stories
The Apostate, A Wicked Woman, Just Meat, Created He Them, The Chinago, Make Westing, Semper Idem, A Nose For The King, The "Francis Spaight", A Curious Fragment, A Piece Of Steak
He stole a glance at the rattling windows, looked upward at the beamed roof, and listened for a moment to the savage roar of the south-easter as it caught the bungalow in its bellowing jaws. Then he held his glass between him and the fire and laughed for joy through the golden wine.

The Human Drift by Jack London
Small-Boat Sailing, Four Horses and a Sailor, Nothing that Ever Came to Anything, That Dead Men Rise up Never, A Classic of the Sea, A Wicked Woman (Curtain Raiser), The Birth Mark
The history of civilisation is a history of wandering, sword in hand, in search of food. In the misty younger world we catch glimpses of phantom races, rising, slaying, finding food, building rude civilisations, decaying, falling under the swords of stronger hands, and passing utterly away. Man, like any other animal, has roved over the earth seeking what he might devour; and not romance and adventure, but the hunger-need, has urged him on his vast adventures.

The Iron Heel
The soft summer wind stirs the redwoods, and Wild-Water ripples sweet cadences over its mossy stones. There are butterflies in the sunshine, and from everywhere arises the drowsy hum of bees. It is so quiet and peaceful, and I sit here, and ponder, and am restless. It is the quiet that makes me restless. It seems unreal. All the world is quiet, but it is the quiet before the storm.

The Jacket (Star-Rover)
All my life I have had an awareness of other times and places. I have been aware of other persons in me.--Oh, and trust me, so have you, my reader that is to be. Read back into your childhood, and this sense of awareness I speak of will be remembered as an experience of your childhood. You were then not fixed, not crystallized. You were plastic, a soul in flux, a consciousness and an identity in the process of forming--ay, of forming and forgetting.

John Barleycorn
It all came to me one election day. It was on a warm California afternoon, and I had ridden down into the Valley of the Moon from the ranch to the little village to vote Yes and No to a host of proposed amendments to the Constitution of the State of California. Because of the warmth of the day I had had several drinks before casting my ballot, and divers drinks after casting it. Then I had ridden up through the vine-clad hills and rolling pastures of the ranch, and arrived at the farm-house in time for another drink and supper.

Jerry of the Islands
Not until Mister Haggin abruptly picked him up under one arm and stepped into the sternsheets of the waiting whaleboat, did Jerry dream that anything untoward was to happen to him. Mister Haggin was Jerry's beloved master, and had been his beloved master for the six months of Jerry's life. Jerry did not know Mister Haggin as "master," for "master" had no place in Jerry's vocabulary, Jerry being a smooth-coated, golden-sorrel Irish terrier.

Tales of the Klondyke
On every hand stretched the forest primeval,--the home of noisy comedy and silent tragedy. Here the struggle for survival continued to wage with all its ancient brutality. Briton and Russian were still to overlap in the Land of the Rainbow's End-- and this was the very heart of it--nor had Yankee gold yet purchased its vast domain. The wolf-pack still clung to the flank of the cariboo-herd, singling out the weak and the big with calf, and pulling them down as remorselessly as were it a thousand,

Lost Face
It was the end. Subienkow had travelled a long trail of bitterness and horror, homing like a dove for the capitals of Europe, and here, farther away than ever, in Russian America, the trail ceased.

The People Of The Abyss
I found the cabby and a policeman with their heads together, but the latter, after looking me over sharply and particularly scrutinizing the bundle under my arm, turned away and left the cabby to wax mutinous by himself.

A Thousand Deaths
I had been in the water about an hour, and cold, exhausted, with a terrible cramp in my right calf, it seemed as though my hour had come.

Love of Life And Other Stories
Narrative Of Shorty, The White Man's Way, The Story Of Keesh, The Unexpected, Brown Wolf, The Sun-Dog Trail, Negore, The Coward
... the foremost of the two men staggered among the rough-strewn rocks. They were tired and weak, and their faces had the drawn expression of patience which comes of hardship long endured. They were heavily burdened with blanket packs which were strapped to their shoulders. Head- straps, passing across the forehead, helped support these packs. Each man carried a rifle. They walked in a stooped posture, the shoulders well forward, the head still farther forward, the eyes bent upon the ground.

Michael, Brother of Jerry
Very early in my life, possibly because of the insatiable curiosity that was born in me, I came to dislike the performances of trained animals. It was my curiosity that spoiled for me this form of amusement, for I was led to seek behind the performance in order to learn how the performance was achieved. And what I found behind the brave show and glitter of performance was not nice.

Martin Eden
The one opened the door with a latch-key and went in, followed by a young fellow who awkwardly removed his cap. He wore rough clothes that smacked of the sea, and he was manifestly out of place in the spacious hall in which he found himself. He did not know what to do with his cap, and was stuffing it into his coat pocket when the other took it from him. The act was done quietly and naturally, and the awkward young fellow appreciated it. "He understands," was his thought. "He'll see me through all right."

Moon-Face and Other Stories
John Claverhouse was a moon-faced man. You know the kind, cheek-bones wide apart, chin and forehead melting into the cheeks to complete the perfect round, and the nose, broad and pudgy, equidistant from the circumference, flattened against the very centre of the face like a dough-ball upon the ceiling. Perhaps that is why I hated him,

Makaloa Mat / Island Tales
Unlike the women of most warm races, those of Hawaii age well and nobly. With no pretence of make-up or cunning concealment of time's inroads, the woman who sat under the hau tree might have been permitted as much as fifty years by a judge competent anywhere over the world save in Hawaii. Yet her children and her grandchildren, and Roscoe Scandwell who had been her husband for forty years, knew that she was sixty-four and would be sixty-five come the next twenty-second day of June. But she did not look it,

The Night-Born
The Madness Of John Harned, When The World Was Young, The Benefit Of The Doubt, Winged Blackmail, Bunches Of Knuckles, War, Under The Deck Awnings, To Kill A Man, The Mexican
It was in the old Alta-Inyo Club--a warm night for San Francisco--and through the open windows, hushed and far, came the brawl of the streets. The talk had led on from the Graft Prosecution and the latest signs that the town was to be run wide open, down through all the grotesque sordidness and rottenness of manhate and man-meanness, until the name of O'Brien was mentioned--

Smoke Bellew
In the beginning he was Christopher Bellew. By the time he was at college he had become Chris Bellew. Later, in the Bohemian crowd of San Francisco, he was called Kit Bellew. And in the end he was known by no other name than Smoke Bellew. And this history of the evolution of his name is the history of his evolution. Nor would it have happened had he not had a fond mother and an iron uncle, and had he not received a letter

The Son of the Wolf
The White Silence, The Men of Forty Mile, In a Far, Country, To the Man on the Trail, The Priestly Prerogative, The Wisdom of the Trail, The Wife of a King, An Odyssey of the North
'I never saw a dog with a highfalutin' name that ever was worth a rap,' he said, as he concluded his task and shoved her aside. 'They just fade away and die under the responsibility. Did ye ever see one go wrong with a sensible name like Cassiar, Siwash, or Husky? No, sir! Take a look at Shookum here, he's--' Snap! The lean brute flashed up, the white teeth just missing Mason's throat.

South Sea Tales
The House of Mapuhi, The Whale Tooth, Mauki, "Yah! Yah! Yah!", The Heathen, The Terrible Solomons, The Inevitable White Man, The Seed of McCoy
Despite the heavy clumsiness of her lines, the Aorai handled easily in the light breeze, and her captain ran her well in before he hove to just outside the suck of the surf. The atoll of Hikueru lay low on the water, a circle of pounded coral sand a hundred yards wide, twenty miles in circumference, and from three to five feet above high-water mark. On the bottom of the huge and glassy lagoon was much pearl shell, and from the deck of the schooner, across the slender ring of the atoll, the divers could be seen at work.

Strength of the Strong
South of the Slot, The Unparalleled Invasion, The Enemy of All the World, The Dream of Debs, The Sea-Farmer, Samuel
Old Long-Beard paused in his narrative, licked his greasy fingers, and wiped them on his naked sides where his one piece of ragged bearskin failed to cover him. Crouched around him, on their hams, were three young men, his grandsons, Deer-Runner, Yellow-Head, and Afraid-of-the-Dark.

The Game
For a fleeting moment a shadow darkened his boyish face, to be replaced by the glow of tenderness. He was only a boy, as she was only a girl--two young things on the threshold of life, house- renting and buying carpets together.

Tales of the Fish Patrol
San Francisco Bay is so large that often its storms are more disastrous to ocean-going craft than is the ocean itself in its violent moments. The waters of the bay contain all manner of fish, wherefore its surface is ploughed by the keels of all manner of fishing boats manned by all manner of fishermen.

The Red One
The Hussy, Like Argus of the Ancient Times, The Princess
Then had begun the chase. He retreated up the pig-run before his hunters, who were between him and the beach. How many there were, he could not guess. There might have been one, or a hundred, for aught he saw of them.

The Valley of the Moon
She flung wild glances, like those of an entrapped animal, up and down the big whitewashed room that panted with heat and that was thickly humid with the steam that sizzled from the damp cloth under the irons of the many ironers. From the girls and women near her, all swinging irons steadily but at high pace, came quick glances, and labor efficiency suffered to the extent of a score of suspended or inadequate movements.

War of the Classes
The Tramp , The Scab , The Question Of The Maximum , A Review , Wanted: A New Law Of Development , How I Became A Socialist
When I was a youngster I was looked upon as a weird sort of creature, because, forsooth, I was a socialist. Reporters from local papers interviewed me, and the interviews, when published, were pathological studies of a strange and abnormal specimen of man. At that time (nine or ten years ago), because I made a stand in my native town for municipal ownership of public utilities, I was branded a "red-shirt," a "dynamiter," and an "anarchist"; and really decent fellows, who liked me very well, drew the line at my appearing in public with their sisters.

The Acorn-Planter

The Cruise of the Dazzler


George MacDonald

David Elginbrod
Meg's mother stood at the cottage door, with arms akimbo and clouded brow, calling through the boles of a little forest of fir-trees after her daughter.

Lilith
I followed him deep into the pine-forest. Neither of us said much while yet the sacred gloom of it closed us round. We came to larger and yet larger trees--older, and more individual, some of them grotesque with age. Then the forest grew thinner.

The Light Princess
Once upon a time, so long ago that I have quite forgotten the date, there lived a king and queen who had no children.

At the Back of the North Wind by George MacDonald
I HAVE been asked to tell you about the back of the north wind. An old Greek writer mentions a people who lived there, and were so comfortable that they could not bear it any longer, and drowned themselves. My story is not the same as his.

Phantastes, A Faerie Romance for Men and Women
As my thoughts, which a deep and apparently dreamless sleep had dissolved, began again to assume crystalline forms, the strange events of the foregoing night presented themselves anew to my wondering consciousness.

The Princess and Curdie
A mountain is a strange and awful thing. In old times, without knowing so much of their strangeness and awfulness as we do, people were yet more afraid of mountains.

The Princess and the Goblin
Her face was fair and pretty, with eyes like two bits of night sky, each with a star dissolved in the blue. Those eyes you would have thought must have known they came from there, so often were they turned up in that direction.

Sir Gibbie by George MacDonald
The sun was hot for an hour or two in the middle of the day, but even then in the shadow dwelt a cold breath--of the winter, or of death--of something that humanity felt unfriendly.

The Portent and Other Stories  
The Portent, The Cruel Painter, The Castle, The Wow O' Rivven, The Broken Swords, The Gray Wolf, Uncle Cornelius His Story
My father belonged to the widespread family of the Campbells, and possessed a small landed property in the north of Argyll. But although of long descent and high connection, he was no richer than many a farmer of a few hundred acres. For, with the exception of a narrow belt of arable land at its foot, a bare hill formed almost the whole of his possessions.

Adela Cathcart  
Translation of a Christmas hymn by Luther, The Light Princess, The Bell (aka The Wow o' Riven), Birth, Dreaming, and Death, The Curate and his Wife, The Shadows, The Broken Swords, My Uncle Peter, The Giant's Heart, The Two Gordons (a Scot's ballad), A Child's Holiday, The Cruel Painter, The Castle: A Parable.
It was the afternoon of Christmas Eve, sinking towards the night. All day long the wintry light had been diluted with fog, and now the vanguard of the darkness coming to aid the mist, the dying day was well nigh smothered between them. When I looked through the window, it was into a vague and dim solidification of space, a mysterious region in which awful things might be going on, and out of which anything might come

The Day Boy and the Night Girl   (The Romance of Photogen and Nycteris)
Watho, Aurora, Vesper, Photogen, Nycteris, How Photogen Grew, How Nycteris Grew, The Lamp, Out, The Great Lamp, The Sunset, The Garden, Something Quite New, The Sun, The Coward Hero, The Evil, Nurse, Watho's Wolf, Refuge, The Werewolf, All Is Well
She was tall and graceful, with a white skin, red hair, and black eyes, which had a red fire in them. She was straight and strong, but now and then would fall bent together, shudder, and sit for a moment with her head turned over her shoulder, as if the wolf had got out of her mind onto her back.

Far Above Rubies   by George MacDonald
Another thing I must mention is that, although his mind was constantly haunted by imaginary forms of loveliness, he had never yet been what is called in love. For he had never yet seen anyone who even approached his idea of spiritual at once and physical attraction. He was content to live and wait, without even the notion that he was waiting for anything. He went on writing his verses, and receiving the reward, such as it was, of having placed on record the thoughts which had come to him, so that he might at will recall them. Neither had he any thought of the mental soil which was thus slowly gathering for the possible growth of an unknown seed, fit for growing and developing in that same unknown soil.

Donal Grant  
A great billowy waste of mountains lay beyond him, amongst which played the shadow at their games of hide and seek--graciously merry in the eyes of the happy man, but sadly solemn in the eyes of him in whose heart the dreary thoughts of the past are at a like game. Behind Donal lay a world of dreams into which he dared not turn and look, yet from which he could scarce avert his eyes.

The History Of Gutta-Percha Willie  
Mr Macmichael was a country doctor, living in a small village in a thinly-peopled country; the first result of which was that he had very hard work, for he had often to ride many miles to see a patient, and that not unfrequently in the middle of the night

The Portent  
The Cruel Painter, The Castle, The Wow O' Rivven, The Broken Swords, The Gray Wolf, Uncle Cornelius His Story My father belonged to the widespread family of the Campbells, and possessed a small landed property in the north of Argyll. But although of long descent and high connection, he was no richer than many a farmer of a few hundred acres. For, with the exception of a narrow belt of arable land at its foot, a bare hill formed almost the whole of his possessions. The sheep ate over it, and no doubt found it good; I bounded and climbed all over it, and thought it a kingdom. From my very childhood

The Wise Woman  
As she grew up, everybody about her did his best to convince her that she was Somebody, and the girl herself was so easily persuaded of it that she quite forgot that anybody had ever told her so, and took it for a fundamental, innate, primary, firstborn, self-evident, necessary, and incontrovertible idea and principle that she was Somebody.

Heather and Snow  
He was giving the girl to understand that he meant to be a soldier like his father, and quite as good a one as he. But so little did he know of himself or the world, that, with small genuine impulse to action, and moved chiefly by the anticipated results of it, he saw success already his, and a grateful country at his feet. His inspiration was so purely ambition, that, even if, his mood unchanged, he were to achieve much for his country, she could hardly owe him gratitude.

The Broken Swords  
Through the quiet air came the far-off rush of water, and the near cry of the land-rail. Now and then a chilly wind blew unheeded through the startled and jostling leaves that shaded the ivy-seat.

The Carasoyn  
there lived in a valley in Scotland, a boy about twelve years of age, the son of a shepherd. His mother was dead, and he had no sister or brother. His father was out all day on the hills with his sheep

The Castle  
Some of them expected to find, one day, secret places, filled with treasures of wondrous jewels; amongst which they hoped to light upon Solomon's ring, which had for ages disappeared from the earth, but which had controlled the spirits, and the possession of which made a man simply what a man should be, the king of the world.

The Cruel Painter  
Seated in a porch of the church, not knowing in what direction to look for the apparition he hoped to see, and desirous as well of not seeming to be on the watch for one, he was gazing at the fallen rose-leaves of the sunset, withering away upon the sky; when, glancing aside by an involuntary movement, he saw a woman seated upon a new-made grave

Far Above Rubies  
it was hard to understand how Hector came ever to be born of such a woman, although in truth she was of as pure Celtic origin as her husband-only blood is not spirit, and that is often clearly manifest.

The Gray Wolf  
he found himself on the verge of a cliff, and saw, over the brow of it, a few feet below him, a ledge of rock, where he might find some shelter from the blast, which blew from behind.


Lucy Maud Montgomery

Anne of Green Gables
Mrs. Rachel Lynde lived just where the Avonlea main road dipped down into a little hollow, fringed with alders and ladies' eardrops and traversed by a brook that had its source away back in the woods of the old Cuthbert place;

Rainbow Valley
Miss Cornelia was going up to Ingleside to see Dr. and Mrs. Blythe, who were just home from Europe. They had been away for three months, having left in February to attend a famous medical congress in London; and certain things, which Miss Cornelia was anxious to discuss, had taken place in the Glen during their absence. For one thing, there was a new family in the manse. And such a family! Miss Cornelia shook her head over them several times as she walked briskly along.

Rilla Of Ingleside by Lucy Maud Montgomery
In the big living-room at Ingleside Susan Baker sat down with a certain grim satisfaction hovering about her like an aura; it was four o'clock and Susan, who had been working incessantly since six that morning, felt that she had fairly earned an hour of repose and gossip. Susan just then was perfectly happy; everything had gone almost uncannily well in the kitchen that day. Dr. Jekyll had not been Mr. Hyde and so had not grated on her nerves;

Anne Of The Island
"Harvest is ended and summer is gone," quoted Anne Shirley, gazing across the shorn fields dreamily. She and Diana Barry had been picking apples in the Green Gables orchard, but were now resting from their labors in a sunny corner, where airy fleets of thistledown drifted by on the wings of a wind that was still summer-sweet with the incense of ferns in the Haunted Wood.

The Golden Road
It had been a day of wild November wind, closing down into a wet, eerie twilight. Outside, the wind was shrilling at the windows and around the eaves, and the rain was playing on the roof. The old willow at the gate was writhing in the storm and the orchard was a place of weird music, born of all the tears and fears that haunt the halls of night.

Further Chronicles Of Avonlea by Lucy Maud Montgomery
I never was fond of cats, although I admit they are well enough in their place, and I can worry along comfortably with a nice, matronly old tabby who can take care of herself and be of some use in the world. As for Ismay, she hates cats and always did.

Anne Of Avonlea
A tall, slim girl, "half-past sixteen," with serious gray eyes and hair which her friends called auburn, had sat down on the broad red sandstone doorstep of a Prince Edward Island farmhouse one ripe afternoon in August, firmly resolved to construe so many lines of Virgil.

Chronicles of Avonlea
Anne Shirley was curled up on the window-seat of Theodora Dix's sitting-room one Saturday evening, looking dreamily afar at some fair starland beyond the hills of sunset. Anne was visiting for a fortnight of her vacation at Echo Lodge, where Mr. and Mrs. Stephen Irving were spending the summer, and she often ran over to the old Dix homestead to chat for awhile with Theodora.

Anne's House of Dreams by Lucy Maud Montgomery
"Thanks be, I'm done with geometry, learning or teaching it," said Anne Shirley, a trifle vindictively, as she thumped a somewhat battered volume of Euclid into a big chest of books, banged the lid in triumph, and sat down upon it, looking at Diana Wright across the Green Gables garret, with gray eyes that were like a morning sky.

The Story Girl
The Story Girl said that once upon a time. Felix and I, on the May morning when we left Toronto for Prince Edward Island, had not then heard her say it, and, indeed, were but barely aware of the existence of such a person as the Story Girl. We did not know her at all under that name. We knew only that a cousin, Sara Stanley, whose mother, our Aunt Felicity, was dead, was living down on the Island with Uncle Roger and Aunt Olivia King, on a farm adjoining the old King homestead in Carlisle.

A Tangled Web
It must be admitted frankly that Aunt Becky was not particularly beloved by her clan. She was too fond of telling them what she called the plain truth.

Pat of Silver Bush
"Oh, oh, and I think I'll soon have to be doing some rooting in the parsley bed," said Judy Plum, as she began to cut Winnie's red crepe dress into strips suitable for "hooking."

Mistress Pat   A Novel of Silver Bush
Everybody at Silver Bush loved the birch grove, though to none of them did it mean what it meant to Pat. For her it LIVED. She not only knew the birches but they knew her

Jane of Lantern Hill by Lucy Maud Montgomery
Uncle William Anderson's house in Forest Hill was very handsome, with landscaped lawns and rock gardens, but she wouldn't like to live there. One was almost terrified to walk over the lawn lest one do something to Uncle William's cherished velvet.

Emily of New Moon
Emily didn't know she was being pitied and didn't know what lonesomeness meant. She had plenty of company. There was Father -- and Mike--and Saucy Sal.

The Blue Castle
She knew the ugliness of that room by heart--knew it and hated it. The yellow-painted floor, with one hideous, "hooked" rug by the bed, with a grotesque, "hooked" dog on it, always grinning at her when she awoke; the faded, dark-red paper

Anne of Windy Poplars
"'The widows' came in. I liked them at once. Aunt Kate was tall and thin and gray, and a little austere . . . Marilla's type exactly: and Aunt Chatty was short and thin and gray, and a little wistful.

Anne of Ingleside
"As if I'd worry over THAT," said Diana reproachfully. "You know I'd far rather spend the evening with you than go to the reception. I feel I haven't seen half enough of you and now you're going back day after tomorrow. But Fred's brother, you know . . . we've just got to go."

Emily Climbs

Emily's Quest

Magic for Marigold


William Morris

The Well at the World's End
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 Ralph: of these Ralph was the youngest, whereas he was but of twenty winters and one; and Blaise was the oldest and had seen thirty winters.

The Story Of The Glittering Plain
But one day of early spring, when the days were yet short and the nights long, Hallblithe sat before the porch of the house smoothing an ash stave for his spear, and he heard the sound of horse-hoofs drawing nigh, and he looked up and saw folk riding toward the house, and so presently they rode through the garth gate; and there was no man but he about the house, so he rose up and went to meet them, and he saw that they were but three in company: they had weapons with them, and their horses were of the best; but they were no fellowship for a man to be afraid of; for two of them were old and feeble, and the third was dark and sad, and drooping of aspect: it seemed as if they had ridden far and fast, for their spurs were bloody and their horses all a-sweat.

A Dream Of John Ball
I got up and rubbed my eyes and looked about me, and the landscape seemed unfamiliar to me, though it was, as to the lie of the land, an ordinary English low-country, swelling into rising ground here and there. The road was narrow, and I was convinced that it was a piece of Roman road from its straightness. Copses were scattered over the country, and there were signs of two or three villages and hamlets in sight besides the one near me,

Child Christopher and Goldilind the Fair
The lord and king thereof was a stark man, and so great a warrior that in his youth he took no delight in aught else save battle and tourneys. But when he was hard on forty years old, he came across a daughter of a certain lord, whom he had vanquished, and his eyes bewrayed him into longing, so that he gave back to the said lord the havings he had conquered of him that he might lay the maiden in his kingly bed. So he brought her home with him to Oakenrealm and wedded her.

The Wood Beyond the World    
Awhile ago there was a young man dwelling in a great and goodly city by the sea which had to name Langton on Holm. He was but of five and twenty winters, a fair-faced man, yellow-haired, tall and strong; rather wiser than foolisher than young men are mostly wont; a valiant youth

The Roots of the Mountains    
Once upon a time amidst the mountains and hills and falling streams of a fair land there was a town or thorp in a certain valley. This was well-nigh encompassed by a wall of sheer cliffs; toward the East and the great mountains they drew together till they went near to meet, and left but a narrow path on either side of a stony stream that came rattling down into the Dale

The Pilgrims Of Hope    

The Message Of The March Wind

Fair now is the springtide, now earth lies beholding
With the eyes of a lover the face of the sun;
Long lasteth the daylight, and hope is enfolding
The green-growing acres with increase begun.

News from Nowhere    
Up at the League, says a friend, there had been one night a brisk conversational discussion, as to what would happen on the Morrow of the Revolution, finally shading off into a vigorous statement by various friends of their views on the future of the fully-developed new society.

The House Of The Wolfings    
The tale tells that in times long past there was a dwelling of men beside a great wood. Before it lay a plain, not very great, but which was, as it were, an isle in the sea of woodland, since even when you stood on the flat ground, you could see trees everywhere in the offing, though as for hills


Various Childrens Stories

Silver Pennies  by Blanche Jennings Thompson
Have you watched the fairies when the rain is done Spreading out their little wings to dry them in the sun ? I have, I have! Isn't it fun? Have you heard the fairies all among the limes Singing little fairy tunes to little fairy rhyrmes ?

The Adventures of Paddy the Beaver   by Thornton W. Burgess
He had wandered up and down the Laughing Brook. He had followed it way up to the place where it started. And all the time he had been studying and studying to make sure that he wanted to stay in the Green Forest. In the first place, he had to be sure that there was plenty of the kind of food that he likes. Then he had to be equally sure that he could make a pond near where this particular food grew. Last of all, he had to satisfy himself that if he did make a pond and build a home, he would be reasonably safe in it. And all these things

The Life and Perambulations of a Mouse   by Dorothy Kilner
The first circumstance I can recollect was my mother's addressing me and my three brothers, who all lay in the same nest, in the following words:-'I have, my children, with the greatest difficulty, and at the utmost hazard of my life, provided for you all to the present moment; but the period is arrived, when I can no longer pursue that method: snares and traps are everywhere set for me, nor shall I, without infinite danger

The King Of The Golden River  
in old time, a valley of the most surprising and luxuriant fertility. It was surrounded, by steep and rocky mountain peaks, which were always covered with snow, and from which a number of torrents descended in constant cataracts. One of these fell westward, over the face of a crag so high, that, when the sun had set to everything else, and all below was darkness

Flower Fables   by Louisa May Alcott
On a silvery mushroom was spread the breakfast; little cakes of flower-dust lay on a broad green leaf, beside a crimson strawberry, which, with sugar from the violet, and cream from the yellow milkweed, made a fairy meal

Who Spoke Next   by Eliza Lee Follen
My first very distinct recollection is of being stood up in the way I am standing now, with a long row of my brethren, of the same shape and character as myself, as I supposed. This was in a large building somewhere in England. I, like the curling tongs, was at last packed up in a box, and brought to America, but it took a rather larger box to take me and my friends, than it took to pack up him and his friends, with all their thin straddle legs."

Two Festivals   by Eliza Lee Follen
The country village in which Mrs. Chilton lived was as noisy as a martin box, at break of day, when doubtless, though we poor wingless bipeds don't understand what the birds are chattering about, they are planning their work and their amusements for the day -- and why not?

True Stories About Dogs And Cats   by Eliza Lee Follen
Stop and think. Grand words, and worth attending to. I believe that, if boys and girls would only keep these words well in mind, there would be only a small number of really naughty children.

Travellers' Stories   by Eliza Lee Follen
Mother, said Frank, you have often promised us that some time you would tell us about your travels in Europe. This is a good stormy evening, and no one will come in to interrupt you; so please, dear Mother, tell us all you can remember.

The Talkative Wig   by Eliza Lee Follen
"Friend Frizzle is right: I did agree to relate my adventures, but I said I would wait till all had told their stories; now, here are two of this brilliant company that have not said one word of themselves, that comical coat and that old cloak; after they have related their history I will relate mine.

The Pedler Of Dust Sticks   by Eliza Lee Follen
He soaked his canes for a long time in warm water, and bent the tops round for a handle, and then ornamented them with his penknife, and made them really very pretty.

Piccolissima   by Eliza Lee Follen
Piccolissima was descended on the father's side from the famous Tom Thumb, so well known to all children. On the mother's side, her lineage was no less distinguished. Mignonette Littlepin (this was the family name of Madam Tom Thumb) was the great granddaughter of the wonderful Princess

Conscience   by Eliza Lee Follen
His strong arms were about falling to the ground; his fat nose had entirely disappeared, and his mouth had grown so big that you might look down his great throat, and see the place where one of the boys used to go in to make his snowship talk.

The Days Off   by Henry Van Dyke
a good little summer resort where the boy and I were pegging away at our vacation. There were the mountains conveniently arranged, with pleasant trails running up all of them, carefully marked with rustic but legible guide-posts; and there was the sea comfortably besprinked with islands, among which one might sail around and about, day after day, not to go anywhere

Court Life in China   by Isaac Taylor Headland
One day when one of the princesses was calling at our home in Peking, I inquired of her where the Empress Dowager was born. She gazed at me for a moment with a queer expression wreathing her features, as she finally said with just the faintest shadow of a smile: "We never talk about the early history of Her Majesty."

The Burgess Animal Book for Children   by Thornton W. Burgess
Reddy Fox was too shrewd to waste any time trying to dig it larger. He knew there wasn't room enough for him to get between those roots. So, after trying to make Peter as uncomfortable as possible by telling him what he, Reddy, would do to him when he did catch him, Reddy trotted off across the Green Meadows.

The Story of the Amulet   by E. Nesbit
She found the parlour in deepest gloom, hardly relieved at all by the efforts of Robert, who, to make the time pass, was pulling Jane's hair--not hard, but just enough to tease.

The Tinder-Box   Hans C. Anderson
"Good-evening, soldier!" said she. "What a bright sword, and what a large knapsack you have, my fine fellow! I'll tell you what: you shall have as much money for your own as you can wish!"

The Wouldbegoods  by E. Nesbit
And when we were taken to the beautiful big Blackheath house we thought now all would be well, because it was a house with vineries and pineries, and gas and water, and shrubberies and stabling, and replete with every modern convenience, like it says in Dyer & Hilton's list of Eligible House Property.

Tattine  by Ruth Ogden
It was a great bird-year at Oakdene. Never had there been so many. The same dear old Phoebe-birds were back, building under the eaves of both the front and back piazzas. The robins, as usual, were everywhere. The Maryland yellow-throats were nesting in great numbers in the young growth of woods on the hill of the ravine, and ringing out their hammer-like note in the merriest manner;

The Story of the Treasure Seekers  by E. Nesbit
Well, when we had agreed to dig for treasure we all went down into the cellar and lighted the gas. Oswald would have liked to dig there, but it is stone flags. We looked among the old boxes and broken chairs and fenders and empty bottles and things, and at last we found the spades we had to dig in the sand with when we went to the seaside three years ago. They are not silly, babyish, wooden spades, that split if you look at them, but good iron, with a blue mark across the top of the iron part,

New Chronicles of Rebecca  by Kate Douglas Wiggin
Rebecca Rowena Randall, the little niece of the brick-house ladies, and at present sojourning there for purposes of board, lodging, education, and incidentally such discipline and chastening as might ultimately produce moral excellence,--Rebecca Randall had a passion for the rhyme and rhythm of poetry.

The Little White Bird  by J. M. Barrie
She must have passed the window many times before I noticed her. I know not where she lives, though I suppose it to be hard by. She is taking the little boy and girl, who bully her, to the St. James's Park, as their hoops tell me, and she ought to look crushed and faded. No doubt her mistress overworks her.

The History of Tom Thumb  Edited by Henry Altemus
This great magician, who could assume any form he pleased, was travelling in the disguise of a poor beggar, and being very much fatigued, he stopped at the cottage of an honest ploughman to rest himself, and asked for some refreshment. The countryman gave him a hearty welcome, and his wife, who was a very good-hearted, hospital woman, soon brought him some milk in a wooden bowl, an some coarse brown bread on a platter.

The Bobbsey Twins in the Country  by Laura Lee Hope
"Glad! I'm just - so glad - so glad - I could almost fly up in the air!" the boy managed to say in chunks, for he had never had much experience with words, a very few answering for all his needs.

The Bobbsey Twins at School  by Laura Lee Hope
"I'd rather be back at the seashore," said Bert, not turning his gaze from the window, for the train was passing along some fields just then, and in one a boy was driving home some cows to be milked, as evening was coming on. Bert was wondering if one of the cows might not chase the boy. Bert didn't really want to see the boy hurt by a cow, of course, but he thought that if the cow was going to take after the boy, anyhow, he might just as well see it.

The Birds' Christmas Carol  by Kate Douglas Wiggin
It was very early Christmas morning, and in the stillness of the dawn, with the soft snow falling on the housetops, a little child was born in the Bird household.

Rebecca Of Sunnybrook Farm  by Kate Douglas Wiggin
The old stage coach was rumbling along the dusty road that runs from Maplewood to Riverboro. The day was as warm as midsummer, though it was only the middle of May, and Mr. Jeremiah Cobb was favoring the horses as much as possible, yet never losing sight of the fact that he carried the mail.

The Hunting of the Snark  by Lewis Carroll
The Bellman looked uffish, and wrinkled his brow.

Sylvie and Bruno  by Lewis Carroll
--and then all the people cheered again, and one man, who was more excited than the rest, flung his hat high into the air, and shouted -

The Little Colonel In Arizona  by Annie Fellows Johnston
And it was a girl she said it to," he continued, wrathfully. "A real pretty girl, about my age. The fellow with her is her brother, I reckon. They look enough alike.

The Little Colonel  by Annie Fellows Johnston
A ragged little Scotch and Skye terrier stood on its hind feet beside her, thrusting his inquisitive nose between the bars, and wagging his tasselled tail in lively approval of the scene before them.

The Little Colonel Maid Of Honor  by Annie Fellows Johnston
The whole picturesque place seemed as still as the palace of the Sleeping Beauty. Even the peacocks on the terraced river-front stood motionless, their resplendent tails spread out in the sun; and although the air was filled with the odor of wild plum blossoms

Mary Ware  by Annie Fellows Johnston
That the newcomer was a prospective pupil, Hawkins saw at a glance. He had not been in Madam Chartley's service all these years without learning a few things. That she was over-awed by the magnificence of her surroundings he readily guessed, for she made no movement towards the knocker

The Little Colonel's Knight Comes Riding  by Annie Fellows Johnston
IT was a June morning in Kentucky. The doctor's nephew coming at a gallop down the pike into Lloydsboro Valley, reined his horse to a walk as he reached the railroad crossing, and leaning forward in his saddle, hesitated a moment between the two roads.

The Little Colonel's House Party  by Annie Fellows Johnston
DOWN the long avenue that led from the house to the great entrance gate came the Little Colonel on her pony. It was a sweet, white way that morning, filled with the breath of the locusts;

The Little Colonel's Holidays  by Annie Fellows Johnston
Such was the power of the magic kettle, that when the water bubbled hard enough to set the bells a-tinkling, any one holding his hand in the steam could smell what was cooking in every kitchen in the kingdom.

The Little Colonel's Hero  by Annie Fellows Johnston
Tarbaby had no words with which to comfort his little mistress, but he seemed to understand that she was in trouble, and rubbed his nose lovingly against her shoulder.

The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation  by Annie Fellows Johnston
She thought a sense of mediaeval grandeur was good for girls, especially young American girls, who are apt to be brought up without proper respect for age, either of individuals or institutions.

The Little Colonel At Boarding-School  by Annie Fellows Johnston
Something unusual was happening at Locust, Although it was early in September, and the heat and dust-of a Kentucky summer still lingered in every corner of Lloydsboro Valley, the great house with its vine-covered pillars was being hastily put in order for winter closing.

The Gate Of The Giant Scissors  by Annie Fellows Johnston
She was tired of the garden with the high stone wall around it, that made her feel like a prisoner; she was tired of French verbs and foreign faces; she was tired of France, and so homesick for her mother and Jack and Holland and the baby, that she couldn't help crying.

The Adventures of Reddy Fox  by Thornton W. Burgess
Reddy Fox lived with Granny Fox. You see, Reddy was one of a large family, so large that Mother Fox had hard work to feed so many hungry little mouths and so she had let Reddy go to live with old Granny Fox. Granny Fox was the wisest, slyest, smartest fox in all the country round,

Twilight Stories  by Various Authors
But now Tommy was seven and had been to school two weeks, and such delightful weeks! Every day mamma listened to long accounts of how "me and Dick Ray played marbles," and "us fellers cracked the whip." There was another thing that he used to tell mamma about, something that in those first days he always spoke of in the most subdued tones, and that--I am sorry to record it of any school, much more a Cheyenne school--was the numerous whippings that were administered to various little boys and girls.

"Pigs is Pigs"  by Ellis Parker Butler
Mike Flannery, the Westcote agent of the Interurban Express Company, leaned over the counter of the express office and shook his fist. Mr. Morehouse, angry and red, stood on the other side of the counter, trembling with rage. The argument had been long and heated, and at last Mr. Morehouse had talked himself speechless.

Peter Pan  by James M. Barrie
All children, except one, grow up. They soon know that they will grow up, and the way Wendy knew was this. One day when she was two years old she was playing in a garden, and she plucked another flower and ran with it to her mother.

Book of Nonsense  by Edward Lear
There was an Old Man on a hill, Who seldom, if ever, stood still;

The Phoenix and the Carpet  by E. Nesbit
The children had seen the Phoenix-egg hatched in the flames in their own nursery grate, and had heard from it how the carpet on their own nursery floor was really the wishing carpet, which would take them anywhere they chose.

Stories of the Pilgrims   by Margaret B. Pumphrey

Children's Books Online:   the Rosetta Project

The Complete Andersen   Danish Web Site

Fairy Tales and Stories   Hans Christian Andersen

The True Story of My Life   Hans Christian Andersen

Twilight Stories   by Various Authors
You know the story well. You have heard how the wild alarm ran from voice to voice and echoed beneath every roof, until the men of Lexington and Concord were stirred and aroused with patriotic fear for the safety of the public stores that had been committed to their keeping.

Five Little Peppers Abroad   by Margaret Sidney
"Dear me," said Polly, "I don't see wherever she can be, Jasper. I've searched just everywhere for her." And she gave a little sigh, and pushed up the brown rings of hair under her sailor cap.

The Adventures of Joel Pepper   by Margaret Sidney
It was Joel's voice, and Polly pricked up her ears. "'Tisn't going to hurt you. Hoh! you're a 'fraid-cat--old 'fraid-cat!"

Five Little Peppers Midway   by Margaret Sidney
"Jefferson," said Phronsie, with a grave uplifting of her eyebrows, "I think I will go down into the kitchen and bake a pie; a very little pie, Jefferson."

Five Little Peppers And Their Friends   by Margaret Sidney
"Can't." The girl at the gate peered through the iron railings, pressing her nose quite flat, to give the sharp, restless, black eyes the best chance.

Five Little Peppers Grown Up   by Margaret Sidney
Outside, Polly, after enlisting Miss Salisbury's favor for the evening's plan, was hurrying along the pavement, calling herself an hundred foolish names for helping an idle girl out of a scrape. "And to think of losing the only chance to hear D'Albert," she mourned.

Five Little Peppers And How They Grew   by Margaret Sidney
The little old kitchen had quieted down from the bustle and confusion of mid-day; and now, with its afternoon manners on, presented a holiday aspect, that as the principal room in the brown house, it was eminently proper it should have. Alice In Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, 'and what is the use of a book,' thought Alice 'without pictures or conversation?'

The Arabian Nights Entertainments  Edited by Andrew Lang
In the chronicles of the ancient dynasty of the Sassanidae, who reigned for about four hundred years, from Persia to the borders of China, beyond the great river Ganges itself, we read the praises of one of the kings of this race, who was said to be the best monarch of his time. His subjects loved him, and his neighbors feared him,

Winnie-The-Pooh   A.A. Milne

Puck of Pook's Hill   by Rudyard Kipling
The Theatre lay in a meadow called the Long Slip. A little mill-stream, carrying water to a mill two or three fields away, bent round one corner of it, and in the middle of the bend lay a large old Fairy Ring of darkened grass, which was the stage.

Pinocchio: The Adventures Of A Puppet   by Carlo Collodi
I cannot say how it came about, but the fact is, that one fine day this piece of wood was lying in the shop of an old carpenter of the name of Master Antonio. He was, however, called by everybody Master Cherry, on account of the end of his nose, which was always as red and polished as a ripe cherry.

The Birds' Christmas Carol   by Kate Douglas Wiggin
Suddenly a sound of music poured out into the bright air and drifted into the chamber. It was the boy-choir singing Christmas anthems. Higher and higher rose the clear, fresh voices, full of hope and cheer, as children's voices always are. Fuller and fuller grew the burst of melody as one glad strain fell upon another in joyful harmony

A Sweet Girl Graduate   by Mrs. L.T. Meade
Priscilla was tall and slight. Her figure was younger than her years, which were nearly nineteen, but her face was older. It was an almost careworn face, thoughtful, grave, with anxious lines already deepening the seriousness of the too serious mouth.

Understood Betsy   by Dorothy Canfield
Elizabeth Ann's Great-aunt Harriet was a widow who was not very rich or very poor, and she had one daughter, Frances, who gave piano lessons to little girls.

White Cross   by G.A. Henty
The order of the Knights of St. John, which for some centuries played a very important part in the great struggle between Christianity and Mahomedanism, was, at its origin, a semi-religious body, its members being, like other monks, bound by vows of obedience, chastity, and poverty, and pledged to minister to the wants of the pilgrims who flocked to the Holy Places

Sylvie and Bruno   by Lewis Carroll
I found the little fellow standing in the passage, and being addressed by one of the men in livery, who stood before him, nearly bent double from extreme respectfulness, with his hands hanging in front of him like the fins of a fish.

Peter Pan In Kensington Gardens   by James M. Barrie
If you ask your mother whether she knew about Peter Pan when she was a little girl she will say, "Why, of course, I did, child," and if you ask her whether he rode on a goat in those days she will say, "What a foolish question to ask, certainly he did."

Peter and Wendy   by James M. Barrie
The way Mr. Darling won her was this: the many gentlemen who had been boys when she was a girl discovered simultaneously that they loved her, and they all ran to her house to propose to her except Mr. Darling, who took a cab and nipped in first, and so he got her.

The Rose and the Ring   by William Thackeray
When she was young, and had been first taught the art of conjuring by the necromancer, her father, she was always practicing her skill, whizzing about from one kingdom to another upon her black stick, and conferring her fairy favours upon this Prince or that.

A Collection of Beatrix Potter Stories
An old mouse was running in and out over the stone doorstep, carrying peas and beans to her family in the wood. Peter asked her the way to the gate, but she had such a large pea in her mouth that she could not answer. She only shook her head at him. Peter began to cry.

Cinderella; The Little Glass Slipper  and other Stories
Once there was a gentleman who married for his second wife the proudest and most haughty woman that was ever seen. She had by a former husband two daughters of her own humor, who were, indeed, exactly like her in all things. He had likewise, by another wife, a young daughter, but of unparalleled goodness and sweetness of temper, which she took from her mother, who was the best creature in the world.

Dream Days  by Kenneth Grahame
Grown-up people really ought to be more careful. Among themselves it may seem but a small thing to give their word and take back their word. For them there are so many compensations. Life lies at their feet, a party-coloured india-rubber ball; they may kick it this way or kick it that, it turns up blue, yellow, or green, but always coloured and glistenning. Thus one sees it happen almost every day, and, with a jest and a laugh, the thing is over, and the disappointed one turns to fresh pleasure,

The Wind in the Willows  by Kenneth Grahame
The Mole had been working very hard all the morning, spring-cleaning his little home. First with brooms, then with dusters; then on ladders and steps and chairs, with a brush and a pail of whitewash; till he had dust in his throat and eyes, and splashes of whitewash all over his black fur, and an aching back and weary arms.

The Water-Babies  by Charles Kingsley
See some images at Muse and Library of Congress
Once upon a time there was a little chimney-sweep, and his name was Tom. That is a short name, and you have heard it before, so you will not have much trouble in remembering it. He lived in a great town in the North country, where there were plenty of chimneys to sweep, and plenty of money for Tom to earn and his master to spend. He could not read nor write, and did not care to do either; and he never washed himself, for there was no water up the court where he lived.

Five Children and It  by E. Nesbit
The house was three miles from the station, but before the dusty hired fly had rattled along for five minutes the children began to put their heads out of the carriage window and to say, 'Aren't we nearly there?' And every time they passed a house, which was not very often, they all said, 'Oh, is This it?' But it never was, till they reached the very top of the hill, just past the chalk-quarry and before you come to the gravel-pit.

Through The Looking Glass  by Lewis Carroll
'Oh, you wicked little thing!' cried Alice, catching up the kitten, and giving it a little kiss to make it understand that it was in disgrace. 'Really, Dinah ought to have taught you better manners! You Ought, Dinah, you know you ought!' she added, looking reproachfully at the old cat, and speaking in as cross a voice as she could manage--and then she scrambled back into the arm-chair, taking the kitten and the worsted with her,

The Little Lame Prince  by Miss Mulock
When he looked at the candle, his eyes had an expression of earnest inquiry quite startling in a new born baby. His nose--there was not much of it certainly, but what there was seemed an aquiline shape; his complexion was a charming, healthy purple; he was round and fat, straight- limbed and long--in fact, a splendid baby, and everybody was exceedingly proud of him, especially his father and mother, the King and Queen of Nomansland,

Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates
About the middle of the seventeenth century certain French adventurers set out from the fortified island of St. Christopher in longboats and hoys, directing their course to the westward, there to discover new islands. Sighting Hispaniola "with abundance of joy," they landed, and went into the country, where they found great quantities of wild cattle, horses, and swine.

Hans Brinker  or The Silver Skates
In another moment they were all laughing together, as hand in hand they flew along the canal, never thinking whether the ice would bear them or not, for in Holland ice is generally an all-winter affair. It settles itself upon the water in a determined kind of way, and so far from growing thin and uncertain every time the sun is a little severe upon it, it gathers its forces day by day and flashes defiance to every beam.

The Governess and Other Stories  by Sarah Fielding
A great many hundred years ago, the mountains of Wales were inhabited by two giants; one of whom was the terror of all his neighbours and the plague of the whole country. He greatly exceeded the size of any giant recorded in history; and his eyes looked so fierce and terrible, that they frightened all who were so unhappy as to behold them.

The Golden Age  by Kenneth Grahame
It was one of the first awakenings of the year. The earth stretched herself, smiling in her sleep; and everything leapt and pulsed to the stir of the giant's movement. With us it was a whole holiday; the occasion a birthday--it matters not whose. Some one of us had had presents, and pretty conventional speeches,

Heroes   by Charles Kingsley
Once upon a time there were two princes who were twins. Their names were Acrisius and Proetus, and they lived in the pleasant vale of Argos, far away in Hellas. They had fruitful meadows and vineyards, sheep and oxen, great herds of horses feeding down in Lerna Fen, and all that men could need to make them blest:

A Knight of the White Cross   by G.A. Henty
A stately lady was looking out of the window of an apartment in the Royal Chateau of Amboise, in the month of June, 1470. She was still handsome, though many years of anxiety, misfortune, and trouble, had left their traces on her face.

The Burgess Bird Book For Children   by Thornton W. Burgess
Lipperty-lipperty-lip scampered Peter Rabbit behind the tumble-down stone wall along one side of the Old Orchard. It was early in the morning, very early in the morning.

Baby Mine   by Margaret Mayo
Turning in embarrassment toward a secluded path just behind him, whom did he see coming toward him but Alfred, with what appeared to be a bunch of daffodils; but as Alfred drew nearer, Jimmy began to perceive at his elbow a large flower-trimmed hat,

The Enchanted Castle   by E. Nesbit
There were three of them Jerry, Jimmy, and Kathleen. Of course, Jerry's name was Gerald, and not Jeremiah, whatever you may think; and Jimmy's name was James; and Kathleen was never called by her name at all, but Cathy, or Catty, or Puss Cat, when her brothers were pleased with her, and Scratch Cat when they were not pleased.

The Golden Fleece And The Heroes Who Lived Before Achilles   by Padraic Colum
When it was full noon the slave came into a clearing of the forest so silent that it seemed empty of all life. He laid the child down on the soft moss, and then, trembling with the fear of what might come before him, he raised a horn to his lips and blew three blasts upon it.

A Sweet Girl Graduate   by Mrs. L.T. Meade
and only from the upper windows did the girls get a peep of the old university town of Kingsdene. From these, however, particularly in the winter, they could see the gabled colleges

Old Mother West Wind   by Thornton W. Burgess
And if they teased Johnny Chuck they were good to him, too. When they saw Farmer Brown coming across the Green Meadows with a gun, one of them would dance over to Johnny Chuck and whisper to him that Farmer Brown was coming, and then Johnny Chuck would hide away, deep down in his snug little house underground, and Farmer Brown would wonder and wonder why it was that he never, never could get near enough to shoot Johnny Chuck.

The Outdoor Girls At Rainbow Lake   by Laura Lee Hope
Betty rose, and Amy found what she was looking for. Grace walked slowly over the shaded lawn toward her house, at which the three chums had gathered this beautiful -- if too warm -- July day. Betty, Amy, and Mollie made a simultaneous dive for the hammock, and managed, all three, to squeeze into it, with Betty in the middle.

The Outdoor Girls at Wild Rose Lodge   by Laura Lee Hope
For a moment the Outdoor Girls sat fascinated, paralyzed, without the power to move a muscle. Then suddenly Grace seemed galvanized to action, She leaned toward Mollie, grasping the steering wheel of the motionless car frantically.


Kate Douglas Wiggin

The Village Watch-Tower
It stood on the gentle slope of a hill, the old gray house, with its weather-beaten clapboards and its roof of ragged shingles. It was in the very lap of the road, so that the stage-driver could almost knock on the window pane without getting down from his seat, on those rare occasions when he brought "old Mis' Bascom" a parcel from Saco.

The Story Of Waitstill Baxter
God watched, and listened, knowing that there would be other prophets, true and false, in the days to come, and other processions following them; and the river watched and listened too, as it hurried on towards the sea with its story of the present that was sometime to be the history of the past.

New Chronicles of Rebecca
Miss Miranda Sawyer's old-fashioned garden was the pleasantest spot in Riverboro on a sunny July morning. The rich color of the brick house gleamed and glowed through the shade of the elms and maples. Luxuriant hop-vines clambered up the lightning rods and water spouts, hanging their delicate clusters here and there in graceful profusion

Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin
There was one passenger in the coach, -- a small dark-haired person in a glossy buff calico dress. She was so slender and so stiffly starched that she slid from space to space on the leather cushions, though she braced herself against the middle seat with her feet and extended her cotton-gloved hands on each side, in order to maintain some sort of balance. Whenever the wheels sank farther than usual into a rut, or jolted suddenly over a stone, she bounded involuntarily into the air, came down again, pushed back her funny little straw hat, and picked up or settled more firmly a small pink sun

Rose O' the River
The immensity of the sea had always silenced and overawed him, left him cold in feeling. The river wooed him, caressed him, won his heart. It was just big enough to love. It was full of charms and changes, of varying moods and sudden surprises.

Penelope's Postscripts
Salemina and I were in Geneva. If you had ever travelled through Europe with a charming spinster who never sat down at a Continental table d'hote without being asked by an American vis-a-vis whether she were one of the P.'s of Salem, Massachusetts, you would understand why I call my friend Salemina. She doesn't mind it. She knows that I am simply jealous because I came from a vulgarly large tribe that never had any coat-of-arms, and whose ancestors always sealed their letters with their thumb nails.

Penelope's Irish Experiences by Kate Douglas Wiggin
That any three spinsters should be fellow-travellers is not in itself extraordinary, and so our former journeyings in England and Scotland could hardly be described as eccentric in any way; but now that I am a matron and Francesca is shortly to be married, it is odd, to say the least, to see us cosily ensconced in a private sitting-room of a Dublin hotel, the table laid for three, and not a vestige of a man anywhere to be seen.

Penelope's Experiences in Scotland
Her chagrin was all the keener at losing this last aspirant to her hand in that she had almost persuaded herself that she was as fond of him as she was likely to be of anybody, and that on the whole she had better marry him and save his life and reason.

Penelope's English Experiences
Francesca is short of twenty years old, Salemina short of forty, I short of thirty. Francesca is in love, Salemina never has been in love, I never shall be in love. Francesca is rich, Salemina is well-to-do, I am poor. There we are in a nutshell.

The Old Peabody Pew by Kate Douglas Wiggin
Edgewood, like all the other villages along the banks of the Saco, is full of sunny slopes and leafy hollows. There are little, rounded, green-clad hillocks that might, like their scriptural sisters, "skip with joy," and there are grand, rocky hills tufted with gaunt pine trees--these leading the eye to the splendid heights of a neighbour State, where snow-crowned peaks tower in the blue distance, sweeping the horizon in a long line of majesty.

The Diary of a Goose Girl
In alluding to myself as a Goose Girl, I am using only the most modest of my titles; for I am also a poultry-maid, a tender of Belgian hares and rabbits, and a shepherdess; but I particularly fancy the role of Goose Girl, because it recalls the German fairy tales of my early youth, when I always yearned, but never hoped, to be precisely what I now am.

The Flag-Raising
Miranda Sawyer had a heart, of course, but she had never used it for any other purpose than the pumping and circulating of blood. She was just, conscientious, economical, industrious; a regular attendant at church and Sunday-school, and a member of the State Missionary and Bible societies, but in the presence of all these chilly virtues you longed for one warm little fault, or lacking that, one likable failing, something to make you sure that she was thoroughly alive.

A Cathedral Courtship
We are doing the English cathedral towns, aunt Celia and I. Aunt Celia has an intense desire to improve my mind. Papa told her, when we were leaving Cedarhurst, that he wouldn't for the world have it too much improved, and aunt Celia remarked that, so far as she could judge, there was no immediate danger; with which exchange of hostilities they parted.

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