After failing to tempt him to their own vices, Santa is kidnapped from the Laughing Valley by the five Daemons of the Caves (Daemons of Selfishness, Envy, Hatred, Malice, and Repentance) on Christmas Eve.
Much of the novel is written from the view-point of his canine character, enabling London to explore how animals view their world and how they view humans.
She gladly saw them ramble off together, leaving her time to stitch happily at certain dainty bits of sewing, write voluminous letters, or dream over others quite as long, swinging in her hammock under the lilacs.
A beautiful story about friendship, secrets, and the human spirit, The Secret Garden tells the story of the courage of two unhappy and withering children who become determined to make their lives, and the lives of others around them, more joyful.
Two friends and their chaperone travel through Europe and learn some valuable life lessons in this old-fashioned light comedy by one of America’s greatest children’s writers.
The Arthur of history was engaged in a life-long struggle with an enemy that threatened to rob his people of home, of country, and of freedom; in the stories, the king and his knights, like Richard Coeur-de-Lion, sought adventure for adventure''s sake, or, as in the case of Sir Peredur, took fantastic vows for the love of a lady.
More than five hundred years ago there lived a diligent man called Sir Thomas Malory, who wrote in English words many of the beautiful Welsh tales about King Arthur''s Knights, that the people of Wales loved so well.
Wherefore if it will please you to read that which is hereinafter set forth, you will be told of how Sir Launcelot slew the great Worm of Corbin; of the madness that afterward fell upon him, and of how a most noble, gentle, and beautiful lady, hight the Lady Elaine the Fair, lent him aid and succor at a time of utmost affliction to him, and so brought him back to health again.
There she sits, a trifle loppy and loose-jointed, looking me squarely in the face in a straightforward, honest manner, a twinkle where her shoe-button eyes reflect the electric light.
Despite her impoverished background, Rebecca is an imaginative and charming child, often composing little poems and songs to express her feelings or to amuse her younger brothers and sisters.
The tales in the book (and also those in The Second Jungle Book which followed in 1895, and which includes five further stories about Mowgli) are fables, using animals in an anthropomorphic manner to give moral lessons.
Three boys, fifteen-year-old Ralph Rover, eighteen-year-old Jack Martin, and fourteen-year-old Peterkin Gay, are the sole survivors of a shipwreck on the coral reef of a large but uninhabited Polynesian island.
Most of the adventures recorded in this book really occurred; one or two were experiences of my own, the rest those of boys who were schoolmates of mine.