Classic ebooks

Daniel Defoe - Born toward the of the summer of 1660, died on April 24, 1731- original surname Foe, Defoe altered it in 1703

English novelist, pamphleteer, and journalist, author of ROBINSON CRUSOE (1719), a story of a man shipwrecked alone on an island. Along with Samuel Richardson, Defoe is considered the founder of the English novel. Before his time stories were usually written as long poems or dramas. He produced some 200 works of nonfiction prose in addition to close 2 000 short essays in periodical publications, several of which he also edited.

"One day, about noon, going towards my boat, I was exceedingly surprised with the print of a man's naked foot on the shore, which was very plain to be seen on the sand." (from Robinson Crusoe)

Daniel Defoe was born as the son of Alice and James Foe. His father was a City tradesman and member of the Butchers' Company. James Foe's stubborn puritanism - the The Foes were Dissenters, Protestants who did not belong to the Anglican Church - come occasionally comes through Defoe's writing. He studied at Charles Morton's Academy, London. Although his Nonconformist father intended him for the ministry, Defoe plunged into politics and trade, travelling extensively in Europe. Throughout his life, Defoe also wrote about mercantile projects, but his business ventures failed and left him with large debts, amounting over seventeen thousand pounds. This burden shadowed the remainder of his life, which he once

Table of Contents:

Grimms Fairy Tales

1. JACK AND THE BEANSTALK
2. THE LION GOES TO WAR
3. THE LITTLE GOLDEN BIRD
4. THE LlTTLE MERMAID
5. THE LlTTLE PEAR GIRL
6. LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD
7. THE MAGIC TINDERBOX
8. THE MONKEY KING
9. THE MOUSE AND THE LION
10. THE MUSICIANS OF BREMEN
11. NARClSSUS
12. THE OBSTINATE GOATS
13. PRINCE OMAR AND PRINCESS SHEHERAZADE
14. THE OX AND THE FROG
15. THE PARROT SHAH
16. THE PEASANT, THE SNAKE AND THE FOX
17. THE PIED PIPER OF HAMELIN
18. THE POPLAR AND THE STREAM
19. PUSS IN BOOTS
20. THE RED DRAGON
21. THE RUBY PRINCE
22. SALEM AND THE NAIL
23. SASHA, MANSOR AND THE STORKS
24. SAYED'S ADVENTURES
25. THE SEVEN CROWS
26. THE SEVEN OLD SAMURAI
27. THE SEVEN VOYAGES OF SINBAD THE SAILOR
28. A SHREWD FARMER'S STORY
29. SIX ABLE MEN
30. THE SLEEPING PRINCESS
31. THE SNOW MAIDEN
32. SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS
33. THE STORY OF THUMBELIN
34. THE TAIL OF THE BEAR
35. THE THREE LITTLE PIGS
36. THE THREE WISHES
37. TIL ULENSPIGHEL
38. THE TIN SOLDIER
39. THE VAIN CROW
40. THE WEEPING PRINCESS
41. WHAT OTHER PEOPLE THINK
42. THE WISE LlTTLE GIRL
43. THE WITCH IN THE TOWER
44. THE WOLF AND THE SEVEN KIDS
45. THE

Jane Austen (December 16, 1775 - July 18, 1817) was an English novelist whose work is considered part of the Western canon. Her insights into women's lives and her mastery of form and irony have made her arguably the most noted and influential novelist from her era (though she was only moderately successful during her lifetime).

Adhering to contemporary convention for female authors, Austen published her novels anonymously. Her novels achieved a measure of popular success and esteem yet her anonymity kept her out of leading literary circles. Although all her works are love stories and although her career coincided with the Romantic movement in English literature, Jane Austen was no Romantic. Passionate emotion usually carries danger in an Austen novel and the young woman who exercises rational moderation is more likely to find real happiness than one who elopes with a lover. Her artistic values had more in common with David Hume and John Locke than with her contemporaries William Wordsworth or Lord Byron. Three of Austen's favorite influences were Samuel Johnson, William Cowper and Fanny Burney.

Her posthumously published novel Northanger Abbey satirizes the Gothic novels of Ann Radcliffe, but Austen is most famous for her mature works, which took the form of socially astute comedies of manners. These, especially Emma, are often cited for their perfection of form, while modern critics continue to unearth new perspectives on Austen's keen commentary

ADVERTISEMENT BY THE AUTHORESS, TO NORTHANGER ABBEY

THIS little work was finished in the year 1803, and intended for immediate publication. It was disposed of to a bookseller, it was even advertised, and why the business proceeded no farther, the author has never been able to discover. That any bookseller should think it worth-while to purchase what he did not think it worth-while to publish seems extraordinary. But with this, neither the author nor the public have any other concern than as some observation is necessary upon those parts of the work which thirteen years have made comparatively obsolete. The public are entreated to bear in mind that thirteen years have passed since it was finished, many more since it was begun, and that during that period, places, manners, ebooks, and opinions have undergone considerable changes.

CHAPTER 1

No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy would have supposed her born to be an heroine. Her situation in life, the character of her father and mother, her own person and disposition, were all equally against her. Her father was a clergyman, without being neglected, or poor, and a very respectable man, though his name was Richard--and he had never been handsome. He had a considerable independence besides two good livings--and he was not in the least addicted to locking up his daughters. Her mother was a woman of useful plain sense, with a good temper, and, what is more remarkable, with a good... Click here to read the full description!

Introduction

Folklore, legends, myths and fairy tales have followed childhood through the ages, for every healthy youngster has a wholesome and instinctive love for stories fantastic, marvelous and manifestly unreal. The winged fairies of Grimm and Andersen have brought more happiness to childish hearts than all other human creations.

Yet the old time fairy tale, having served for generations, may now be classed as "historical" in the children's library; for the time has come for a series of newer "wonder tales" in which the stereotyped genie, dwarf and fairy are eliminated, together with all the horrible and blood-curdling incidents devised by their authors to point a fearsome moral to each tale. Modern education includes morality; therefore the modern child seeks only entertainment in its wonder tales and gladly dispenses with all disagreeable incident.

Having this thought in mind, the story of "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" was written solely to please children of today. It aspires to being a modernized fairy tale, in which the wonderment and joy are retained and the heartaches and nightmares are left out.

L. Frank Baum
Chicago, April, 1900.

THE WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ

1. The Cyclone

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.

PREFACE

THE CASE EBOOK OF SHERLOCK HOLMES

I fear that Mr. Sherlock Holmes may become like one of those popular tenors who, having outlived their time, are still tempted to make repeated farewell bows to their indulgent audiences. This must cease and he must go the way of all flesh, material or imaginary. One likes to think that there is some fantastic limbo for the children of imagination, some strange, impossible place where the beaux of Fielding may still make love to the belles of Richardson, where Scott's heroes still may strut, Dickens's delightful Cockneys still raise a laugh, and Thackeray's worldlings continue to carry on their reprehensible careers. Perhaps in some humble corner of such a Valhalla, Sherlock and his Watson may for a time find a place, while some more astute sleuth with some even less astute comrade may fill the stage which they have vacated.

His career has been a long one -- though it is possible to exaggerate it; decrepit gentlemen who approach me and declare that his adventures formed the reading of their boyhood do not meet the response from me which they seem to expect. One is not anxious to have one's personal dates handled so unkindly. As a matter of cold fact, Holmes made his debut in A Study in Scarlet and in The Sign of Four, two small booklets which appeared between 1887 and 1889. It was in 1891 that "A Scandal in Bohemia," the first of the long series of short stories, appeared in The Strand Magazine. The public... Click here to read the full description!

Chapter I

"TOM!"

No answer.

"TOM!"

No answer.

"What's gone with that boy, I wonder? You TOM!"

No answer.

The old lady pulled her spectacles down and looked over them about the room; then she put them up and looked out under them. She seldom or never looked through them for so small a thing as a boy; they were her state pair, the pride of her heart, and were built for "style," not service -- she could have seen through a pair of stove-lids just as well. She looked perplexed for a moment, and then said, not fiercely, but still loud enough for the furniture to hear:

"Well, I lay if I get hold of you I'll -- "

She did not finish, for by this time she was bending down and punching under the bed with the broom, and so she needed breath to punctuate the punches with. She resurrected nothing but the cat.

"I never did see the beat of that boy!"

She went to the open door and stood in it and looked out among the tomato vines and "jimpson" weeds that constituted the garden. No Tom. So she lifted up her voice at an angle calculated for distance and shouted:

"Y-o-u-u Tom!"

There was a slight noise behind her and she turned just in time to seize a small boy by the slack of his roundabout and arrest his flight.

"There! I might 'a' thought of that closet. What you been doing in there?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing! Look at your hands. And look at your mouth. What is that

Actus Primus. Scoena Prima.

Enter two Gentlemen.

1.Gent. You do not meet a man but Frownes.
Our bloods no more obey the Heauens
Then our Courtiers:
Still seeme, as do's the Kings

2 Gent. But what's the matter?
1. His daughter, and the heire of's kingdome (whom
He purpos'd to his wiues sole Sonne, a Widdow
That late he married) hath referr'd her selfe
Vnto a poore, but worthy Gentleman. She's wedded,
Her Husband banish'd; she imprison'd, all
Is outward sorrow, though I thinke the King
Be touch'd at very heart

2 None but the King?
1 He that hath lost her too: so is the Queene,
That most desir'd the Match. But not a Courtier,
Although they weare their faces to the bent
Of the Kings lookes, hath a heart that is not
Glad at the thing they scowle at

2 And why so?
1 He that hath miss'd the Princesse, is a thing
Too bad, for bad report: and he that hath her,
(I meane, that married her, alacke good man,
And therefore banish'd) is a Creature, such,
As to seeke through the Regions of the Earth
For one, his like; there would be something failing
In him, that should compare. I do not thinke,
So faire an Outward, and such stuffe Within
Endowes a man, but hee

2 You speake him farre

1 I do extend him (Sir) within himselfe,
Crush him together, rather then vnfold
His measure duly

2 What's his

Charles Dickens (1812-1870) is considered to be one of the greatest English novelists of the Victorian period. Dickens's works are characterized by attacks on social evils, injustice, and hypocrisy.

Charles Dickens was born in Landport, Hampshire on February 7, 1812. His father was a clerk in the navy pay office, who was well paid but often ended up in financial troubles. In 1814 Dickens moved to London, and then to Chatham, where he received some education. He worked in a blacking factory, Hungerford Market, London, while his family was in Marshalea debtor's prison in 1824).

In 1824-27 Dickens studied at Wellington House Academy, London, and at Mr. Dawson's school in 1827. From 1827 to 1828 he was a law office clerk, and then worked as a shorthand reporter at Doctor's Commons. He wrote for True Son (1830-32), Mirror of Parliament (1832-34) and the Morning Chronicle (1834-36). He was in the 1830s a contributor to the Monthly Magazine, and The Evening Chronicle and edited Bentley's Miscellany. In the 1840s Dickens founded Master Humphry's Clock and edited the London Daily News.

Dickens's career as a writer of fiction started in 1833 when his short stories and essays appeared in periodicals. His Sketches By Boz and The Pickwick Papers were published in 1836.In the same year he married the daughter of his friend George Hogarth, Catherine Hogarth.

The Pickwick Papers were stories about a group of rather odd individuals and their travels to

I was born in the year 1632, in the city of York, of a good family, though not of that country, my father being a foreigner of Bremen, who settled first at Hull. He got a good estate by merchandise, and leaving off his trade lived afterward at York, from whence he had married my mother, whose relations were named Robinson, a good family in that country, and from whom I was called Robinson Kreutznear; but by the usual corruption of words in England we are now called, nay, we call ourselves, and write our name, Crusoe, and so my companions always called me.

I had two elder brothers, one of which was lieutenant-colonel to an English regiment of foot in Flanders, formerly commanded by the famous Colonel Lockhart, and was killed at the battle near Dunkirk against the Spaniards; what became of my second brother I never knew, any more than my father and mother did know what was become of me.

Being the third son of the family, and not bred to any trade, my head began to be filled very early with rambling thoughts. My father, who was very ancient, had given me a competent share of learning, as far as house-education and a country free school generally goes, and designed me for the law, but I would be satisfied with nothing but going to sea; and my inclination to this led me so strongly against the will, nay, the commands, of my father, and against all the entreaties and persuasions of my mother and other friends, that there seemed to be something fatal in that