Wizard of Oz - First Chapter - 5

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
by L. Frank Baum

From the far north they heard a low wail of the wind, and Uncle Henry and Dorothy could see where the long grass bowed in waves before the coming storm. There now came a sharp whistling in the air from the south, and as they turned their eyes that way they saw ripples in the grass coming from that direction also.

Suddenly Uncle Henry stood up.

"There's a cyclone coming, Em," he called to his wife. "I'll go look after the stock." Then he ran toward the sheds where the cows and horses were kept.

---

Continued next week. Tomorrow's installment from A Retreived Reformation by O' Henry.

The trailer of Judy Garland's breakout movie of 1939; why wasn't the rest of Baum's Oz books made into movies?

Illustrated: cover of the book's first edition in 1900.

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Innocents Abroad - First Chapter - 5

by Mark Twain

From Genoa the run to Leghorn will be made along the coast in one
night, and time appropriated to this point in which to visit
Florence, its palaces and galleries; Pisa, its cathedral and
"Leaning Tower," and Lucca and its baths, and Roman amphitheater;
Florence, the most remote, being distant by rail about sixty miles.

From Leghorn to Naples (calling at Civita Vecchia to land any who
may prefer to go to Rome from that point), the distance will be made
in about thirty-six hours; the route will lay along the coast of
Italy, close by Caprera, Elba, and Corsica. Arrangements have been
made to take on board at Leghorn a pilot for Caprera, and, if
practicable, a call will be made there to visit the home of
Garibaldi.

Rome [by rail], Herculaneum, Pompeii, Vesuvius, Vergil's tomb, and
possibly the ruins of Paestum can be visited, as well as the
beautiful surroundings of Naples and its charming bay.

---

Continued next week. Tomorrow's installment from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum.

More About This Book

This travelogue cemented this rising author's reputation when it was published in 1869.

Chapter Summary: "Popular Talk of the Excursion--Programme of the Trip--Duly Ticketed for the Excursion--Defection of the Celebrities

Photo: Samuel Clemens (aka Mark Twain) by Matthew Brady Feb. 7, 1871.

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Kim - First Chapter - 5

by Rudyard Kipling



The first minutes of the movie; the first pages of the book.

---

True, he knew the wonderful walled city of Lahore from the Delhi Gate to the outer Fort Ditch; was hand in glove with men who led lives stranger than anything Haroun al Raschid dreamed of; and he lived in a life wild as that of the Arabian Nights, but missionaries and secretaries of charitable societies could not see the beauty of it. His nickname through the wards was 'Little Friend of all the World'; and very often, being lithe and inconspicuous, he executed commissions by night on the crowded housetops for sleek and shiny young men of fashion. It was intrigue,--of course he knew that much, as he had known all evil since he could speak,--but what he loved was the game for its own sake—the stealthy prowl through the dark gullies and lanes, the crawl up a waterpipe, the sights and sounds of the women's world on the flat roofs, and the headlong flight from housetop to housetop under cover of the hot dark.

---

Continued next week. Tomorrow's installment from The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain.

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Kipling's novel of India and the British empire, published in 1900.

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The Illiad - First Book - 5

by Homer


With these words he sat down, and Calchas son of Thestor, wisest
of augurs, who knew things past present and to come, rose to
speak. He it was who had guided the Achaeans with their fleet to
Ilius, through the prophesyings with which Phoebus Apollo had
inspired him. With all sincerity and goodwill he addressed them
thus:--

"Achilles, loved of heaven, you bid me tell you about the anger
of King Apollo, I will therefore do so; but consider first and
swear that you will stand by me heartily in word and deed, for I
know that I shall offend one who rules the Argives with might, to
whom all the Achaeans are in subjection. A plain man cannot stand
against the anger of a king, who if he swallow his displeasure
now, will yet nurse revenge till he has wreaked it. Consider,
therefore, whether or no you will protect me."

---

Continued next week. Tomorrow's installment from Kim by Rudyard Kipling.

More About This Book

From the earliest days of Ancient Greece, the author(s) of this poem were contemporaries of the writers of the Bible's Old Testament.

Summary of First Book: The quarrel between Agamemnon and Achilles--Achilles withdraws from the war, and sends his mother Thetis to ask Jove to help the Trojans--Scene between Jove and Juno on Olympus.

Painting: The Wrath of Achilles by Michael Drolling, 1819.

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Thousand and One Nights - 5

The Merchant and the Genie

Presently another old man came up, leading two black dogs, and saluting them, inquired why they sat in a place known to be haunted by Jinn, whereupon the merchant repeated his story to him. He had not sat long with them when there came up a third old man leading a dappled she-mule, and after putting to them the same question and receiving a like answer, sat down with them to await the issue of the affair. They had sat but a little while longer, when behold, there arose a cloud of dust and a great whirling column approached from the heart of the desert. Then the dust lifted and discovered the genie, with a drawn sword in his hand and sparks of fire issuing from his eyes. He came up to them and dragged the merchant from amongst them, saying, 'Rise, that I may slay thee as thou slewest my son, the darling of my heart!' Whereupon the merchant wept and bewailed himself and the three old men joined their cries and lamentations to his. Then came forward the first old man, he of the gazelle, and kissed the Afrit's hand and said to him, 'O genie and crown of the kings of the Jinn, if I relate to thee my history with this gazelle and it seem to thee wonderful, wilt thou grant me a third of this merchant's blood?' 'Yes, O old man,' answered the genie, 'if thou tell me thy story and I find it wonderful, I will remit to thee a third of his blood.' Then said the old man, 'Know, O Afrit, that

---

Continued next week. Tomorrow's installment from The Illiad by Homer.

More About This Book

From the Arab world: these stories date back to the Middle Ages.

Picture: Queen Scheherazade tells her stories to King Shahryār.

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Lays of Ancient Rome - 4

Horatius at the Bridge
by Thomas B. Macaulay

VII

But now no stroke of woodman
        Is heard by Auser's rill;
No hunter tracks the stag's green path
        Up the Ciminian hill;
Unwatched along Clitumnus
        Grazes the milk-white steer;
Unharmed the water fowl may dip
        In the Volsminian mere.

VIII

The harvests of Arretium,
        This year, old men shall reap;
This year, young boys in Umbro
        Shall plunge the struggling sheep;
And in the vats of Luna,
        This year, the must shall foam
Round the white feet of laughing girls
        Whose sires have marched to Rome.

---

Continued next week. Tomorrow's installment from the great Arab book Thousand and One Nights.

More About This Book

This poem celebrates one of the great heroic legends of history. Horatius saves Rome from the Etruscan invaders in 642 BC. Scottish poet Macaulay published this in 1842.

Illustration: Horatio at the Bridge from the first edition.

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A Retrieved Reformation - 4

by O'Henry

"Sorry we couldn't make it sooner, Jimmy, me boy," said Mike. "But we had that protest from Springfield to buck against, and the governor nearly balked. Feeling all right?"

"Fine," said Jimmy. "Got my key?"

He got his key and went upstairs, unlocking the door of a room at the rear. Everything was just as he had left it. There on the floor was still Ben Price's collar-button that had been torn from that eminent detective's shirt-band when they had overpowered Jimmy to arrest him.

Pulling out from the wall a folding-bed, Jimmy slid back a panel in the wall and dragged out a dust-covered suit-case. He opened this and gazed fondly at the finest set of burglar's tools in the East. It was a complete set, made of specially tempered steel, the latest designs in drills, punches, braces and bits, jimmies, clamps, and augers, with two or three novelties, invented by Jimmy himself, in which he took pride. Over nine hundred dollars they had cost him to have made at ----, a place where they make such things for the profession.

---

Continued next week. Tomorrow's installment from Lays of Ancient Rome by Macaulay.

Photo is author's home in Austin, TX. Now the O'Henry Museum. (CC) Larry D. Moore.

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Wizard of Oz - First Chapter - 4

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
by L. Frank Baum

It was Toto that made Dorothy laugh, and saved her from growing as gray as her other surroundings. Toto was not gray; he was a little black dog, with long silky hair and small black eyes that twinkled merrily on either side of his funny, wee nose. Toto played all day long, and Dorothy played with him, and loved him dearly.

Today, however, they were not playing. Uncle Henry sat upon the doorstep and looked anxiously at the sky, which was even grayer than usual. Dorothy stood in the door with Toto in her arms, and looked at the sky too. Aunt Em was washing the dishes.

---

Continued next week. Tomorrow's installment from A Retreived Reformation by O' Henry.

The trailer of Judy Garland's breakout movie of 1939; why wasn't the rest of Baum's Oz books made into movies?

Illustrated: cover of the book's first edition in 1900.

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Innocents Abroad - First Chapter - 4

by Mark Twain

From Gibraltar, running along the coasts of Spain and France, Marseilles will be reached in three days. Here ample time will be given not only to look over the city, which was founded six hundred years before the Christian era, and its artificial port, the finest of the kind in the Mediterranean, but to visit Paris during the Great Exhibition; and the beautiful city of Lyons, lying intermediate, from the heights of which, on a clear day, Mont Blanc and the Alps can be distinctly seen. Passengers who may wish to extend the time at Paris can do so, and, passing down through Switzerland, rejoin the steamer at Genoa.

From Marseilles to Genoa is a run of one night. The excursionists will have an opportunity to look over this, the "magnificent city of palaces," and visit the birthplace of Columbus, twelve miles off, over a beautiful road built by Napoleon I. From this point, excursions may be made to Milan, Lakes Como and Maggiore, or to Milan, Verona (famous for its extraordinary fortifications), Padua, and Venice. Or, if passengers desire to visit Parma (famous for Correggio's frescoes) and Bologna, they can by rail go on to Florence, and rejoin the steamer at Leghorn, thus spending about three weeks amid the cities most famous for art in Italy.

---

Continued next week. Tomorrow's installment from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum.

More About This Book

This travelogue cemented this rising author's reputation when it was published in 1869.

Chapter Summary: "Popular Talk of the Excursion--Programme of the Trip--Duly Ticketed for the Excursion--Defection of the Celebrities

Photo: Samuel Clemens (aka Mark Twain) by Matthew Brady Feb. 7, 1871.

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Kim - First Chapter - 4

by Rudyard Kipling



The first minutes of the movie; the first pages of the book.

---

'Ah,' said Kim, 'I shall remember. A Red Bull and a Colonel on a horse will come, but first, my father said, will come the two men making ready the ground for these matters. That is how my father said they always did; and it is always so when men work magic.'

If the woman had sent Kim up to the local Jadoo-Gher with those papers, he would, of course, have been taken over by the Provincial Lodge, and sent to the Masonic Orphanage in the Hills; but what she had heard of magic she distrusted. Kim, too, held views of his own. As he reached the years of indiscretion, he learned to avoid missionaries and white men of serious aspect who asked who he was, and what he did. For Kim did nothing with an immense success.

---

Continued next week. Tomorrow's installment from The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain.

More About This Book

Kipling's novel of India and the British empire, published in 1900.

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The Illiad - First Book - 4

by Homer

For nine whole days he shot his arrows among the people, but upon
the tenth day Achilles called them in assembly--moved thereto by
Juno, who saw the Achaeans in their death-throes and had
compassion upon them. Then, when they were got together, he rose
and spoke among them.

"Son of Atreus," said he, "I deem that we should now turn roving
home if we would escape destruction, for we are being cut down by
war and pestilence at once. Let us ask some priest or prophet, or
some reader of dreams (for dreams, too, are of Jove) who can tell
us why Phoebus Apollo is so angry, and say whether it is for some
vow that we have broken, or hecatomb that we have not offered,
and whether he will accept the savour of lambs and goats without
blemish, so as to take away the plague from us."

---

Continued next week. Tomorrow's installment from Kim by Rudyard Kipling.

More About This Book

From the earliest days of Ancient Greece, the author(s) of this poem were contemporaries of the writers of the Bible's Old Testament.

Summary of First Book: The quarrel between Agamemnon and Achilles--Achilles withdraws from the war, and sends his mother Thetis to ask Jove to help the Trojans--Scene between Jove and Juno on Olympus.

Painting: The Wrath of Achilles by Michael Drolling, 1819.

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Thousand and One Nights - 4

The Merchant and the Genie

He journeyed on till he reached the garden, where he had met with the genie, on the first day of the new year, and there sat down to await his doom. Presently, as he sat weeping over what had befallen him, there came up an old man, leading a gazelle by a chain, and saluted the merchant, saying, 'What ails thee to sit alone in this place, seeing that it is the resort of the Jinn?' The merchant told him all that had befallen him with the Afrit, and he wondered and said, 'By Allah, O my brother, thy good faith is exemplary and thy story is a marvellous one! If it were graven with needles on the corners of the eye, it would serve as a warning to those that can profit by example.' Then he sat down by his side, saying, 'By Allah, O my brother, I will not leave thee till I see what befalls thee with this Afrit.' So they sat conversing, and fear and terror got hold upon the merchant and trouble increased upon him, notwithstanding the old man's company.

---

Continued next week. Tomorrow's installment from The Illiad by Homer.

More About This Book

From the Arab world: these stories date back to the Middle Ages.

Picture: Queen Scheherazade tells her stories to King Shahryār.

More information here:

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Lays of Ancient Rome - 3

Horatius at the Bridge
by Thomas B. Macaulay

V

From the proud mart of Pisae,
        Queen of the western waves,
Where ride Massilia's triremes
        Heavy with fair-haired slaves;
From where sweet Clanis wanders
        Through corn and vines and flowers;
From where Cortona lifts to heaven
        Her diadem of towers.

VI

Tall are the oaks whose acorns
        Drop in dark Auser's rill;
Fat are the stags that champ the boughs
        Of the Ciminian hill;
Beyond all streams Clitumnus
        Is to the herdsman dear;
Best of all pools the fowler loves
        The great Volsinian mere.

---

Continued next week. Tomorrow's installment from the great Arab book Thousand and One Nights.

More About This Book

This poem celebrates one of the great heroic legends of history. Horatius saves Rome from the Etruscan invaders in 642 BC. Scottish poet Macaulay published this in 1842.

Illustration: Horatio at the Bridge from the first edition.

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A Retrieved Reformation - 3

by O'Henry

At a quarter past seven on the next morning Jimmy stood in the warden's outer office. He had on a suit of the villainously fitting, ready-made clothes and a pair of the stiff, squeaky shoes that the state furnishes to its discharged compulsory guests.

The clerk handed him a railroad ticket and the five-dollar bill with which the law expected him to rehabilitate himself into good citizenship and prosperity. The warden gave him a cigar, and shook hands. Valentine, 9762, was chronicled on the books, "Pardoned by Governor," and Mr. James Valentine walked out into the sunshine.

Disregarding the song of the birds, the waving green trees, and the smell of the flowers, Jimmy headed straight for a restaurant. There he tasted the first sweet joys of liberty in the shape of a broiled chicken and a bottle of white wine--followed by a cigar a grade better than the one the warden had given him. From there he proceeded leisurely to the depot. He tossed a quarter into the hat of a blind man sitting by the door, and boarded his train. Three hours set him down in a little town near the state line. He went to the cafe of one Mike Dolan and shook hands with Mike, who was alone behind the bar.

---

Continued next week. Tomorrow's installment from Lays of Ancient Rome by Macaulay.

Photo is author's home in Austin, TX. Now the O'Henry Museum. (CC) Larry D. Moore.

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Wizard of Oz - First Chapter - 3

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
by L. Frank Baum

When Aunt Em came there to live she was a young, pretty wife. The sun and wind had changed her, too. They had taken the sparkle from her eyes and left them a sober gray; they had taken the red from her cheeks and lips, and they were gray also. She was thin and gaunt, and never smiled now. When Dorothy, who was an orphan, first came to her, Aunt Em had been so startled by the child's laughter that she would scream and press her hand upon her heart whenever Dorothy's merry voice reached her ears; and she still looked at the little girl with wonder that she could find anything to laugh at.

Uncle Henry never laughed. He worked hard from morning till night and did not know what joy was. He was gray also, from his long beard to his rough boots, and he looked stern and solemn, and rarely spoke.

---

Continued next week. Tomorrow's installment from A Retreived Reformation by O' Henry.

The trailer of Judy Garland's breakout movie of 1939; why wasn't the rest of Baum's Oz books made into movies?

Illustrated: cover of the book's first edition in 1900.

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Innocents Abroad - First Chapter - 3

by Mark Twain

The steamer will be provided with every necessary comfort,
including library and musical instruments.

An experienced physician will be on board.

Leaving New York about June 1st, a middle and pleasant route will
be taken across the Atlantic, and passing through the group of
Azores, St. Michael will be reached in about ten days. A day or two
will be spent here, enjoying the fruit and wild scenery of these
islands, and the voyage continued, and Gibraltar reached in three or
four days.

A day or two will be spent here in looking over the wonderful
subterraneous fortifications, permission to visit these galleries
being readily obtained.

---

Continued next week. Tomorrow's installment from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum.

More About This Book

This travelogue cemented this rising author's reputation when it was published in 1869.

Chapter Summary: "Popular Talk of the Excursion--Programme of the Trip--Duly Ticketed for the Excursion--Defection of the Celebrities

Photo: Samuel Clemens (aka Mark Twain) by Matthew Brady Feb. 7, 1871.

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Kim - First Chapter - 3

by Rudyard Kipling



The first minutes of the movie; the first pages of the book.

---

It would, he said, all come right some day, and Kim's horn would be exalted between pillars--monstrous pillars--of beauty and strength. The Colonel himself, riding on a horse, at the head of the finest Regiment in the world, would attend to Kim--little Kim that should have been better off than his father. Nine hundred first-class devils, whose God was a Red Bull on a green field, would attend to Kim, if they had not forgotten O'Hara--poor O'Hara that was gang-foreman on the Ferozepore line. Then he would weep bitterly in the broken rush chair on the veranda. So it came about after his death that the woman sewed parchment, paper, and birth-certificate into a leather amulet-case which she strung round Kim's neck.

'And some day,' she said, confusedly remembering O'Hara's prophecies, 'there will come for you a great Red Bull on a green field, and the Colonel riding on his tall horse, yes, and' dropping into English--'nine hundred devils.'

---

Continued next week. Tomorrow's installment from The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain.

More About This Book

Kipling's novel of India and the British empire, published in 1900.

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The Illiad - First Book - 3

by Homer

The old man feared him and obeyed. Not a word he spoke, but went
by the shore of the sounding sea and prayed apart to King Apollo
whom lovely Leto had borne. "Hear me," he cried, "O god of the
silver bow, that protectest Chryse and holy Cilla and rulest
Tenedos with thy might, hear me oh thou of Sminthe. If I have
ever decked your temple with garlands, or burned your thigh-bones
in fat of bulls or goats, grant my prayer, and let your arrows
avenge these my tears upon the Danaans."

Thus did he pray, and Apollo heard his prayer. He came down
furious from the summits of Olympus, with his bow and his quiver
upon his shoulder, and the arrows rattled on his back with the
rage that trembled within him. He sat himself down away from the
ships with a face as dark as night, and his silver bow rang death
as he shot his arrow in the midst of them. First he smote their
mules and their hounds, but presently he aimed his shafts at the
people themselves, and all day long the pyres of the dead were
burning.

---

Continued next week. Tomorrow's installment from Kim by Rudyard Kipling.

More About This Book

From the earliest days of Ancient Greece, the author(s) of this poem were contemporaries of the writers of the Bible's Old Testament.

Summary of First Book: The quarrel between Agamemnon and Achilles--Achilles withdraws from the war, and sends his mother Thetis to ask Jove to help the Trojans--Scene between Jove and Juno on Olympus.

Painting: The Wrath of Achilles by Michael Drolling, 1819.

More information here:

Literature Daily

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Thousand and One Nights - 3

The Merchant and the Genie

'Know, O Afrit,' replied the merchant, 'that I have a wife and children and much substance, and I owe debts and hold pledges: so let me return home and give every one his due, and I vow by all that is most sacred that I will return to thee at the end of the year, that thou mayest do with me as thou wilt, and God is witness of what I say.' The genie accepted his promise and released him, whereupon he returned to his dwelling-place and paid his debts and settled all his affairs. Moreover, he told his wife and children what had happened and made his last dispositions, and tarried with his family till the end of the year. Then he rose and made his ablutions and took his winding sheet under his arm and bidding his household and kinsfolk and neighbours farewell, set out, much against his will, to perform his promise to the genie; whilst his family set up a great noise of crying and lamentation.

---

Continued next week. Tomorrow's installment from The Illiad by Homer.

More About This Book

From the Arab world: these stories date back to the Middle Ages.

Picture: Queen Scheherazade tells her stories to King Shahryār.

More information here:

Literature Daily

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Lays of Ancient Rome - 2

Horatius at the Bridge
by Thomas B. Macaulay

III

The horsemen and the footmen
        Are pouring in amain
From many a stately market-place,
        From many a fruitful plain,
From many a lonely hamlet,
        Which, hid by beech and pine,
Like an eagle's nest, hangs on the crest
        Of purple Apennine;

IV

From lordly Volaterrae,
        Where scowls the far-famed hold
Piled by the hands of giants
        For godlike kings of old;
From seagirt Populonia,
        Whose sentinels descry
Sardinia's snowy mountain-tops
        Fringing the southern sky;

---

Continued next week. Tomorrow's installment from the great Arab book Thousand and One Nights.

More About This Book

This poem celebrates one of the great heroic legends of history. Horatius saves Rome from the Etruscan invaders in 642 BC. Scottish poet Macaulay published this in 1842.

Illustration: Horatio at the Bridge from the first edition.

More information here:

Literature Daily

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A Retrieved Reformation - 2

by O'Henry

"Oh, no," laughed the warden. "Of course not. Let's see, now. How was it you happened to get sent up on that Springfield job? Was it because you wouldn't prove an alibi for fear of compromising somebody in extremely high-toned society? Or was it simply a case of a mean old jury that had it in for you? It's always one or the other with you innocent victims."

"Me?" said Jimmy, still blankly virtuous. "Why, warden, I never was in Springfield in my life!"

"Take him back, Cronin!" said the warden, "and fix him up with outgoing clothes. Unlock him at seven in the morning, and let him come to the bull-pen. Better think over my advice, Valentine."

---

Continued next week. Tomorrow's installment from Lays of Ancient Rome by Macaulay.

More About This Story

My favorite short story writer. His word play and his subject matter are the two best parts of his writing. This is one of his most admired stories.

Photo: Author's home in Austin, TX. Now the O'Henry Museum. (CC) Larry D. Moore.

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Wizard of Oz - First Chapter - 2

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
by L. Frank Baum

Dorothy lived in the midst of the great Kansas prairies, with Uncle Henry, who was a farmer, and Aunt Em, who was the farmer's wife. Their house was small, for the lumber to build it had to be carried by wagon many miles. There were four walls, a floor and a roof, which made one room; and this room contained a rusty looking cookstove, a cupboard for the dishes, a table, three or four chairs, and the beds. Uncle Henry and Aunt Em had a big bed in one corner, and Dorothy a little bed in another corner. There was no garret at all, and no cellar--except a small hole dug in the ground, called a cyclone cellar, where the family could go in case one of those great whirlwinds arose, mighty enough to crush any building in its path. It was reached by a trap door in the middle of the floor, from which a ladder led down into the small, dark hole.

When Dorothy stood in the doorway and looked around, she could see nothing but the great gray prairie on every side. Not a tree nor a house broke the broad sweep of flat country that reached to the edge of the sky in all directions. The sun had baked the plowed land into a gray mass, with little cracks running through it. Even the grass was not green, for the sun had burned the tops of the long blades until they were the same gray color to be seen everywhere. Once the house had been painted, but the sun blistered the paint and the rains washed it away, and now the house was as dull and gray as everything else.

---

Continued next week. Tomorrow's installment from A Retreived Reformation by O' Henry.

The trailer of Judy Garland's breakout movie of 1939; why wasn't the rest of Baum's Oz books made into movies?

Illustrated: cover of the book's first edition in 1900.

More information here:

Literature Daily

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Innocents Abroad - First Chapter - 2

by Mark Twain

It was a brave conception; it was the offspring of a most ingenious brain. It was well advertised, but it hardly needed it: the bold originality, the extraordinary character, the seductive nature, and the vastness of the enterprise provoked comment everywhere and advertised it in every household in the land. Who could read the program of the excursion without longing to make one of the party? I will insert it here. It is almost as good as a map. As a text for this book, nothing could be better:

EXCURSION TO THE HOLY LAND, EGYPT,
THE CRIMEA, GREECE, AND INTERMEDIATE POINTS OF INTEREST.
BROOKLYN, February 1st, 1867

The undersigned will make an excursion as above during the coming
season, and begs to submit to you the following programme:

A first-class steamer, to be under his own command, and capable of
accommodating at least one hundred and fifty cabin passengers, will
be selected, in which will be taken a select company, numbering not
more than three-fourths of the ship's capacity. There is good
reason to believe that this company can be easily made up in this
immediate vicinity, of mutual friends and acquaintances.

---

Continued next week. Tomorrow's installment from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum.

More About This Book

This travelogue cemented this rising author's reputation when it was published in 1869.

Chapter Summary: "Popular Talk of the Excursion--Programme of the Trip--Duly Ticketed for the Excursion--Defection of the Celebrities

Photo: Samuel Clemens (aka Mark Twain) by Matthew Brady Feb. 7, 1871.

More information here:

Literature Daily

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Kim - First Chapter - 2

by Rudyard Kipling



The first minutes of the movie; the first pages of the book.

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The half-caste woman who looked after him (she smoked opium, and pretended to keep a second-hand furniture shop by the square where the cheap cabs wait) told the missionaries that she was Kim's mother's sister; but his mother had been nursemaid in a Colonel's family and had married Kimball O'Hara, a young colour-sergeant of the Mavericks, an Irish regiment. He afterwards took a post on the Sind, Punjab, and Delhi Railway, and his Regiment went home without him. The wife died of cholera in Ferozepore, and O'Hara fell to drink and loafing up and down the line with the keen-eyed three-year-old baby. Societies and chaplains, anxious for the child, tried to catch him, but O'Hara drifted away, till he came across the woman who took opium and learned the taste from her, and died as poor whites die in India. His estate at death consisted of three papers--one he called his 'ne varietur' because those words were written below his signature thereon, and another his 'clearance-certificate'. The third was Kim's birth-certificate. Those things, he was used to say, in his glorious opium-hours, would yet make little Kimball a man. On no account was Kim to part with them, for they belonged to a great piece of magic--such magic as men practised over yonder behind the Museum, in the big blue-and-white Jadoo-Gher--the Magic House, as we name the Masonic Lodge.

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Continued next week. Tomorrow's installment from The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain.

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Kipling's novel of India and the British empire, published in 1900.

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The Illiad - First Book - 2

by Homer


"Sons of Atreus," he cried, "and all other Achaeans, may the gods
who dwell in Olympus grant you to sack the city of Priam, and to
reach your homes in safety; but free my daughter, and accept a
ransom for her, in reverence to Apollo, son of Jove."

On this the rest of the Achaeans with one voice were for
respecting the priest and taking the ransom that he offered; but
not so Agamemnon, who spoke fiercely to him and sent him roughly
away. "Old man," said he, "let me not find you tarrying about our
ships, nor yet coming hereafter. Your sceptre of the god and your
wreath shall profit you nothing. I will not free her. She shall
grow old in my house at Argos far from her own home, busying
herself with her loom and visiting my couch; so go, and do not
provoke me or it shall be the worse for you."

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Continued next week. Tomorrow's installment from Kim by Rudyard Kipling.

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From the earliest days of Ancient Greece, the author(s) of this poem were contemporaries of the writers of the Bible's Old Testament.

Summary of First Book: The quarrel between Agamemnon and Achilles--Achilles withdraws from the war, and sends his mother Thetis to ask Jove to help the Trojans--Scene between Jove and Juno on Olympus.

Painting: The Wrath of Achilles by Michael Drolling, 1819.

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Thousand and One Nights - 2

The Merchant and the Genie

Then he seized him and throwing him down, raised his sword to strike him: whereupon the merchant wept and said, 'I commit my affair to God!' and recited the following verses:

Fate has two days, untroubled one, the other lowering, And life
two parts, the one content, the other sorrowing.
Say unto him that taunteth us with fortune's perfidy, 'At whom
but those whose heads are high doth Fate its arrows fling?'
If that the hands of Time have made their plaything of our life,
Till for its long protracted kiss ill-hap upon us spring,
Dost thou not see the hurricane, what time the wild winds blow,
Smite down the stately trees alone and spare each lesser
thing?
Lo! in the skies are many stars, no one can tell their tale, But
to the sun and moon alone eclipse brings darkening.
The earth bears many a pleasant herb and many a plant and tree:
But none is stoned save only those to which the fair fruit
cling.
Look on the sea and how the waifs float up upon the foam, But in
its deepest depths of blue the pearls have sojourning.

'Cut short thy speech,' said the genie, 'for, by Allah, there is
no help for it but I must kill thee.'

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Continued next week. Tomorrow's installment from The Illiad by Homer.

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From the Arab world: these stories date back to the Middle Ages.

Picture: Queen Scheherazade tells her stories to King Shahryār.

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Lays of Ancient Rome - 1

Horatius at the Bridge
by Thomas B. Macaulay

I

Lars Porsena of Closium
        By the Nine Gods he swore
That the great house of Tarquin
        Should suffer wrong no more.
By the Nine Gods he swore it,
        And named a trysting day,
And bade his messengers ride forth,
East and west and south and north,
        To summon his array.

II

East and west and south and north
        The messengers ride fast,
And tower and town and cottage
        Have heard the trumpet's blast.
Shame on the false Etruscan
        Who lingers in his home,
When Porsena of Clusium
        Is on the march for Rome.

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Continued next week. Tomorrow's installment from the great Arab book Thousand and One Nights.

More About This Book

This poem celebrates one of the great heroic legends of history. Horatius saves Rome from the Etruscan invaders in 642 BC. Scottish poet Macaulay published this in 1842.

Illustration: Horatio at the Bridge from the first edition.

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A Retrieved Reformation - 1

by O'Henry

A guard came to the prison shoe-shop, where Jimmy Valentine was assiduously stitching uppers, and escorted him to the front office. There the warden handed Jimmy his pardon, which had been signed that morning by the governor. Jimmy took it in a tired kind of way. He had served nearly ten months of a four year sentence. He expected to stay only about three months, at the longest. When a man with as many friends on the outside as Jimmy Valentine had is received in the "stir" it is hardly worth while to cut his hair.

"Now, Valentine," said the warden, "you'll go out in the morning. Brace up, and make a man of yourself. You're not a bad fellow at heart. Stop cracking safes, and live straight."

"Me?" said Jimmy, in surprise. "Why, I never cracked a safe in my life."

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Continued next week. Tomorrow's installment from Lays of Ancient Rome by Macaulay.

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My favorite short story writer. His word play and his subject matter are the two best parts of his writing. This is one of his most admired stories.

Photo: Author's home in Austin, TX. Now the O'Henry Museum. (CC) Larry D. Moore.

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Wizard of Oz - Introduction - 1

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
by L. Frank Baum

Folklore, legends, myths and fairy tales have followed childhood through the ages, for every healthy youngster has a wholesome and instinctive love for stories fantastic, marvelous and manifestly unreal. The winged fairies of Grimm and Andersen have brought more happiness to childish hearts than all other human creations.

Yet the old time fairy tale, having served for generations, may now be classed as "historical" in the children's library; for the time has come for a series of newer "wonder tales" in which the stereotyped genie, dwarf and fairy are eliminated, together with all the horrible and blood-curdling incidents devised by their authors to point a fearsome moral to each tale. Modern education includes morality; therefore the modern child seeks only entertainment in its wonder tales and gladly dispenses with all disagreeable incident.

Having this thought in mind, the story of "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" was written solely to please children of today. It aspires to being a modernized fairy tale, in which the wonderment and joy are retained and the heartaches and nightmares are left out.

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Continued next week. Tomorrow's installment from A Retreived Reformation by O' Henry.

The trailer of Judy Garland's breakout movie of 1939; why wasn't the rest of Baum's Oz books made into movies?

Illustrated: cover of the book's first edition in 1900.

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Innocents Abroad - First Chapter - 1

by Mark Twain

For months the great pleasure excursion to Europe and the Holy Land was chatted about in the newspapers everywhere in America and discussed at countless firesides. It was a novelty in the way of excursions--its like had not been thought of before, and it compelled that interest which attractive novelties always command. It was to be a picnic on a gigantic scale. The participants in it, instead of freighting an ungainly steam ferry--boat with youth and beauty and pies and doughnuts, and paddling up some obscure creek to disembark upon a grassy lawn and wear themselves out with a long summer day's laborious frolicking under the impression that it was fun, were to sail away in a great steamship with flags flying and cannon pealing, and take a royal holiday beyond the broad ocean in many a strange clime and in many a land renowned in history! They were to sail for months over the breezy Atlantic and the sunny Mediterranean; they were to scamper about the decks by day, filling the ship with shouts and laughter--or read novels and poetry in the shade of the smokestacks, or watch for the jelly-fish and the nautilus over the side, and the shark, the whale, and other strange monsters of the deep; and at night they were to dance in the open air, on the upper deck, in the midst of a ballroom that stretched from horizon to horizon, and was domed by the bending heavens and lighted by no meaner lamps than the stars and the magnificent moon--dance, and promenade, and smoke, and sing, and make love, and search the skies for constellations that never associate with the "Big Dipper" they were so tired of; and they were to see the ships of twenty navies--the customs and costumes of twenty curious peoples—the great cities of half a world--they were to hob-nob with nobility and hold friendly converse with kings and princes, grand moguls, and the anointed lords of mighty empires!

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Continued next week. Tomorrow's installment from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum.

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This travelogue cemented this rising author's reputation when it was published in 1869.

Chapter Summary: "Popular Talk of the Excursion--Programme of the Trip--Duly Ticketed for the Excursion--Defection of the Celebrities

Photo: Samuel Clemens (aka Mark Twain) by Matthew Brady Feb. 7, 1871.

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Kim - First Chapter - 1

by Rudyard Kipling



The first minutes of the movie; the first pages of the book.

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O ye who tread the Narrow Way
By Tophet-flare to judgment Day,
Be gentle when 'the heathen' pray
To Buddha at Kamakura!

- Buddha at Kamakura.


He sat, in defiance of municipal orders, astride the gun Zam Zammah on her brick platform opposite the old Ajaib-Gher--the Wonder House, as the natives call the Lahore Museum. Who hold Zam-Zammah, that 'fire-breathing dragon', hold the Punjab, for the great green-bronze piece is always first of the conqueror's loot.

There was some justification for Kim--he had kicked Lala Dinanath's boy off the trunnions--since the English held the Punjab and Kim was English. Though he was burned black as any native; though he spoke the vernacular by preference, and his mother-tongue in a clipped uncertain sing-song; though he consorted on terms of perfect equality with the small boys of the bazar; Kim was white--a poor white of the very poorest.

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Continued next week. Tomorrow's installment from The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain.

More About This Book

Kipling's novel of India and the British empire, published in 1900.

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