High above the night-shrouded street, whose silence was only broken by the occasional tramp of the military patrol or the gruff challenges of the sentries on the fortifications, a man was walking, with jerky, uneven strides, up and down a vast attic in an ancient house overlooking the old Fisher's Gate, close by where the River Ill leaves the famous city of Strassburg. The room, practically destitute of ordinary furniture, was fitted up as a chemical and physical laboratory, and the man was Doctor Emil Fargeau, the most distinguished scientific investigator that the lost province of Alsace...
Interplanetary commerce, if and when it begins, will be fraught with all of the dangers that accompany pioneering expeditions. There will be the terrible climatic conditions on other worlds to be faced, strange beasts and plants; and perhaps desperate and greedy men. That was the case when every new land was opened on Earth and it may be expected to be true when we conquer the solar planets....
A short story that takes place in the Venus Colonization. Man has been asked to create a new colony on the planet "next door" to earth and a new adventure is about to begin....
Beatrice Potter (1866-1943) is still one of the most popular children's writers in the world. She wrote and illustrated 28 books, which were translated into 35 languages and sold over 100 million copies. Peter Rabbit was named after the little rabbit Beatrice Potter had in childhood. The first tale of Peter the Bunny was created in 1893 in a letter to Noel Moore, the five-year-old son of the former governess Potter, Annie Moore....
The story is described as a "space mage duel". It involves two witch doctors who instigate ghosts and demons against each other and may seem like a fantasy. But Norton bases the magic of magicians on the use of mildly hallucinogenic drugs, psychological manipulations and hidden telepathy, which put history into the realm of science fiction....
Nervous by Mrs. Hudson's visit, Dr. Watson finds his friend Sherlock Holmes in terrible condition. The great detective contracted a deadly virus and you need to stay away from him. Dr. Watson wants to invite the best virus specialist, but Holmes protests so much that Watson is scared. It was scary to look at Holmes - anyone would be struck by the sight of his thin, emaciated face with a sickly blush. The detective’s thin hands frantically moved along the blanket, the voice of the great Holmes was hoarse and breaking. What kind of affliction struck Holmes, who was dying?...
On January the Fifth, 1888--that is eleven months and four days after-my uncle, Edward Prendick, a private gentleman, who certainly went aboard the Lady Vain at Callao, and who had been considered drowned, was picked up in latitude 5 degrees 3' S. and longitude 101 degrees W. in a small open boat of which the name was illegible, but which is supposed to have belonged to the missing schooner Ipecacuanha. He gave such a strange account of himself that he was supposed demented. Subsequently he alleged that his mind was a blank from the moment of his escape from the Lady Vain. His case was...
The name of Bram Stoker needs no introduction - for more than a hundred years, the novel "Dracula" has not left the lists of best-sellers of different countries in the category "mysticism". And only true connoisseurs know that Stocker is also the author of small prose, written in the best traditions of classical English literature of the turn of the century. Bram Stoker in little prose showed himself no less creatively, vividly and mysteriously than in his most famous novel. Who in their right mind decides to take a night walk during Walpurgis Night, when there is a “great Sabbath” on Brocken...
The Beggar's Opera is a satirical play, reflecting various aspects of English reality at the beginning of the 18th century. The author, among others, sought to reveal to the reader the shortcomings of modern society, which seemed very far from perfect. Moreover, he largely took into account the interests of the people who experienced severe oppression. Serious and deep criticism of the political and social life of England at the beginning of the 18th century is the main task that the playwright set himself when creating the “The Beggar's Opera”. In the play, Gay parodies the Italian opera and...
A natural pause appears to have come in the career of Mr. H.G. Wells. After so many years of travelling up and down through time and space, familiarizing himself with all the various parts of the solar system and presenting himself imaginatively at all the various geological epochs, from the Stone Age to the end of the world, he has for good and all domesticated himself in his own planet and point of time. This gradual process of slowing down, so to speak, had been evident from the moment of his first appearance. The most obvious fact about his romances of science, considered as a series, is...
