1　　World Without End　　If a killing type of virus strain should suddenly arise by mutation ... it could, because of the rapid transportation in which we indulge nowadays, be carried to the far corners of the earth and cause the deaths of millions of people.　　- W. M. Stanley, in Chemical and Engineering News, Dec. 22, 1947.　　　　Chapter 1　　... and the government of the United States of America is herewith suspended, except in the District of Columbia, as of the emergency. Federal officers, including those of the Armed Forces, will put themselves under the orders of the governors of the various states or of any other functioning local authority. By order of the Acting President. God save the p　

　Now, six months have passed since Anita has seen either Jean-Claude or Richard. Six months of celibacy. Six months of indecision. Six months of danger. For her body carries the marks of both vampire and werewolf, and until the triumvirate is consummated, all three remain vulnerable.　But when a kidnapper targets innocents that Anita has sworn to protect, she needs all the help she can get. In an earth-shattering union, Anita, Jean-Claude, and Richard merge the marks and melt into one another. Suddenly, Anita can harness both their powers. She can feel their hearts ... hear their thoughts ... know their hungers ....　Nothing can save Anita from a twist of fate that draws her ever closer to t　

　　Through the curtained windows of the furnished apartment which Mrs. Horace Hignett had rented for her stay in New York rays of golden sunlight peeped in like the foremost spies of some advancing army. It was a fine summer morning. The hands of the Dutch clock in the hall pointed to thirteen minutes past nine; those of the ormolu clock in the sitting-room to eleven minutes past ten; those of the carriage clock on the bookshelf to fourteen minutes to six. In other words, it was exactly eight; and Mrs. Hignett acknowledged the fact by moving her head on the pillow, opening her eyes, and sitting up in bed. She always woke at eight precisely.　Was this Mrs. Hignett the Mrs. Hignett, the world　

GULLIVER OF MARSGULLIVER OF MARSby Edwin L. Arnold1- Page 2-GULLIVER OF MARSCHAPTER IDare I say it? Dare I say that I, a plain, prosaic lieutenant in therepublican service have done the incredible things here set out for the loveof a womanfor a chimera in female shape; for a pale, vapid ghost ofwoman-loveliness? At times I tell myself I dare not: that you will laugh,and cast me aside as a fabricator; and then again I pick up my pen and...　

FAIRY TALES OF HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSENUNDER THE WILLOW-TREEby Hans Christian AndersenTHE region round the little town of Kjoge is very bleak andcold. The town lies on the sea shore, which is always beautiful; buthere it might be more beautiful than it is, for on every side thefields are flat, and it is a long way to the forest. But whenpersons reside in a place and get used to it, they can always findsomething beautiful in it,- something for which they long, even in themost charming spot in the world which is not home. It must be ownedthat there are in the outskirts of the town some humble gardens on the...　

A Ward of the Golden Gateby Bret HartePROLOGUE.In San Francisco the "rainy season" had been making itself areality to the wondering Eastern immigrant. There were short daysof drifting clouds and flying sunshine, and long succeeding nightsof incessant downpour, when the rain rattled on the thin shinglesor drummed on the resounding zinc of pioneer roofs. The shiftingsand-dunes on the outskirts were beaten motionless and sodden bythe onslaught of consecutive storms; the southeast trades broughtthe saline breath of the outlying Pacific even to the busy hauntsof Commercial and Kearney streets; the low-lying Mission road was aquagmire; along the City Front, despite of piles and pier and...　

SHERLOCK HOLMESTHE ADVENTURE OF WISTERIA LODGEby Sir Arthur Conan Doyle1. The Singular Experience of Mr. John Scott EcclesI find it recorded in my notebook that it was a bleak and windy day,towards the end of March in the year 1892. Holmes had received atelegram while we sat at our lunch, and he had scribbled a reply. Hemade no remark, but the matter remained in his thoughts, for hestood in front of the fire afterwards with a thoughtful face,smoking his pipe, and casting an occasional glance at the message.Suddenly he turned upon me with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes....　

Susy, A Story of the Plainsby Bret HarteCHAPTER I.Where the San Leandro turnpike stretches its dusty, hot, andinterminable length along the valley, at a point where the heat anddust have become intolerable, the monotonous expanse of wild oats oneither side illimitable, and the distant horizon apparently remoterthan ever, it suddenly slips between a stunted thicket or hedge of"scrub oaks," which until that moment had been undistinguishableabove the long, misty, quivering level of the grain. The thicketrising gradually in height, but with a regular slope whose gradienthad been determined by centuries of western trade winds, presently...　

Beacon Lights of HistoryVolume III Part 2by John LordVolume III.Part IIRenaissance and Reformation.CONTENTS.DANTE.RISE OF MODERN POETRY.The antiquity of PoetryThe greatness of PoetsTheir influence on CivilizationThe true poet one of the rarest of menThe pre-eminence of Homer, Dante, Shakspeare, and GoetheCharacteristics of DanteHis precocityHis moral wisdom and great attainmentsHis terrible scorn and his isolationState of society when Dante was bornHis banishmentGuelphs and GhibellinesDante stimulated to his great task by an absorbing sentimentBeatrice...　

White Liesby Charles ReadeCHAPTER I.Towards the close of the last century the Baron de Beaurepaire lived in the chateau of that name in Brittany. His family was of prodigious antiquity; seven successive barons had already flourished on this spot when a younger son of the house accompanied his neighbor the Duke of Normandy in his descent on England, and was rewarded by a grant of English land, on which he dug a mote and built a chateau, and called it Beaurepaire (the worthy Saxons turned this into Borreper without delay). Since that day more than twenty gentlemen of the same lineage had held in turn the original chateau and lands, and handed them down to their present lord....　

For the Term of His Natural Lifeby Marcus ClarkeDEDICATIONTOSIR CHARLES GAVAN DUFFYMy Dear Sir Charles, I take leave to dedicate this work to you, not merely because your nineteen years of political and literary life in Australia render it very fitting that any work written by a resident in the colonies, and having to do with the history of past colonial days, should bear your name upon its dedicatory page; but because the publication of my book is due to your advice and encouragement.The convict of fiction has been hitherto shown only at the beginning or at the end of his career. Either his exile has been the mysterious end to his misdeeds, or he has appeared upon the scene to claim inte　

The Wife and Other Storiesby Anton ChekhovTranslated by CONSTANCE GARNETTCONTENTSThe WifeDifficult PeopleThe GrasshopperA Dreary StoryThe Privy CouncillorThe Man in CaseGooseberriesAbout LoveThe Lottery TicketTHE WIFEII RECEIVED the following letter:"DEAR SIR, PAVEL ANDREITCH!"Not far from you that is to say, in the village of Pestrovo very distressing incidents are taking place, concerning which I feel it my duty to write to you. All the peasants of that village sold their cottages and all their belongings, and set off for the province of Tomsk, but did not succeed in getting there, and have come back. Here, of course, they have nothing now; everything belongs to other people. They have