Excerpt: Chapter One. My father?s family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Philip, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip. So, I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip. I give Pirrip as my father?s family name, on the authority of his tombstone and my sister?Mrs. Joe Gargery, who married the blacksmith. As I never saw my father or my mother, and never saw any likeness of either of them (for their days were long bef...

Excerpt: There were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a plain face, on the throne of England; there were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a fair face, on the throne of France. In both countries it was clearer than crystal to the lords of the State preserves of loaves and fishes, that things in general were settled for ever.

Excerpt: Tu vois, ma bonne amie, que je te tiens parole, et que les bonnets et les pompons ne prennent pas tout mon temps; il m'en restera toujours pour toi. J'ai pourtant vu plus de parures dans cette seule journee que dans les quatre ans que nous avons passes ensemble; et je crois que la superbe Tanville aura plus de chagrin a ma premiere visite, ou je compte bien la demander, qu'elle n'a cru nous en faire toutes les fois qu'elle est venue nous voir in fiocchi. Maman m...

Excerpt: Chapter 1. The Bertolini. The Signora had no business to do it,? said Miss Bartlett, ?no business at all. She promised us south rooms with a view close together, instead of which here are north rooms, looking into a courtyard, and a long way apart. Oh, Lucy!? ?And a Cockney, besides!? said Lucy, who had been further saddened by the Signora?s unexpected accent. ?It might be London.? She looked at the two rows of English people who were sitting at the table; at th...

Sloan Foundation ; The Library of Congress

Osmania University ; Digital Library of India

Excerpt: Much adoe about Nothing; Actus Primus -- Scena Prima -- Enter Leonato Governour of Messina, Innogen his wife, Hero his daughter, and Beatrice his Neece, with a messenger. Leonato. I learne in this Letter, that Don Peter of Arragon, comes this night to Messina. Mess. He is very neere by this: he was not three Leagues off when I left him. Leon. How many Gentlemen have you lost in this action? Mess. But few of any sort, and none of name. Leon. A victorie is twice i...

Excerpt: A Room with a View by E.M. Forster.

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Excerpt: Chapter One. THE TRAIL OF THE MEAT. 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. There was a hint in it of laughter,...

Excerpt: At the close (let us say) of Queen Anne?s reign, when I was a boy at a private and preparatory school for young gentlemen, I remember the wiseacre of a master ordering us all, one night, to march into a little garden at the back of the house, and thence to proceed one by one into a tool or hen house (I was but a tender little thing just put into short clothes, and can?t exactly say whether the house was for tools or hens), and in that house to put our hands into...

Excerpt: TO MESSRS, COLE AND COX, POLICE OFFICERS. Gentlemen, in the volume now in your hands, the authors have touched upon that ugly devil of crime, with which it is your glory to have contended. It was a waste of ink to do so in a serious spirit. Let us dedicate our horror to acts of a more mingled strain, where crime preserves some features of nobility, and where reason and humanity can still relish the temptation. Horror, in this case, is due to Mr. Parnell: he sits...

Excerpt: Story of the Door. Mr. Utterson the lawyer was a man of a rugged countenance that was never lighted by a smile; cold, scanty and embarrassed in discourse; backward in sentiment; lean, long, dusty, dreary and yet somehow lovable. At friendly meetings, and when the wine was to his taste, something eminently human beaconed from his eye; something indeed which never found its way into his talk, but which spoke not only in these silent symbols of the after-dinner fac...

Excerpt: About Bunnies A hungry bunny once found the vegetable garden of a rich man who never, never, never ate vegetables. So the hungry bunny ate a cabbage, two heads of lettuce and three carrots. Then he went hop-hippity-hop right home.

Introduction: Along time ago, in a tall, gray old house in New York City, a father wrote a story in rhyme for the surprise and delight of his children when they should gather around him on Christmas morning.

Excerpt: THE YEAR 1400 opened with more than usual peacefulness in England. Only a few months before, Richard II weak, wicked, and treacherous had been dethroned, and Henry IV declared King in his stead. But it was only a seeming peacefulness, lasting but for a little while; for though King Henry proved himself a just and a merciful man as justice and mercy went with the men of iron of those days and though he did not care to shed blood needlessly, there were many noble ...

Excerpt: Three Blind Mice. Three Small Mice Three Small Mice Pined for some fum Pined for some fum They made up their minds to set out to roam Said they Tis dull to remain at home and all the luggage they took was a comb These three Small Mice.