public domain stories Archives

Rídan the Devil

January 30, 2019 By George Lewis Becke in Old Stories Tags: George Lewis Becke, public domain stories, sea stories, south seas

Rídan lived alone in a little hut on the borders of the big German plantation at Mulifenua, away down at the lee end of Upolu Island, and every one of his brown-skinned fellow-workers either hated or feared him, and smiled when Burton, the American overseer, would knock him down for being a ‘sulky brute.’ But no one of them cared to let Rídan see him smile. For to them he was a wizard, a devil, who could send death in the night to those he hated. And so when anyone died on the plantation he was blamed, and seemed to [Read More]

Soda-Water Sal

January 29, 2019 By Frank H Spearman in Old Stories Tags: Frank H. Spearman, locomotive, public domain stories, railroad, steam

When the great engine which we called the Sky-Scraper came out of the Zanesville shops, she was rebuilt from pilot to tender. Our master-mechanic, Neighbor, had an idea, after her terrific collision, that she could not stand heavy main-line passenger runs, so he put her on the Acton cut-off. It was what railroad men call a jerk-water run, whatever that may be; a little jaunt of ten miles across the divide connecting the northern division with the Denver stem. It was just about like running a trolley, and the run was given to Dad Sinclair, for after that lift at [Read More]

The Cabman’s Story: The Mysteries of a London “Growler”

January 28, 2019 By Arthur Conan Doyle in Old Stories Tags: Arthur Conan Doyle, cab, growler, london, public domain stories

We had to take a “growler,” for the day looked rather threatening and we agreed that it would be a very bad way of beginning our holiday by getting wet, especially when Fanny was only just coming round from the whooping cough. Holidays were rather scarce with us, and when we took one we generally arranged some little treat, and went in for enjoying ourselves. On this occasion we were starting off from Hammersmith to the Alexandra Palace in all the dignity of a four-wheeler. What with the wife and her sister, and Tommy and Fanny and Jack, the inside [Read More]

Kew Gardens

January 25, 2019 By Virginia Woolf in Old Stories Tags: heaven, kew gardens, love, marriage, public domain stories, rembrances, snail, Virginia Woolf

From the oval-shaped flower-bed there rose perhaps a hundred stalks spreading into heart-shaped or tongue-shaped leaves half way up and unfurling at the tip red or blue or yellow petals marked with spots of colour raised upon the surface; and from the red, blue or yellow gloom of the throat emerged a straight bar, rough with gold dust and slightly clubbed at the end. The petals were voluminous enough to be stirred by the summer breeze, and when they moved, the red, blue and yellow lights passed one over the other, staining an inch of the brown earth beneath with [Read More]

Old Boots

January 24, 2019 By William MacKay in Old Stories Tags: british, marriage, public domain stories, William MacKay

About five years ago, on days when the sun shone warmly, an old man might have been observed taking the air in Kennington Park. He was one of those seedy and aimless old gentlemen usually described as having seen better days. He was generally supposed to have been engaged in the City in early life, and to live upon a small pension tendered to him out of the generosity of his old employers. He lived in humble apartments in a street which ran off the Camberwell New Road, and he attended twice on Sundays the conventicle of a strict sect [Read More]

On the Western Circuit: Chapter 5

January 22, 2019 By Thomas Hardy in Serials Tags: disaster, lawyer, public domain stories, Thomas Hardy, young love

The letter moved Raye considerably when it reached him. The intelligence itself had affected him less than her unexpected manner of treating him in relation to it. The absence of any word of reproach, the devotion to his interests, the self-sacrifice apparent in every line, all made up a nobility of character that he had never dreamt of finding in womankind. ‘God forgive me!’ he said tremulously. ‘I have been a wicked wretch. I did not know she was such a treasure as this!’ The whole of On the Western Circuit may be found in Hardy’s collection Life’s Little Ironies [Read More]

On the Western Circuit: Chapter 4

January 21, 2019 By Thomas Hardy in Serials Tags: disaster, lawyer, public domain stories, Thomas Hardy, young love

To return now to the moment at which Anna, at Melchester, had received Raye’s letter. It had been put into her own hand by the postman on his morning rounds. She flushed down to her neck on receipt of it, and turned it over and over. ‘It is mine?’ she said. So much in Hardy’s story happens unspoken, kept beneath the surface and out of sight according to the strict social mores of the era. This is so for the characters, who struggle against those rules, and it is so for Hardy himself as he writes around Anna’s situation and [Read More]

On the Western Circuit: Chapter 3

January 18, 2019 By Thomas Hardy in Serials Tags: class, lawyer, public domain stories, Thomas Hardy, young love

The calendar at Melchester had been light, occupying the court only a few hours; and the assizes at Casterbridge, the next county-town on the Western Circuit, having no business for Raye, he had not gone thither. At the next town after that they did not open till the following Monday, trials to begin on Tuesday morning. In the natural order of things Raye would have arrived at the latter place on Monday afternoon; but it was not till the middle of Wednesday that his gown and grey wig, curled in tiers, in the best fashion of Assyrian bas-reliefs, were seen [Read More]

On the Western Circuit: Chapter 2

January 17, 2019 By Thomas Hardy in Serials Tags: lawyer, public domain stories, Thomas Hardy

The square was overlooked from its remoter corner by the house of which the young girl had spoken, a dignified residence of considerable size, having several windows on each floor. Inside one of these, on the first floor, the apartment being a large drawing-room, sat a lady, in appearance from twenty-eight to thirty years of age. The blinds were still undrawn, and the lady was absently surveying the weird scene without, her cheek resting on her hand. The room was unlit from within, but enough of the glare from the market-place entered it to reveal the lady’s face. She was [Read More]

On the Western Circuit: Chapter 1

January 16, 2019 By Thomas Hardy in Serial Pilots, Serials Tags: carousel, cathedral, lawyer, public domain stories, steam circus, Thomas Hardy

The man who played the disturbing part in the two quiet lives hereafter depicted—no great man, in any sense, by the way—first had knowledge of them on an October evening, in the city of Melchester. He had been standing in the Close, vainly endeavouring to gain amid the darkness a glimpse of the most homogeneous pile of mediæval architecture in England, which towered and tapered from the damp and level sward in front of him. While he stood the presence of the Cathedral walls was revealed rather by the ear than by the eyes; he could not see them, but [Read More]