MORE than a thousand years have rolled away since a castle looked down cheerfully from a height amid the Franconian plains into the well-watered Kinzig Valley, with its pleasant villages and towns.?It belonged to the powerful Swabian duke Frederick of Hohenstaufen, whose young and valiant son loved this the best of all his father's proud castles, and often left his uncle's splendid palace to hunt in its forests, or to look down from its lofty oriel window on the blooming plain below.??His father and uncle indeed missed him sadly. His clear blue eye, and the cheerful expression of his noble countenance, seemed to the two grave and war-weary men so gladdening to look upon, that they were always unwilling to let him leave them.??But the young Frederick used to beg them so earnestly to grant him the freedom of the forest for just this once, that father and uncle smilingly granted him permission, though "this once" was often repeated..

The story is written in first person. It depicts the main character going outside Hampden and finding a special tree. The tree makes him day dream about a big temple in a land with three suns. The temple was half-violet, half-blue. Some shadows attracted him into the inside. He thought he saw three flaming eyes watching him and he shouted twice and the vision was gone.

Then I was a little girl, which is now a good many years ago, there came to spend some time with us a cousin who had been brought up in Germany. ??She was almost grown-up—to me, a child of six or seven, she seemed quite grown-up; in reality, she was, I suppose, about fifteen or sixteen. She was a bright, kind, good-natured girl, very anxious to please and amuse her little English cousins, especially me, as I was the only girl. ??But she had not had much to do with small children; above all, delicate children, and she was so strong and hearty herself that she did not understand anything about nervous fears and fancies.

"The Strange High House in the Mist" is a short story by H. P. Lovecraft. Written on November 9, 1926, it was first published in the October 1931 issue of Weird Tales. It concerns a character traveling to the titular house which is perched on the top of cliff which seems inaccessible both by land and sea, yet is apparently inhabited. Thomas Olney, a "philosopher" visiting the town of Kingsport, Massachusetts with his family, is intrigued by a strange house on a cliff overlooking the ocean. It is unaccountably high and old and the locals have a generations-long dread of the place which no one is known to have visited.

"The Statement of Randolph Carter" is a short story by H. P. Lovecraft. Written December 1919, it was first published in The Vagrant, May 1920. It tells of a traumatic event in the life of Randolph Carter, a student of the occult loosely representing Lovecraft himself. It is the first story in which Carter appears and is part of Lovecraft's Dream Cycle.

Many ages ago in North America there was no spring or summer or autumn, but only winter all the time; there were no forests or fields or flowers, but only ice and snow, which stretched from the Arctic Ocean to Maryland. Sometimes the climate would grow a little warmer, and then the great glaciers would shrink toward the north, and then again it would grow cold, while the ice crept southward; but finally it became warmer and warmer until all the southern part of the country was quite free from the ice and snow, which could then only be seen, as it is now, in the Polar regions.??Ages and ages after this, grass and trees began to ap-pear, and at last great forests covered the land, and over the fields and through the woods gigantic animals roved—strange and terrible-looking beasts, larger than any animal now living, and very fierce and strong. Among these were the mammoth and mastodon, which were so strong and ferocious that it would take hundreds of men to hunt and kill them. These great animals would go trampling through the forests, breaking down the trees and crushing the grass and flowers under their feet, or rush over the fields in pursuit of their prey, making such dreadful, threatening noises that all the other animals would flee before them, just as now the more timid animals flee from the lion or rhinoceros. ??Sometimes they would rush or be driven by men into swamps and marshes, where their great weight would sink them down so deep into the mud that they could not lift themselves out again, and then, they would die of starvation or be killed by the arrows of the men who were hunting them.??Besides these mammoths and mastodons there were other animals living in North America at that time, very different from those that are found here now. ?

"The Shunned House" is a horror fiction novelette by American author H. P. Lovecraft, written on October 16–19, 1924. It was first published in the October 1937 issue of Weird Tales. The Shunned House of the title is based on an actual house in Providence, Rhode Island, built around 1763 and still standing at 135 Benefit Street. Lovecraft was familiar with the house because his aunt Lillian Clark lived there in 1919-20 as a companion to Mrs. H. C. Babbit. However, it was another house in Elizabeth, New Jersey that actually compelled Lovecraft to write the story.

So long a time had passed that Dorothy C. had grown to be what father John called "a baker's dozen of years old"; and upon another spring morning, as fair as that when she first came to them, the girl was out upon the marble steps, scrubbing away most vigorously. The task was known locally as "doing her front," and if one wishes to be considerable respectable, in Baltimore, one's "front" must be done every day. On Saturdays the entire marble facing of the basement must also be polished; but "pernickity" Mrs. Chester was known to her neighbors as such a forehanded housekeeper that she had her Saturday's work done on Friday, if this were possible.??Now this was Friday and chanced to be a school holiday; so Dorothy had been set to the week-end task, which she hated; and therefore she put all the more energy into it, the sooner to have done with it, meanwhile singing at the top of her voice. Then, when the postman came round the corner of the block, she paused in her singing to stare at him for one brief instant. The next she had pitched her voice a few notes higher still, and it was her song that greeted her father's ears and set him smiling in his old familiar fashion. ??Unfortunately, he had not been smiling when she first perceived him and there had been a little catch in her tones as she resumed her song. Each was trying to deceive the other and each pretending that nothing of the sort was happening.??"Heigho, my child! At it again, giving the steps a more tombstone effect? Well, since it's the fashion—go ahead!"??"I wish the man, or men, who first thought of putting scrubby-steps before people's houses had them all to clean himself! Hateful old thing!"

Lightning flashes. Another child disappears... ? Zorka Circus’s big top roars with laughter and cheers, but when it moves on, children vanish. ? Circus Security Chief Rurik suspects a killer hides among the performers, but they close ranks—they’ve always viewed lightning-scarred Rurik as the monster. He must find the culprit before anyone else disappears and his home is destroyed by the murders. ? Into Zorka Circus comes the Skomori clan, despised as gravedigging ghouls. A one-day truce allows bloodwalker Sylvie to marry. Instead, she finds a body. Alerting others will defy her clan’s strict code, break the truce, and leave her an outcast. ? When more bodies turn up, the killer's trail becomes impossible to ignore. Rurik and Sylvie must follow the clues—even if they lead to something unimaginable… “...captivating shocker... ” - Publishers Weekly

Prepare for an ocean of tales! ? Imagination comes alive in this collection of stories. From the struggles of everyday life to the far reaches of outer space, these tales are sure to delight. ? So come aboard and share the adventure!

Dave and his mum are all set to take a train when there is an announcement that the next train heads to a strange destination, Wonderland.? Mum goes to make an enquiry?and Dave takes the train by himself. On the train he find a magic shoes that?takes him on an adventure which he was not fully prepared for.

Single father Kevin O’Donnell would do anything to give his daughter Holly a stable life—including leave the Air Force and take a job working at Knight and Day Flight Tours in charming Jupiter Point, California. After his wild daredevil past, he’s sworn off relationships until Holly turns eighteen. Just three more years. No problem; he’s got this under control. Until a chance encounter with a smart, sassy bombshell—who just happens to be his new boss’s sister. Since her father’s unsolved murder, Cassie Knight has spent over a decade on the road with her mother, memories chasing the fragile woman from town to town…or so Cassie thought. Only after returning to Jupiter Point does she learn something—or someone—all too real triggered their life on the run. Now, with her brother closing in on their father’s killer, Cassie’s free to pursue her own happiness for the first time. Enter smart, sexy, funny Kevin O’Donnell.Of course they’ll have to keep it light. There’s a big off-limits sign on Kevin’s heart, and Cassie’s ready to hit the road the minute her father’s killer is found. She can do light—no problem. But she didn’t count on their sizzling chemistry…Holly’s suddenly odd behavior…and a killer who’s more cunning than the Knight family ever suspected. Too hot to handle? There’s only one way to find out.

A standalone Jupiter Point novella...Comic book artist Mia Grant is fleeing from her ex-boyfriend when she stumbles across a cabin in the woods, where she finds the last thing she expected--a kidnapping victim. Extra bonus that he's the exceptionally attractive Aiden Knight.Aiden has no idea why he was snatched off his college campus and brought to this wilderness cabin, but he suspects it has to do with the hunt for his father's killer. For now, he has a bigger worry--helping his gorgeous rescuer escape her nasty ex, who's still hot on her trail.Add in a thunderstorm and a white-knuckle wildlife encounter, and Aiden and Mia can hardly be blamed when the simmering attraction between them explodes into fiery passion.Years later, back in Jupiter Point ... was their raw hunger the real deal? Or will the slightly older and wiser couple chalk up the adrenaline-filled bliss to just one hot night?

Saya tidak percaya akan cinta. Cinta hanya sebuah omong kosong. Buktinya saat kakak memberikannya emas dan mutiara. Dia langsung?meninggalkanku. Putri kaisar kerajaan Xi Ying Yue Cinta itu menyakitkan. Saya akan menutup hati saya. Untuk apa harus?mengambil? Ratu? Sedangkan saya sudah memiliki keturunan. Apalagi luka?di wajah saya mengerikan. Wanita mana yang akan jatuh cinta denganku? Semua wanita hanya pemuas malamku yang dingin. Kaisar kerajaan Chun Dua orang yang memiliki luka. Berkali-kali bertemu. Apakah jodoh atau sudah kehendak yang kuasa kita harus bersatu?. ? pertemuan #1 itu hanya kebetulan pertemuan #2 artinya kamu jodohku pertemuan #3 kupastikan dia milikku

When a quilting event falls to pieces, Beatrice works to patch things up. Dappled Hills quilters are eagerly anticipating new events at the Patchwork Cottage quilt shop. The shop’s owner, Posy, has announced ‘Sew and Tell’ socials and a mystery quilt group project. But one day, instead of emailed quilt instructions, the quilters receive a disturbing message about a fellow quilter. When that quilter mysteriously meets her maker, Beatrice decides to use her sleuthing skills to find the killer before more lives are cut short.

This carefully crafted ebook is formatted with a functional and detailed table of contents.Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a German-language writer of novels and short stories, regarded by critics as one of the most influential authors of the 20th century. Kafka strongly influenced genres such as existentialism. Most of his works, such as "Die Verwandlung" ("The Metamorphosis"), "Der Prozess" ("The Trial"), and "Das Schloss" ("The Castle"), are filled with the themes and archetypes of alienation, physical and psychological brutality, parent–child conflict, characters on a terrifying quest, labyrinths of bureaucracy, and mystical transformations. Kafka was born into a middle-class, German-speaking Jewish family in Prague, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In his lifetime, most of the population of Prague spoke Czech, and the division between Czech- and German-speaking people was a tangible reality, as both groups were strengthening their national identity. The Jewish community often found itself in between the two sentiments, naturally raising questions about a place to which one belongs. Kafka himself was fluent in both languages, considering German his mother tongue. Kafka trained as a lawyer and, after completing his legal education, obtained employment with an insurance company. He began to write short stories in his spare time. For the rest of his life, he complained about the little time he had to devote to what he came to regard as his calling. He regretted having to devote so much attention to his "Brotberuf" ("day job", literally "bread job"). Kafka preferred to communicate by letter; he wrote hundreds of letters to family and close female friends, including his father, his fiancée Felice Bauer, and his youngest sister Ottla. He had a complicated and troubled relationship with his father that had a major effect on his writing. He also suffered conflict over being Jewish, feeling that it had little to do with him, although critics argue that it influenced his writing.This collection contains the following works:- The Metamorphosis- A Country Doctor- A Hunger Artist- A Report for an Academy- An Imperial Message- Before the Law- In the Penal Colony- Jackals and Arabs- The Great Wall of China- The Hunter Gracchus- The Trial- Up in the Gallery

LITTLE ELISA:?“A Time Traveler Story”??“..There will always be a missing piece in life. It could be either something that is left undone or someone who you could not be able to come together with. Maybe the last piece has all the meaning of our lives and therefore it is always hidden” said Elisa, before she started her talk.??It might be a specific moment that we have to spend the rest of our lives searching that missing diamond piece. Because, without that last piece, nothing will be complete..”??“..Similar to this, what was the missing piece and the true meaning of Alice’s life before she became Elisa? She had to discover it. But she would have to take a really long trip to discover this..”??TRAVELER PILGRIM:?Before I met Elisa, I had read such thing like below, in the book of the Muslim: “This life of the world is nothing But a Pastime and a Game.” ?(Quran, The Book of Islam)??“How could this be possible? Or is this the true meaning of the life?” were the questions that I asked myself since I read this. ?Is there an imaginary world and a real one? ??But after meeting Elisa and seeing these alternative (imaginary) worlds, I slowly realized that I am in a world of amusement indeed. ??Finally I could see that everything is a fictitious game in this book. I am sure that you will agree with me and rethink about the “truth” as you keep reading this book in which Elisa lived and my interesting trips with Elisa..??And you’ll be remember that In the universe, ?Everything has both an imaginary view and a real one, after this long trip!.??“..Could the life we live and we consider as real be a fancy and funny fiction? What is reality? ?This has been discussed again and again, throughout history. It has inspired artists and philosophers.”??He was just a little boy according to his parents. ?Time has passed quickly. But he decided not to lose his childish spirit in spite of everything. He would find a way to implement his belief about finding the elixir of youth and the eternity of life. ??- “Soon we will take a step into a new period by discovering the truth in this alternative world!” he was saying while searching for the elixir of immortality all the time.??"A black rabbit sneaked into a white hole.."?What was that? ?There was not the world we knew, everything was meaningless but a brand new world and a vision were awaiting for the rabbit.."??The Miraculous “WONDERLAND”: ?Where EVERYTHING is POSSIBLE..

Charles Dickens was born on 1812, in Portsea, England. His parents were middle-class, but they suffered financially as a result of living beyond their means. When Dickens was twelve years old, his family's dire straits forced him to quit school and work in a blacking factory, a place where shoe polish is made. Within weeks, his father was put in debtor's prison, where Dickens's mother and siblings eventually joined him. At this point, Dickens lived on his own and continued to work at the factory for several months. The horrific conditions in the factory haunted him for the rest of his life, as did the experience of temporary orphanhood. Apparently, Dickens never forgot the day when a more senior boy in the warehouse took it upon himself to instruct Dickens in how to do his work more efficiently. For Dickens, that instruction may have represented the first step toward his full integration into the misery and tedium of working-class life. The more senior boy's name was Bob Fagin. Dickens's residual resentment of him reached a fevered pitch in the characterization of the villain Fagin in Oliver Twist.??After inheriting some money, Dickens's father got out of prison and Charles returned to school. As a young adult, he worked as a law clerk and later as a journalist. His experience as a journalist kept him in close contact with the darker social conditions of the Industrial Revolution, and he grew disillusioned with the attempts of lawmakers to alleviate those conditions. A collection of semi-fictional sketches entitled Sketches by Boz earned him recognition as a writer. Dickens became famous and began to make money from his writing when he published his first novel, The Pickwick Papers, which was serialized in 1836 and published in book form the following year.??In 1837, the first installment of Oliver Twist appeared in the magazine Bentley’s Miscellany, which Dickens was then editing. It was accompanied by illustrations by George Cruikshank, which still accompany many editions of the novel today. Even at this early date, some critics accused Dickens of writing too quickly and too prolifically, since he was paid by the word for his serialized novels. Yet the passion behind Oliver Twist, animated in part by Dickens’s own childhood experiences and in part by his outrage at the living conditions of the poor that he had witnessed as a journalist, touched his contemporary readers. Greatly successful, the novel was a thinly veiled protest against the Poor Law of 1834.??In 1836, Dickens married Catherine Hogarth, but after twenty years of marriage and ten children, he fell in love with Ellen Ternan, an actress many years his junior. Soon after, Dickens and his wife separated, ending a long series of marital difficulties. Dickens remained a prolific writer to the end of his life, and his novels—among them Great Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities, A Christmas Carol, David Copperfield, and Bleak House—continued to earn critical and popular acclaim. He died of a stroke in 1870, at the age of 58, leaving The Mystery of Edwin Drood unfinished.??The Poor Laws: Oliver Twist’s Social Commentary?Oliver Twist opens with a bitter invective directed at the nineteenth-century English Poor Laws. These laws were a distorted manifestation of the Victorian middle class’s emphasis on the virtues of hard work. England in the 1830s was rapidly undergoing a transformation from an agricultural, rural economy to an urban, industrial nation. The growing middle class had achieved an economic influence equal to, if not greater than, that of the British aristocracy.??In the 1830s, the middle class clamored for a share of political power with the landed gentry, bringing about a restructuring of the voting system. Parliament passed the Reform Act, which granted the right to vote to previously disenfranchised middle-class citizens. This desire gave rise to the Evangelical religious movement and inspired sweeping economic and political change.

This fourth novel of Boothby's Dr. Nikola series reveals that Nikola has discovered all of the facts necessary to extend a human being's life. He has studied science and magic secrets of Tibetan monks. He explains: ?"It has been a long and tedious search, but such labour only makes success the sweeter. The machinery is now prepared; all that remains is to fit the various parts together. In six months' time, if all goes well, I will have a man walking upon this earth who, under certain conditions, shall live a thousand years."??To assist him, he hires a destitute young physician, who explains his predicament: ?"As ill luck would have it, however, I had got into the wrong set, and before I had been two years in the hospital was over head and ears in such a quagmire of debt and difficulties that it looked as if nothing but an absolute miracle co-uld serve to extricate me." ?That miracle seems to have come to him in the person of Dr. Nikola.??The nefarious and wealthy Nikola has purchased a remote castle in the north of England, where the seclusion will allow him and his new assistant and Nikola's deaf-mute malformed Chinese servant to conduct his grand experiment on a human subject. ? AUTHOR: Guy Newell Boothby was an Australian novelist and writer, born in Adelaide, son of Thomas Wilde Boothby, who for a time was a member of the South Australian Legislative Assembly. Guy Boothby's grandfather was Benjamin Boothby (1803-1868), judge of the supreme court of South Australia from 1853 to 1867. When Boothby was six, he traveled to England with his mother. Around 1890, he took the position of private secretary to the mayor of Adelaide, Australia, but was not content with the work due to little opportunity for advancement. He turned to his writing talents, writing librettos for 2 comic operas and stories about Australian life. Boothby moved back to the United Kingdom in 1894. He wrote over 50 books in the course of a decade, before dying of pneumonia in Bournemouth. Some of Boothby's earlier works were non-fiction, but later he turned to writing novels. He was once well known for his series of five novels about Doctor Nikola, an occultist anti-hero seeking immortality and world domination.

D.J. and her dad moved far from the small town and only home she ever knew. Now she’s starting middle school in the city with kids she’s never met. She tries to make friends, but they all appear to be slaves to screen time. D.J. just likes to garden, nurturing plants, watching them grow and thrive. It seems she’ll never find a way to fit in, but then she awakens in a gorgeous garden where she meets Persephone, Goddess of Spring. She must be dreaming; her new friend can’t possibly be real—and what could she know about getting along with gamers? D.J. really needs some ideas, or she might never find her own place in a complicated world. ? Daisy, Bold & Beautiful is the debut novel of middle-schooler Ellie Collins, daughter of award-winning author Stephanie Collins. Boys and girls alike will appreciate Ellie’s keen eye for the challenges of growing up that she and her friends must face. Discover the wonderful writing of Ellie now, then follow her to learn about her writing and more books to come.

THE OYSTER; WHERE, HOW, AND WHEN?TO FIND, BREED, COOK, AND EAT IT!??OF the Millions who live to eat and eat to live in this wide world of ours, how few are there who do not, at proper times and seasons, enjoy a good oyster. It may not be an ungrateful task, therefore, if I endeavour to inform them what species of animal the little succulent shell-fish is, that affords to man so much gastronomical enjoyment—how born and bred and nurtured; when, and where; and, lastly, how best it may be eaten, whether in its living and natural state, or having undergone the ordeal of cooking by the skill of a superior artist.??Now let us proceed to open the oyster.???The Oyster! The mere writing of the word creates sensations of succulence—gastronomical pleasures, nutritive food, easy digestion, palatable indulgence—then go sleep in peace!??Lobster salads, beef and veal, truffles and chestnuts, all good in their way, are, nevertheless, attended with evil consequences to the human frame.??But oysters—ye pleasant companions of the midnight hours, or the mid-day feast; is there a man, woman or child in all Europe—ay, or in Asia, Africa, or America—who does not owe you a debt of gratitude which they repay to the full by the enjoyment of your society tete-a-tete? ??You are eaten raw and alive, cooked and scolloped, in sauce and without sauce. ?True, true, oh oyster! ??Thou art the best beloved of the loved!