The Loving Ballad of Lord Bateman

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

Kurt Vonnegut

Everything was perfectly swell.

Edgar Allan Poe

The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge.

Heinrich Hoffmann

[Transcriber's Note: This book was first published in German in 1844, and in English translation in 1848.

Edgar Allan Poe

The "Red Death" had long devastated the country.