Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. A yellow dressinggown, ungirdled, was sustained gently behind him on the mild morning air. He held the bowl aloft and intoned: -- Introibo ad altare Dei. Halted, he peered down the dark winding stairs and called out coarsely: -- Come up, Kinch! Come up, you fearful jesuit! Solemnly he came forward and mounted the round gunrest. He faced about and bles...

Excerpt: Moby Dick; or The Whale by Herman Melville.

Excerpt: Book of Genesis; Chapter 1 -- In the beginning God created heaven, and earth. And the earth was void and empty, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the spirit of God moved over the waters. And God said: Be light made. And light was made. And God saw the light that it was good; and he divided the light from the darkness. And he called the light Day, and the darkness Night; and there was evening and morning one day.

Excerpt: War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy.

Excerpt: Part I, Chapter 1; HAPPY families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. Everything was in confusion in the Oblonskys? house. The wife had discovered that the husband was carrying on an intrigue with a French girl, who had been a governess in their family, and she had announced to her husband that she could not go on living in the same house with him. This position of affairs had now lasted three days, and not only the husband and wife th...

Includes index

ON AN exceptionally hot evening early in July a young man came out of the garret in which he lodged in S. Place and walked slowly, as though in hesitation, towards K. bridge. He had successfully avoided meeting his landlady on the staircase. His garret was under the roof of a high, five-storied house and was more like a cupboard than a room. The landlady who provided him with garret, dinners, and attendance, lived on the floor below, and every time he went out he was obl...

Excerpt: Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte.

Excerpt: VOLUME I. FANTINE. Preface So long as there shall exist, by virtue of law and custom, decrees of damnation pronounced by society, artificially creating hells amid the civilization of earth, and adding the element of human fate to divine destiny; so long as the three great problems of the century ? the degradation of man through pauperism, the corruption of woman through hunger, the crippling of children through lack of light ? are unsolved; so long as social asp...

Excerpt: Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.

Excerpt: Chapter One. ?Christmas won?t be Christmas without any presents,? grumbled Jo, lying on the rug. ?It?s so dreadful to be poor!? sighed Meg, looking down at her old dress. ?I don?t think it?s fair for some girls to have plenty of pretty things, and other girls nothing at all,? added little Amy, with an injured sniff. ?We've got Father and Mother, and each other,? said Beth contentedly from her corner. The four young faces on which the firelight shone brightened a...

NY3

Excerpt: Emma Woodhouse. Handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her.

If anybody cares to read a simple tale told simply ... thus opens Lorna Doone, one of the best love stories ever written. The novel has inspired at least ten movies and mini-series. John (in West Country dialect this is pronounced Jan) Ridd is the son of a respectable farmer who was murdered in cold blood by a member of the notorious Doone clan, a once-noble family now living in the isolated Doone Valley. Battling his desire for revenge, John also grows into a respectabl...

Romance

Excerpt: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way--in short, the period was so far like the present...

The killing fields of Troy.

A collection of tales presented as part of a story-telling contest by a group of pilgrims as they travel together on a journey from Southwark to the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. The prize for this contest is a free meal at the Tabard Inn at Southwark on their return. This is a modernized translation, retaining Chaucer's rhyme scheme, and close to the original, but eliminating archaisms which would require explanatory notes.