George Grossmith

It was one dark, dank, dreary, dismal night in February, 1888 (I believe that is the way to commence a book, no matter what the subject be), when the present writer might have been seen standing, with other gentlemen, in a sombre dining-room brilliantly illuminated with one ceiling-lamp buried in a deep red shade. We were standing round the dining-room table, each with a dinner-napkin in the left hand; while the right hand was occupied in moving back chairs, to permit of the departure of the ladies for the drawing-room.

We are not aware that the infancy of Vivian Grey was distinguished by any extraordinary incident. The solicitude of the most affectionate of mothers and the care of the most attentive of nurses did their best to injure an excellent constitution.

1915. Written by the author of Phantom of the Opera,this tale takes us to Peru where Dick Montgomery hopes to marry his fiance, Maria-Teresa de la Torre, the daughter of a Spanish marquis. Because of their disrespectful manner, Maria-Teresa discharges a group of Quichua Indians working in the household, including Huascar. It is heard that the Indians have found an Incan king and are going to celebrate an ancient ceremony wherein a virgin bride is sacrificed to the Sun King. Maria-Teresa is the chosen victim and is kidnapped. Dick and Maria-Teresa's father attempt to save her, but are unsuccessful. Huascar comes to them, saying he will save Maria-Teresa, but is he to be trusted? Left with no choice, they take Huascar at his word, and the rescue begins.

The first ray of light which illumines the gloom, and converts into a dazzling brilliancy that obscurity in which the earlier history of the public career of the immortal Pickwick would appear to be involved, is derived from the perusal of the following entry in the Transactions of the Pickwick Club, which the editor of these papers feels the highest pleasure in laying before his readers, as a proof of the careful attention, indefatigable assiduity, and nice discrimination, with which his search among the multifarious documents confided to him has been conducted.

1863. Braddon is one of the most successful of the Victorian sensation novelists. Aurora Floyd follows the story of the heroine of the same name, who has left France to escape a checkered past. Aurora gains the hearts of two men, Talbot Bulstrode and John Mellish. Aurora warns off Bulstrode, who then marries the tenderhearted Lucy, but Mellish perseveres in winning her heart and marrying her. In due course, her hidden secret emerges and as she wrestles with her guilt her husband begins to suspect that she is concealing a secret. See other Braddon titles available from Kessinger Publishing.

It is very seldom that mere ordinary people like John and myself secure ancestral halls for the summer. A colonial mansion, a hereditary estate, I would say a haunted house, and reach the height of romantic felicity—but that would be asking too much of fate!

A dead and gone wag called the street "Fashion Street," and most of the people who live in it do not even see the joke. If it could exchange names with "Rotten Row, both places would be more appropriately designated. It is a dull, squalid, narrow thoroughfare in the East End of London, connecting Spitalfields with Whitechapel, and branching off in blind alleys. In the days when little Esther Ansell trudged its unclean pavements, its extremities were within earshot of the blasphemies from some of the vilest quarters and filthiest rookeries in the capital of the civilized world. Some of these clotted spiders'-webs have since been swept away by the besom of the social reformer, and the spiders have scurried off into darker crannies.

“Stranger than the tales of the Arabian Nights—indeed, almost Munchausen-like in its seemingly improbable character is the tale I am about to give you in truth,” said Captain Nicodemus Beere as he hitched up his trowsers and shifted his quid.

This classic of scientific reporting by English chemist Robert Boyle, first published in 1661, is the best known of his many works. In this volume, Boyle defines the term "element," asserting that all natural phenomena can be explained by the motion and organization of primary particles. 1911 edition.

To Lionel Phillips Time, they say, must the best of us capture, And travel and battle and gems and gold No more can kindle the ancient rapture, For even the youngest of hearts grows old. But in you, I think, the boy is not over; So take this medley of ways and wars As the gift of a friend and a fellow-lover Of the fairest country under the stars. J. B.

The mud-sills of this book are hewn from the presupposition that the person who reads it has not only the essentially necessary equipment to do his own thinking, but also a more or less practiced habit of doing it. It is upon such foundation the superstructure of this volume was built. It is written in the hope of promoting, or provoking, thought on certain subjects, along certain lines—not to create or school thinkers.