Classic novella. According to Wikipedia: "The Cossacks is a short novel by Leo Tolstoy, published in 1863. The novel was acclaimed by Ivan Bunin as one of the finest in the language. In the story, Olenin is stationed in the Caucasus and leaves Moscow behind. While there, he slowly becomes enamored by the surroundings and despises his previous existence. ... Olenin soon finds his love growing for the surroundings and first falls in love with Maryanka, who is to be wed to Luka later in the story. He tries to stop this emotion and eventually convinces himself that he loves both Luka and Maryanka for their simplicity and decides that happiness can only come to a man who constantly gives to others with no thought of self-gratification... another Russian named Beletsky, who is still attached to the ways of Moscow, comes and partially corrupts Olenin’s ideals and convinces him through his actions to attempt to win Maryanka’s love. He approaches her several times and Luka hears of the possibility from a Cossack, and thus does not invite him to the betrothal party. Olenin spends the night with Eroshka but soon decides that he will not give up on the girl and attempts to win her heart again. He eventually, in a moment of passion, asks her to marry him, which she says she will answer soon. Luka, however, is severely wounded when he and a group of Cossacks go to confront a group of Chechens, including the brother of the man he killed earlier, who are trying to attack the village. Though the Chechens lose after the Cossacks take a cart to block their bullets, the brother of the slain Chechen manages to shoot Luka in the belly when he is close by. As Luka seems to be dying and is being cared for by village people, Olenin approaches Maryanka to ask her to marry him; she angrily refuses. He realizes that "his first impression of this woman's inaccessiblity had been perfectly correct."

Classic Russian novel. According to Wikipedia: "Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin (1799 - 1837) was a Russian Romantic author who is considered to be the greatest Russian poet and the founder of modern Russian literature. Pushkin pioneered the use of vernacular speech in his poems and plays, creating a style of storytelling -- mixing drama, romance, and satire-- associated with Russian literature ever since and greatly influencing later Russian writers."

This book-collection file includes 15 books: The Adventures of Gerard; Beyond the City; The Captain of the Polestar and Other Stories; A Desert Drama, Tragedy of the Korosko; The Doings of Raffles Haw; A Duet With Occasional Chorus; The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard; The Firm of Girdlestone; The Green Flag; The Last Galley. Impressions and Tales; The Mystery of Cloomber; The Parasite; The Stark Munro Letters; Tales of Terror and Mystery; and Through the Magic Door. According to Wikipedia: "Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle, DL (22 May 1859 – 7 July 1930) was an author most noted for his stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes, which are generally considered a major innovation in the field of crime fiction, and for the adventures of Professor Challenger. He was a prolific writer whose other works include science fiction stories, historical novels, plays and romances, poetry, and non-fiction."

This edition, with 114 color illustrations, was first published in 1919. According to Wikipedia: "Aesop (ca. 620-564 BC), known for the genre of fables ascribed to him, was by tradition born a slave and was a contemporary of Croesus and Solon in the mid-sixth century BC in ancient Greece... The body of work identified as Aesop's Fables was transmitted by a series of later authors writing in both Greek and Latin. Demetrius of Phalerum (ca. 350-ca. 280 BC) made a collection in ten books, probably in prose (Lopson Aisopeion sunagogai) for the use of orators, which has been lost. Next appeared an edition in elegiac verse, cited by the Suda, but the author's name is unknown. Phaedrus, a freedman of Augustus, rendered the fables into Latin. Babrius turned the fables into Greek choliambics in the earlier part of the 3rd century A.D. Another 3rd century author, Titianus, rendered the fables in prose, now lost. Avianus (of uncertain date, perhaps the 4th century) translated 42 of the fables into Latin elegiacs. The 4th century grammarian Dositheus Magister also made a collection of Aesop's Fables, now lost. Aesop's Fables continued to be revised and translated through the ensuing centuries, with the addition of material from other cultures, so that the fables known today in some cases bear little relation to the original fables of Aesop. With a surge in scholarly interest in Aesop and Aesopic fable beginning toward the end of the 20th century, some attempt has been made to determine the nature and content of the very earliest fables which may be most closely linked to the historic Aesop... Milo Winter (August 7, 1888 – August 15, 1956) was a well known book illustrator, who produced works for editions of Aesop's Fables, Arabian Nights, Alice in Wonderland, Gulliver's Travels, Tanglewood Tales (1913) and others. He was born in Princeton, Illinois and trained at Chicago’s School of the Art Institute. He lived in Chicago until the early 1950s, when he moved to New York City. From 1947 to 1949, he was the art editor of Childcraft books and from 1949, was the art editor in the film strip division of Silver Burdett Company."

Beide Teile von Goethes Faust, auf Deutsch. Nach Wikipedia: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 - 1832) war ein deutscher Schriftsteller und laut George Eliot "Deutschlands gr??ter Literat ... und der letzte wahre Universalgelehrte, der auf der Erde wandelte". [2] Goethes Werke erstrecken sich über die Felder von Poesie, Drama, Literatur, Theologie, Humanismus und Wissenschaft. Goethes Hauptwerk, das als einer der H?hepunkte der Weltliteratur gefeiert wird, ist das zweiteilige Drama Faust. [3] Zu Goethes anderen bekannten literarischen Werken geh?ren seine zahlreichen Gedichte, der Bildungsroman Wilhelm Meisters Lehramt und der Briefroman Die Leiden des jungen Werther. "

Classic adventure novel by Jules Verne. According to Wikipedia: "Jules Gabriel Verne (February 8, 1828 – March 24, 1905) was a French author who pioneered the science-fiction genre. He is best known for his novels Journey to the Center of the Earth (written in 1864), From the Earth to the Moon (1865), Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1869–1870), and Around the World in Eighty Days (1873). Verne wrote about space, air, and underwater travel before navigable aircraft and practical submarines were invented, and before any means of space travel had been devised. Consequently he is often referred to as the "Father of science fiction", along with H. G. Wells. Verne is the second most translated author of all time, only behind Agatha Christie with 4162 translations..."

Roman d'aventure classique, en fran?ais original. Selon Wikipédia: "Jules Gabriel Verne (8 février 1828 - 24 mars 1905) Quel auteur fran?ais pionnier du genre de la science-fiction." Il est surtout connu pour ses romans tels que Voyage au centre de la terre (1864), Vingt mille lieues sous la mer (1870), et autour du monde dans quatre-vingt jours (1873). Verne a écrit au sujet de l'espace, de l'air, et des sous-marins ont été inventés Verne, avec HG Wells, est souvent surnommé le ?père de la science-fiction?.

Roman d'aventure classique, en fran?ais original. Selon Wikipédia: ?Jules Gabriel Verne (8 février 1828 - 24 mars 1905) est un auteur fran?ais qui a été le pionnier du genre de la science-fiction, notamment des romans comme Voyage au centre de la terre (1864), Vingt mille lieues sous la mer (1870) et autour du monde en quatre-vingts jours (1873) Verne a écrit sur l'espace, l'air et les voyages sous-marins avant que les voyages aériens et les sous-marins pratiques soient inventés. Selon Index Translationum, il est le troisième auteur le plus traduit au monde, certains de ses livres ont été transformés en films ... Verne, avec HG Wells, est souvent surnommé le ?père de la science-fiction?

Classic adventure novel. According to Wikipedia: "Edward Sylvester Ellis (April 11, 1840 – June 20, 1916) was an American author who was born in Ohio and died at Cliff Island, Maine. Ellis was a teacher, school administrator, and journalist, but his most notable work was that that he performed as author of hundreds of dime novels that he produced under his name and a number of noms de plume. Notable works by Ellis include The Huge Hunter, or the Steam Man of the Prairies and Seth Jones, or the Captives of the Frontier. Internationally, Edward S. Ellis is probably best known for his Deerhunter novels widely read by young boys up to the 1950s (together with works by James Fenimore Cooper and Karl May). In the mid-1880s, after a fiction-writing career of some thirty years, Ellis eventually turned his pen to more serious works of biography, history, and persuasive writing."

Classic adventure novel. According to Wikipedia: "Edward Sylvester Ellis (April 11, 1840 – June 20, 1916) was an American author who was born in Ohio and died at Cliff Island, Maine. Ellis was a teacher, school administrator, and journalist, but his most notable work was that that he performed as author of hundreds of dime novels that he produced under his name and a number of noms de plume. Notable works by Ellis include The Huge Hunter, or the Steam Man of the Prairies and Seth Jones, or the Captives of the Frontier. Internationally, Edward S. Ellis is probably best known for his Deerhunter novels widely read by young boys up to the 1950s (together with works by James Fenimore Cooper and Karl May). In the mid-1880s, after a fiction-writing career of some thirty years, Ellis eventually turned his pen to more serious works of biography, history, and persuasive writing."

Classic adventure novel. According to Wikipedia: "Edward Sylvester Ellis (April 11, 1840 – June 20, 1916) was an American author who was born in Ohio and died at Cliff Island, Maine. Ellis was a teacher, school administrator, and journalist, but his most notable work was that that he performed as author of hundreds of dime novels that he produced under his name and a number of noms de plume. Notable works by Ellis include The Huge Hunter, or the Steam Man of the Prairies and Seth Jones, or the Captives of the Frontier. Internationally, Edward S. Ellis is probably best known for his Deerhunter novels widely read by young boys up to the 1950s (together with works by James Fenimore Cooper and Karl May). In the mid-1880s, after a fiction-writing career of some thirty years, Ellis eventually turned his pen to more serious works of biography, history, and persuasive writing."

Classic adventure novel. According to Wikipedia: "Jules Gabriel Verne (February 8, 1828-March 24, 1905) was a French author who pioneered the science-fiction genre. He is best known for novels such as Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864), Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea (1870), and Around the World in Eighty Days (1873). Verne wrote about space, air, and underwater travel before air travel and practical submarines were invented, and before practical means of space travel had been devised. He is the third most translated author in the world, according to Index Translationum. Some of his books have been made into films. Verne, along with H. G. Wells, is often popularly referred to as the "Father of Science Fiction"

– Itt Zachary Horner beszél! Miben segíthetek? – Jó estét kívánunk Zachary James Horner! A Brit Szerencsejáték Sz?vetség ?r?mmel értesíti ?nt, hogy megnyerte a British Bonus f?nyereményét, azaz nyolcvan?tmillió fontot. – A rohadt élet! – d?bbent meg a fiatalember a hír hallatán, majd felülve az ágyán, nagy ?r?mmel folytatta – Ez most azt jelenti, hogy eltalálták mind a négy számot, amit megjátszottam? – Igen, tisztelt uram! Ez a legmagasabb ?sszeg, amit ember eddig valaha nyert. Nyereményét bármikor átveheti a londoni k?zpontunkban is személyesen, de akár bankszámlára is elutalhatjuk ?nnek.

A few years ago, while visiting or, rather, rummaging about Notre-Dame, the author of this book found, in an obscure nook of one of the towers, the following word, engraved by hand upon the wall:— ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ANArKH. These Greek capitals, black with age, and quite deeply graven in the stone, with I know not what signs peculiar to Gothic caligraphy imprinted upon their forms and upon their attitudes, as though with the purpose of revealing that it had been a hand of the Middle Ages which had inscribed them there, and especially the fatal and melancholy meaning contained in them, struck the author deeply. He questioned himself; he sought to divine who could have been that soul in torment which had not been willing to quit this world without leaving this stigma of crime or unhappiness upon the brow of the ancient church. Afterwards, the wall was whitewashed or scraped down, I know not which, and the inscription disappeared. For it is thus that people have been in the habit of proceeding with the marvellous churches of the Middle Ages for the last two hundred years. Mutilations come to them from every quarter, from within as well as from without. The priest whitewashes them, the archdeacon scrapes them down; then the populace arrives and demolishes them. Thus, with the exception of the fragile memory which the author of this book here consecrates to it, there remains to-day nothing whatever of the mysterious word engraved within the gloomy tower of Notre-Dame,—nothing of the destiny which it so sadly summed up. The man who wrote that word upon the wall disappeared from the midst of the generations of man many centuries ago; the word, in its turn, has been effaced from the wall of the church; the church will, perhaps, itself soon disappear from the face of the earth. It is upon this word that this book is founded.

Anna Karenina is a novel by the Russian writer Leon Tolstoy, published in serial installments from 1873 to 1877 in the periodical The Russian Messenger. Tolstoy clashed with editor Mikhail Katkov over political issues that arose in the final installment (Tolstoy's unpopular views of volunteers going to Serbia); therefore, the novel's first complete appearance was in book form. Widely regarded as a pinnacle in realist fiction, Tolstoy considered Anna Karenina his first true novel, when he came to consider War and Peace to be more than a novel. Fyodor Dostoevsky declared it to be "flawless as a work of art". His opinion was shared by Vladimir Nabokov, who especially admired "the flawless magic of Tolstoy's style", and by William Faulkner, who described the novel as "the best ever written". The novel is currently enjoying popularity, as demonstrated by a recent poll of 125 contemporary authors by J. Peder Zane, published in 2007 in "The Top Ten" in Time, which declared that Anna Karenina is the "greatest novel ever written" "..The novel opens with a scene introducing Prince Stepan Arkadyevich Oblonsky ("Stiva"), a Moscow aristocrat and civil servant who has been unfaithful to his wife Darya Alexandrovna ("Dolly"). Dolly has discovered his affair with the family's governess, and the household and family are in turmoil. Stiva's affair and his reaction to his wife's distress show an amorous personality that he cannot seem to suppress. In the midst of the turmoil, Stiva informs the household that his married sister, Anna Arkadyevna Karenina, is coming to visit from Saint Petersburg. Meanwhile, Stiva's childhood friend, Konstantin Dmitrievich Levin ("Kostya"), arrives in Moscow with the aim of proposing to Dolly's youngest sister, Princess Katerina Alexandrovna Shcherbatskaya ("Kitty"). Levin is a passionate, restless, but shy aristocratic landowner who, unlike his Moscow friends, chooses to live in the country on his large estate. He discovers that Kitty is also being pursued by Count Alexei Kirillovich Vronsky, an army officer. Whilst at the railway station to meet Anna, Stiva bumps into Vronsky who is there to meet his mother, the Countess Vronskaya. Anna and Vronskaya have traveled and talked together in the same carriage. As the family members are reunited, and Vronsky sees Anna for the first time, a railway worker accidentally falls in front of a train and is killed. Anna interprets this as an "evil omen." Vronsky, however, is infatuated with her. Anna is uneasy about leaving her young son, Sergei ("Seryozha"), alone for the first time.At the Oblonsky home, Anna talks openly and emotionally to Dolly about Stiva's affair and convinces her that Stiva still loves her despite the infidelity. Dolly is moved by Anna's speeches and decides to forgive Stiva. Kitty, who comes to visit Dolly and Anna, is just eighteen. In her first season as a debutante, she is expected to make an excellent match with a man of her social standing. Vronsky has been paying her considerable attention, and she expects to dance with him at a ball that evening. Kitty is very struck by Anna's beauty and personality and becomes infatuated with her just as Vronsky is. When Levin proposes to Kitty at her home, she clumsily turns him down, believing she is in love with Vronsky and that he will propose to her, and encouraged to do so by her mother who believes Vronsky would be a better match.At the big ball Kitty expects to hear something definitive from Vronsky, but he dances with Anna, choosing her as a partner over a shocked and heartbroken Kitty. Levin, crushed by Kitty's refusal, returns to his estate, abandoning any hope of marriage. Anna returns to her husband Alexei Alexandrovich Karenin, a senior government official, and her son Seryozha in Saint Petersburg. On seeing her husband for the first time since her encounter with Vronsky, Anna realises that she finds him unattractive, though she tells herself he is a good man.." ? ABOUT AUTHOR: Tolstoy was born in Yasnaya Polyana, the family estate in the Tula region of Russia. The Tolstoys were a well-known family of old Russian nobility. He was the fourth of five children of Count Nikolai Ilyich Tolstoy, a veteran of the Patriotic War of 1812, and Countess Mariya Tolstaya (Volkonskaya).

The story starts in London on Tuesday, October 1, 1872. Fogg is a rich English gentleman and bachelor living in solitude at Number 7 Savile Row, Burlington Gardens. Despite his wealth, which is ?40,000 (roughly ?3,020,000 today), Fogg, whose countenance is described as "repose in action", lives a modest life with habits carried out with mathematical precision. Very little can be said about his social life other than that he is a member of the Reform Club. Having dismissed his former valet, James Foster, for bringing him shaving water at 84 °F (29 °C) instead of 86 °F (30 °C), Fogg hires a Frenchman by the name of Jean Passepartout, who is about 30 years old, as a replacement. Later on that day, in the Reform Club, Fogg gets involved in an argument over an article in The Daily Telegraph, stating that with the opening of a new railway section in India, it is now possible to travel around the world in 80 days. He accepts a wager for ?20,000 (roughly ?1,510,000 today) from his fellow club members, which he will receive if he makes it around the world in 80 days. Accompanied by Passepartout, he leaves London by train at 8:45 P.M. on Wednesday, October 2, 1872, and thus is due back at the Reform Club at the same time 80 days later, Saturday, December 21, 1872. Mr. Phileas Fogg lived, in 1872, at No. 7, Saville Row, Burlington Gardens, the house in which Sheridan died in 1814. He was one of the most noticeable members of the Reform Club, though he seemed always to avoid attracting attention; an enigmatical personage, about whom little was known, except that he was a polished man of the world. People said that he resembled Byron—at least that his head was Byronic; but he was a bearded, tranquil Byron, who might live on a thousand years without growing old. Certainly an Englishman, it was more doubtful whether Phileas Fogg was a Londoner. He was never seen on 'Change, nor at the Bank, nor in the counting-rooms of the "City"; no ships ever came into London docks of which he was the owner; he had no public employment; he had never been entered at any of the Inns of Court, either at the Temple, or Lincoln's Inn, or Gray's Inn; nor had his voice ever resounded in the Court of Chancery, or in the Exchequer, or the Queen's Bench, or the Ecclesiastical Courts. He certainly was not a manufacturer; nor was he a merchant or a gentleman farmer. His name was strange to the scientific and learned societies, and he never was known to take part in the sage deliberations of the Royal Institution or the London Institution, the Artisan's Association, or the Institution of Arts and Sciences. He belonged, in fact, to none of the numerous societies which swarm in the English capital, from the Harmonic to that of the Entomologists, founded mainly for the purpose of abolishing pernicious insects. Phileas Fogg was a member of the Reform, and that was all. The way in which he got admission to this exclusive club was simple enough. He was recommended by the Barings, with whom he had an open credit. His cheques were regularly paid at sight from his account current, which was always flush. Was Phileas Fogg rich? Undoubtedly. But those who knew him best could not imagine how he had made his fortune, and Mr. Fogg was the last person to whom to apply for the information. He was not lavish, nor, on the contrary, avaricious; for, whenever he knew that money was needed for a noble, useful, or benevolent purpose, he supplied it quietly and sometimes anonymously. He was, in short, the least communicative of men. He talked very little, and seemed all the more mysterious for his taciturn manner. His daily habits were quite open to observation; but whatever he did was so exactly the same thing that he had always done before, that the wits of the curious were fairly puzzled. ABOUT AUTHOR: Jules Gabriel Verne (1828 – 1905) was a French novelist, poet, and playwright best known for his adventure novels and his profound influence on the literary genre of science fiction. Born to bourgeois parents in the seaport of Nantes, Verne was trained to follow in his father's footsteps as a lawyer, but quit the profession early in life to write for magazines and the stage. His collaboration with the publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel led to the creation of the Voyages Extraordinaires, a widely popular series of scrupulously researched adventure novels including Journey to the Center of the Earth, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, and Around the World in Eighty Days.

"BLEAK HOUSE" is a novel by Charles Dickens, published in 20 monthly instalments between March 1852 and September 1853. It is held to be one of Dickens's finest novels, containing one of the most vast, complex and engaging arrays of minor characters and sub-plots in his entire canon. The story is told partly by the novel's heroine, Esther Summerson, and partly by a mostly omniscient narrator. Memorable characters include the menacing lawyer Tulkinghorn, the friendly but depressive John Jarndyce, and the childish and disingenuous Harold Skimpole, as well as the likeable but imprudent Richard Carstone. At the novel's core is long-running litigation in England's Court of Chancery, Jarndyce v Jarndyce, which has far-reaching consequences for all involved. This case revolves around a testator who apparently made several wills. The litigation, which already has taken many years and consumed between 60,000 and 70,000 in court costs, is emblematic of the failure of Chancery. Though Chancery lawyers and judges criticised Dickens's portrait of Chancery as exaggerated and unmerited, his novel helped to spur an ongoing movement that culminated in the enactment of legal reform in the 1870s. In fact, Dickens was writing just as Chancery was reforming itself, with the Six Clerks and Masters mentioned in Chapter One abolished in 1842 and 1852 respectively: the need for further reform was being widely debated. These facts raise an issue as to when Bleak House is actually set. Technically it must be before 1842, and at least some of his readers at the time would have been aware of this. However, there is some question as to whether this timeframe is consistent with the themes of the novel. The English legal historian Sir William Holdsworth set the action in 1827. Characters in Bleak House: As usual, Dickens drew upon many real people and places but imaginatively transformed them in his novel. Hortense is based on the Swiss maid and murderess Maria Manning. The "telescopic philanthropist" Mrs Jellyby, who pursues distant projects at the expense of her duty to her own family, is a criticism of women activists like Caroline Chisholm. The "childlike" but ultimately amoral character Harold Skimpole is commonly regarded as a portrait of Leigh Hunt. "Dickens wrote in a letter of 25 September 1853, 'I suppose he is the most exact portrait that was ever painted in words! ... It is an absolute reproduction of a real man'; and a contemporary critic commented, 'I recognized Skimpole instantaneously; ... and so did every person whom I talked with about it who had ever had Leigh Hunt's acquaintance.'"[2] G. K. Chesterton suggested that Dickens "may never once have had the unfriendly thought, 'Suppose Hunt behaved like a rascal!'; he may have only had the fanciful thought, 'Suppose a rascal behaved like Hunt!'". Mr Jarndyce's friend Mr Boythorn is based on the writer Walter Savage Landor. The novel also includes one of the first detectives in English fiction, Inspector Bucket. This character is probably based on Inspector Charles Frederick Field of the then recently formed Detective Department at Scotland Yard. Dickens wrote several journalistic pieces about the Inspector and the work of the detectives in Household Words, his weekly periodical in which he also published articles attacking the Chancery system. The Jarndyce and Jarndyce case itself has reminded many readers of the thirty-year Chancery case over Charlotte Smith's father-in-law's will. Major characters: Esther Summerson – the heroine of the story, and one of its two narrators (Dickens's only female narrator), raised as an orphan because the identity of her parents is unknown. At first, it seems probable that her guardian, John Jarndyce, is her father because he provides for her. This, however, he disavows shortly after she comes to live under his roof.

Kedves Feln?ttek! ?Ez a k?nyv Nektek készült! T?rténetünk a XXXIV. században játszódik. Egy királyi család nem épp szokványos életén keresztül betekintést nyerhetünk a j?v?be. ??j faj k?rvonalazódik, aminek fejl?dése megállíthatatlan. ?Unalmasnak t?n?, idillikus életüket felváltja a S?tétség er?ivel folytatott harc, aminek kimenetele végleg meghatározza a F?ld bolygó sorsát...

The history of our English translations of "Don Quixote" is instructive. Shelton's, the first in any language, was made, apparently, about 1608, but not published till 1612. This of course was only the First Part. It has been asserted that the Second, published in 1620, is not the work of Shelton, but there is nothing to support the assertion save the fact that it has less spirit, less of what we generally understand by "go," about it than the first, which would be only natural if the first were the work of a young man writing currente calamo, and the second that of a middle-aged man writing for a bookseller. On the other hand, it is closer and more literal, the style is the same, the very same translations, or mistranslations, occur in it, and it is extremely unlikely that a new translator would, by suppressing his name, have allowed Shelton to carry off the credit. In 1687 John Phillips, Milton's nephew, produced a "Don Quixote" "made English," he says, "according to the humour of our modern language." His "Quixote" is not so much a translation as a travesty, and a travesty that for coarseness, vulgarity, and buffoonery is almost unexampled even in the literature of that day. But it is, after all, the humour of "Don Quixote" that distinguishes it from all other books of the romance kind. It is this that makes it, as one of the most judicial-minded of modern critics calls it, "the best novel in the world beyond all comparison." It is its varied humour, ranging from broad farce to comedy as subtle as Shakespeare's or Moliere's that has naturalised it in every country where there are readers, and made it a classic in every language that has a literature.

FIRE MOUNTAIN IS "A THRILLING SEA STORY BY "NORMAN SPRINGER", AUTHOR OF "THE BLOOD SHIP" Years. Bright, aslant eyes, and a suave and ever-ready smile that broke immediately Martin met his gaze. "You will be so good as to inform the honorable that Dr. Ichi is here?" he asked in precise and stilted voice. Ever the same—the noiseless entry, the quietly spoken request for the lawyer. Martin repressed a flash of irritation; the little Japanese, with his uncanny soft-footedness and stereotyped address, got upon his nerves. However, his orders were explicit; Mr. Smatt would see Dr. Ichi without delay or preliminary, whenever Dr. Ichi favored the office with a visit. It was already the third visit that day, but orders were orders. So, Martin inclined his head toward the door of Smatt's private office. The Japanese crossed the room. He bowed to Martin, as stately a bow as if Martin were also an "honorable," instead of a poor devil of a law clerk; then, noiselessly as he had entered the outer office, Dr. Ichi disappeared within Smatt's sanctum. Martin turned to his window again. But his bright day dream was fled, and he could not conjure it back again. The view was without charm. His thoughts, despite himself, persisted in centering upon the dapper little figure now closeted with his employer. The dandified Jap aroused Martin's interest. What manner of client was this Dr. Ichi? Martin had not seen a single scrap of paper, nor had Smatt dropped a single hint, concerning the case. It was mysterious! Martin was not an overly curious chap, but he was human. It was another of Smatt's secret cases, thought Martin. Another token of those hidden activities of the old vulture, which he sensed, but did not know about. For, though Martin attended to the routine work, though his duties were responsible—Smatt specialized and was prominent in maritime law—still Martin knew he did not enjoy his employer's complete confidence. Much of Smatt's time was taken up with cases Martin knew nothing about, with clients who appeared to shun the daylight of the courts. The Nippon Trading Company, for instance! Martin knew Smatt was interested in a company of that name—a strange company, that apparently conducted business without using the mails. And there was business between Ichi and Smatt—money, or Smatt would have nothing to do with it. The mystery aroused Martin's dormant curiosity. But all his speculation was pointless. Martin bethought himself of the marine affidavit lying uncompleted upon his desk. He turned from the window with the intention of applying himself to that task—and he discovered the office to have a second visitor. Another unusual figure who possessed the penchant for surreptitious entry. He observed the fellow in the very act of closing the office door.

According to Wikipedia: "Theodore Herman Albert Dreiser (August 27, 1871 – December 28, 1945) was an American novelist and journalist. He pioneered the naturalist school and is known for portraying characters whose value lies not in their moral code, but in their persistence against all obstacles, and literary situations that more closely resemble studies of nature than tales of choice and agency... His second novel, Jennie Gerhardt, was published in 1911. Many of Dreiser's subsequent novels dealt with social inequality. His first commercial success was An American Tragedy (1925), which was made into a film in 1931 and again in 1951."