The Pickwick Papers

Charles Dickens

Book the First--Recalled to Life I. The Period 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...

Charles Dickens

PREFACE I HAVE endeavoured in this Ghostly little book, to raise the Ghost of an Idea, which shall not put my readers out of humour with themselves, with each other, with the season, or with me.

Charles Dickens

Chapter I My father's family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Philip, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip.

Charles Dickens

Jane Austen

Chapter 1 It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Letter 1 St. Petersburgh, Dec. 11th, 17-- TO Mrs. Saville, England You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such ...

Herman Melville

Original Transcriber's Notes: This text is a combination of etexts, one from the now-defunct ERIS project at Virginia Tech and one from Project Gutenberg's archives.

Charles Dickens

Book the First--Recalled to Life I. The Period 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...