Headless horsemen were staples of Northern European storytelling, featuring in German, Irish (e.g. Dullahan), Scandinavian (e.g. the Wild Hunt) and English legends and were included in Robert Burns's "Tam o' Shanter" (1790), and Bürger's Der wilde Jäger, translated as The Wild Huntsman (1796). Usually viewed as omens of ill-fortune for those who chose to disregard their apparitions, these specters found their victims in proud, scheming persons and characters with hubris and arrogance. The chief part of the stories, however, turned upon the favorite specter of Sleepy Hollow, the Headless Horseman, who had been heard several times of late, patrolling the country; and, it was said, tethered his horse nightly among the graves in the churchyard. The story was immediately matched by a thrice marvelous adventure of Brom Bones, who made light of the Galloping Hessian as an arrant jockey. He affirmed that on returning one night from the neighboring village of Sing Sing, he had been overtaken by this midnight trooper; that he had offered to race with him for a bowl of punch and should have won it too, for Daredevil beat the goblin horse all hollow, but just as they came to the church bridge, the Hessian bolted, and vanished in a flash of fire. All these tales, told in that drowsy undertone with which men talk in the dark, the countenances of the listeners only now and then receiving a casual gleam from the glare of a pipe, sank deep in the mind of Ichabod.

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving, Fiction, Classics (Wildside Fantasy Classic)

Literature & Fiction

Irving., Washington

Literary

Aegypan

The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens, Fiction, Literary

The first ray of light which illumines the gloom, and converts into a dazzling brilliancy that obscurity in which the earlier history of the public career of the immortal Pickwick would appear to be involved, is derived from the perusal of the following entry in the Transactions of the Pickwick Club, which the editor of these papers feels the highest pleasure in laying before his readers, as a proof of the careful attention, indefatigable assiduity, and nice discrimination, with which his search among the multifarious documents confided to him has been conducted. "May 12, 1827. Joseph Smiggers, Esq., P.V.P.M.P.C. (that is, the Perpetual Vice-President -- Member Pickwick Club), presiding. The following resolutions unanimously agreed to: -- "That this Association has heard read, with feelings of unmingled satisfaction, and unqualified approval, the paper communicated by Samuel Pickwick, Esq., G.C.M.P.C. (the General Chairman -- Member Pickwick Club), entitled 'Speculations on the Source of the Hampstead Ponds, with some Observations on the Theory of Tittlebats;' and that this Association does hereby return its warmest thanks to the said Samuel Pickwick, Esq., G.C.M.P.C., for the same. . . ."

The Pickwick Papers

DICKENS., CHARLES

Humor & Satire

The Monster and Other Stories

The story takes place in the small, fictional town of Whilomville, New York. An African-American coachman named Henry Johnson, who is employed by the town's physician, Dr. Trescott, becomes horribly disfigured after he saves Trescott's son from a fire. When Henry is branded a "monster" by the town's residents, Trescott vows to shelter and care for him, resulting in his family's exclusion from the community. Little Jim was, for the time, engine Number 36, and he was making the run between Syracuse and Rochester. He was fourteen minutes behind time, and the throttle was wide open. In consequence, when he swung around the curve at the flower-bed, a wheel of his cart destroyed a peony. Number 36 slowed down at once and looked guiltily at his father, who was mowing the lawn. The doctor had his back to this accident, and he continued to pace slowly to and fro, pushing the mower. Jim dropped the tongue of the cart. He looked at his father and at the broken flower. Finally he went to the peony and tried to stand it on its pins, resuscitated, but the spine of it was hurt, and it would only hang limply from his hand. Jim could do no reparation. He looked again towards his father. He went on to the lawn, very slowly, and kicking wretchedly at the turf. Presently his father came along with the whirring machine, while the sweet, new grass blades spun from the knives. In a low voice, Jim said, "Pa!"

The Monster and Other Stories by Stephen Crane, Fiction, Classics

CRANE, STEPHEN

Genre Fiction

"Well, Corporal Westerburg," Doctor Henry Harris said gently, "just why do you think you're a plant?" As he spoke, Harris glanced down again at the card on his desk. It was from the Base Commander himself, made out in Cox's heavy scrawl: Doc, this is the lad I told you about. Talk to him and try to find out how he got this delusion. He's from the new Garrison, the new check-station on Asteroid Y-3, and we don't want anything to go wrong there. Especially a silly damn thing like this

Piper in the Woods

Dick,Philip K

While Gautier was an ardent defender of Romanticism, his work is difficult to classify and remains a point of reference for many subsequent literary traditions such as Parnassianism, Symbolism, Decadence and Modernism.
"I have a presentiment that we shall find in the valley of Biban el Molûk a tomb intact," said to a high-bred-looking young Englishman a much more humble personage who was wiping, with a big, blue-checked handkerchief, his bald head, on which stood drops of perspiration, just as if it had been made of porous clay and filled with water like a Theban water-jar.
"May Osiris hear you!" replied the English nobleman to the German scholar. "One may be allowed such an invocation in the presence of the ancient Diospolis Magna. But we have been so often deceived hitherto; treasure-seekers have always forestalled us."

The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt

GAUTIER, Théophile

The Velvet Glove

SF writer and editor Harry Harrison explores a not-too-distant future where robots -- particularly specialist robots who don't know their place -- have quite a rough time of it. True, the Robot Equality Act had been passed -- but so what? New York was a bad town for robots this year. In fact, all over the country it was bad for robots. . . .

Children's Books

Harrison. Harry

Science Fiction & Fantasy

They were in process of deciding to meet regularly to tell one another tales -- weird tales, remember this is a book of E.T.A. Hoffmann's work -- when Lothair gave them their name. "Let us remember Serapion the Hermit in connection with this. Let each of us try, and examine himself well, as to whether he has really seen what he is going to describe before he sets to work to put it in words. At all events, let each of us strive, very strenuously, to get a clear grasp, in his mind, of the picture he is going to produce, -- in every one of its forms, colors, lights and shadows, and then, when he feels himself thoroughly permeated and kindled by it, bring it out into outer life. Thus shall our society be established on solid foundations, and be a source of comfort and gratification to us all. Let Serapion the Hermit be our patron saint: may his seer-gift inspire us. His rule we will follow, as true Serapion Brethren."

The Serapion Brethren (1)

Hoffmann, E.T.A.

Classics

I promised the Wife that if anybody ast me what kind of a time did I have at Palm Beach I'd say I had a swell time. And if they ast me who did we meet I'd tell 'em everybody that was worth meetin'. And if they ast me didn't the trip cost a lot I'd say Yes; but it was worth the money. I promised her I wouldn't spill none o' the real details. But if you can't break a promise you made to your own wife what kind of a promise can you break? Answer me that, Edgar.I'm not one o' these kind o' people that'd keep a joke to themself just because the joke was on them. But they's plenty of our friends that I wouldn't have 'em hear about it for the world. I wouldn't tell you, only I know you're not the village gossip and won't crack it to anybody. Not even to your own Missus, see? I don't trust no women.It was along last January when I and the Wife was both hit by the society bacillus. I think it was at the opera. You remember me tellin' you about us and the Hatches goin' to Carmen and then me takin' my Missus and her sister, Bess, and four of one suit named Bishop to see The Three Kings? Well, I'll own up that I enjoyed wearin' the soup and fish and minglin' amongst the high polloi and pretendin' we really was somebody. And I know my wife enjoyed it, too, though they was nothin' said between us at the time."Gullible's Travels," the story from which this book takes its name, has to do with a trip to Palm Beach and was written in 1916. Readers who have never been to Palm Beach and who contemplate going there are warned not to base their budget on figures quoted in the story. In those days you could get a double room with bath at one of the two big hotels for a niggling $17.00 per day. That sum now is just a fair diurnal tip for the house detective. Everything has doubled or trebled in price in the past ten years, and still the influx of eager customers increases. Newspapers continue, from habit, to speak of the place as exclusive, but a person with money who can't crash in there these days would be blackballed from the Rotary club. And for all that, Palm Beach is worth a visit if you are not deaf or blind. The writer was there this winter for only a day, but was repaid for his trouble by the sight of a lady (a prominent society lady, too) in a bathing costume consisting of a big, floppy black silk hat, horn-rimmed spectacles, a black velvet doublet, with choking high collar and long sleeves, black silk tights and black shoes, a black silk umbrella, and WHITE GLOVES. This will remain for me the ne pluribus unum in swimming comfort until some more ingenious mermaid, sacrificing looks for buoyancy, shows up for her morning plunge in the working clothes of an Eskimo traffic policeman.

Gullible's Travels, Etc.

Humor & Entertainment

Lardner, Ring

Humor

The Princess of Babylon by Voltaire, Fiction, Classics, Literary

But what was more admirable in Babylon, and eclipsed everything else, was the only daughter of the king, named Formosanta. It was from her pictures and statues, that in succeeding times Praxiteles sculptured his Aphrodita, and the Venus of Medicis. Heavens! what a difference between the original and the copies! King Belus was prouder of his daughter than of his kingdom. She was eighteen years old. It was necessary she should have a husband worthy of her; but where was he to be found? An ancient oracle had ordained, that Formosanta could not belong to any but him who could bend the bow of nearly-mythic Nimrod. Three kings came to try to bend Nimrod's storied bow -- rulers from Egypt, and India, and Scythia -- but also came a young man not of royal mien, upon a unicorn.

The Princess of Babylon

Arouet, Fran Ois-Marie

VOLTAIRE

"You're willing, Patty, only because you're so good-natured and unselfish; but, really, you don't want to go one bit."
"Now, Nan, I'm no poor, pale martyr, with a halo roundy-bout me noble brow. When we came down here to Spring Beach, it was understood that we were to stay here part of the summer, and then go to the mountains. And now it's the first of August and I've had my innings, so it's only fair you should have your outing."
Though Patty's air was gay and careless, and Patty's tones were sincere, she was in reality making an heroic self-sacrifice, and Nan knew it. Patty loved the seashore; she had been there three months, and loved it better every day.

Patty's Butterfly Days

Teen & Young Adult

WELLS, CAROLYN

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